Kategoria BISAC: Language Arts & Disciplines >> Alphabets & Writing Systems

An "exaltation of larks"? Yes! And a "leap of leopards", a "parliament of owls", an "ostentation of peacocks", a "smack of jellyfish", and a "murder of crows"! For those who have ever wondered if the familiar "pride of lions" and "gaggle of geese" were only the tip of a linguistic iceberg, James Lipton has provided the definitive answer: here are hundreds of equally pithy, and often poetic, terms unearthed by Mr. Lipton in the Books of Venery that were the constant study of anyone who aspired to the title of gentleman in the fifteenth century. When Mr. Lipton's painstaking research revealed...

Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer examines the origin of the Greek alphabet. Departing from previous accounts, Roger Woodard places the advent of the alphabet within an unbroken continuum of Greek literacy beginning in the Mycenean era. He argues that the creators of the Greek alphabet, who adapted the Phoenician consonantal script, were scribes accustomed to writing Greek with the syllabic script of Cyprus. Certain characteristic features of the Cypriot script--for example, its strategy for representing consonant sequences and elements of Cypriot Greek phonology--were transferred...

Linguists estimate that there are currently nearly 2,000 languages in Africa, a staggering figure that is belied by the relatively few national languages. While African national politics, economics, and law are all conducted primarily in the colonial languages, the cultural life of the majority of citizens is conducted in a bewildering Babel of local and regional dialects, making language itself the center of debates over multiculturalism, gender studies, and social theory. In "The Power of Babel," the noted Africanist scholar Ali Mazrui and linguist Alamin Mazrui explore this vast territory...

The Feminist Critique of Language provides a wide-ranging selection of writings on language, gender, and feminist thought. It serves both as a guide to the current debates and directions and as a digest of the history of twentieth-century feminist ideas about language.

This edition includes extracts from Felly Nkweto Simmonds, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Luce Irigaray, Sara Mills, Margaret Doyle, Debbie Cameron, Susan Ehrlich, Ruth King, Kate Clark, Sally McConnell-Ginet, Deborah Tannen, Aki Uchida, Jennifer Coates and Kira Hall.

Anu Garg's many readers await their A Word A Day rations hungrily. Now at last here's a feast for them and other verbivores. Eat up
-Barbara Wallraff
Senior Editor at The Atlantic Monthly and author of Word Court

Praise for A Word a Day

""AWADies will be familiar with Anu Garg's refreshing approach to words: words are fun and they have fascinating histories. The people who use them have curious stories to tell too, and this collection incorporates some of the correspondence received by the editors at the AWAD site, from advice on how to outsmart your opponent in a duel (or even...

Although there was a substantial Jewish population in Western Europe from at least the first century BC, literary evidence for it before the end of the sixth century AD is very sparse, amounting to a few mainly hostile references by Roman writers and some material of doubtful historical value in rabbinic and hagiographic sources. Knowledge of the Jewish communities of the West is therefore almost entirely dependent on inscriptions, which contain information on community organisation, the use of biblical texts and religious symbols, linguistic habits, naming practices and social status, and...

Although there was a substantial Jewish population in Western Europe from at least the first century BC, literary evidence for it before the end of the sixth century AD is very sparse, amounting to a few mainly hostile references by Roman writers and some material of doubtful historical value in rabbinic and hagiographic sources. Knowledge of the Jewish communities of the West is therefore almost entirely dependent on inscriptions, which contain information on community organisation, the use of biblical texts and religious symbols, linguistic habits, naming practices and social status, and...

Although ancient writing offers our first glimpse of history, people and institutions, its origins remain mysterious. This book presents the most up-to-date analysis of the origins of ancient writing. Studying often neglected writing systems, such as those of Mesoamerica, leading scholars collectively discuss how these scripts came into existence and developed during their first centuries of use. Egypt, Mesopotamia, Elamite, Mesoamerica and the Maya, Shang and Runic are represented.

This is a concise, pocket sized English to Lao and Lao to English Dictionary

Prior to the compilation of the original edition of this dictionary in 1966, the most comprehensive English to Lao dictionary was the LAA (Lao-American Association) Dictionary. At that time, no dictionary was available for the Lao language. Now, a great deal of time has passed since the first Tuttle edition of the English-Lao, Lao-English Diciontary was published in 1970. During that time, the dictionary has become the basic communication tool between Lao people and English speakers all over the...

This is a compact and travel-friendly Cambodian-English and English-Cambodian dictionary

The Tuttle Practical Cambodian Dictionary answers the need for a dictionary of Cambodian that is handy, current, and useful to those with little or no experience with the Cambodian language. With other Cambodian dictionaries are designed for those who can read Cambodian script, this dictionary provides entries in both script and romanized form. Entries provide clear, precise definitions and sample phrases to illustrate the natural usage of the language. Foreigners learning Cambodian and...

"Unexcelled as a dictionary of basic Sino-Japanese characters. Extremely easy to use."--Japan Society

This is the utmost classic and well regarded standard Japanese Kanji Dictionary available today.
The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary is a complete revision of The Original Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary, published by Charles E. Tuttle Company in 1962. Long the foremost Japanese-English character dictionary, adopted by Japanese-study programs around the world and used at all levels of Japanese language study, the Nelson, as it is...

"The authors have succeeded in the purpose of making it as easy as possible to look up the readings and meanings of Japanese words written in Chinese characters." --The Modern Language Library

The purpose of this Learner's Kanji Dictionary is to offer a handy and easy-to-use Japanese language tool to look up the readings and meanings of Japanese words and names written with Chinese characters (kanji). Each kanji entry is presented in extra-large form, with its strokes labeled in order by small numbers 1, 2, 3, ... positioned at the beginning of each stroke to show how...

This book delves into how we come to terms with ourselves, with other people, and with the world in general. It is about how we come to be what we are, and to think the way we do. It is a book about influences on this process. A particular influence to which Smith gives central consideration is language, not just in terms of the communicative networks in which it engages us--the "information" that presents itself to us--but in the largely unsuspected framework for thought that lies within language itself. He also considers deeply the role of technology.

This is a book of...

This book deals chronologically with the history of writing in Japan, a subject which spans a period of 2,000 years, beginning with the transmission of writing from China in about the first or second century AD, and concluding with the use of written Japanese with computers. Topics dealt with include the adoption of Chinese writing and its subsequent adaptation in Japan, forms of writing employed in works such as the Kojiki and Man'yoshu, development of the kana syllabaries, evolution of mixed character-kana orthography, historical kana usage, the rise of literacy during the Edo period, and...