How Language Works : How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Liveor Die

from peterannis

A very comprehensive overview of language in all its forms. From babies first words to the internet, spoken, gestured, written, and electronic to list a few. It is a complex subject covered in a way thats is neither boring or confusing.

from Jewsbury

Language has many roles. One of them can be to reveal the nature of language, to show "how language works" (the book's title). This book explores this metalinguistic topic in 500 easy to read pages. As such, the book is remarkably informative with great breadth. No doubt, every reader is likely t...

from MarthaJeanne

If you don't know much about linguistics, this is a good place to start. It could also be useful for learning about areas of linguistics you have never entered before. If you have already read a number of books about language/linguistics you will be bored.

from lorax

Disappointing. Far too superficial and too focused on issues that aren't really linguistic in nature (how written language differs from spoken). Several chapters toward the end are devoted toward capsule descriptions of language families -- potentially interesting, but they didn't actually say mu...

from mbmackay

An overview of the study of language. Sounds interesting - promising all sorts of insights and snippets, but ends up reading like an extended index (Crystal is a noted indexer!) and manages to make an interesting topic boring. Read May 2009.