“An epic narrative in crystalline prose of the poignant death of an ancient language and the enchanted universe it signified in a remote New Guinea village related by a gifted anthropologist who lived there on and off for 30 years as the ghost of a departed villager, sharing its communal virtues and a considerable measure of its suffering. A unique testament of global history as personal experience: you won't be able to put it down.”
—Marshall Sahlins, Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology Emeritus,The University of Chicago
“Perhaps the finest and most profound account of ethnographic fieldwork and discovery that has ever entered the anthropological literat ure.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“If you want to experience a profoundly different culture without the exhausting travel (to say nothing of the cost), this is an excellent choice.”
—The Washington Post
As a young anthropologist, Don Kulick went to the tiny village of Gapun in New Guinea to document the death of the native language, Tayap. He arrived knowing that you can’t study a language without understanding the daily lives of the people who speak it: how they talk to their children, how they argue, how they gossip, how they joke. Over the course of thirty years, he returned again and again to document Tayap before it disappeared entirely, and he found himself inexorably drawn into their world, and implicated in their destiny. Kulick wanted to tell the story of Gapuners—one that went beyond the particulars and uses of their language—that took full stock of their vanishing culture. This book takes us inside the village as he came to know it, revealing what it is like to live in a difficult-to-get-to village of two hundred people, carved out like a cleft in the middle of a tropical rainforest. But A Death in the Rainforest is also an illuminating look at the impact of Western culture on the farthest reaches of the globe and the story of why this anthropologist realized finally that he had to give up his study of this language and this village.
An engaging, deeply perceptive, and brilliant interrogation of what it means to study a culture, A Death in the Rainforest takes readers into a world that endures in the face of massive changes, one that is on the verge of disappearing forever.

本书是多和田叶子基于旅居德国时的所闻所见所撰写的随笔集，是其“自我观察日记”系列的一部分。她从日常生活遭遇的微妙的违和感展开，以幽默风趣的文笔，深入浅出地探讨了深藏在语言差异背后的德国文化和日本文化之间不可调和的断裂处。

What does it take to reinvent a language?

After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world's most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters , Jing Tsu argues that China's most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology.

Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who adapted the Chinese language to a world designed for the Roman alphabet and requiring standardization, from an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language to the imprisoned computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today.

With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China's tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle, yet potent, power to be exercised and expanded.

Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language" lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization. Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding. "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language" solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries - the source of the Indo-European languages and English - and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.

"Its publication should be a major event for cognitive linguistics and should pose a major challenge for cognitive science. In addition, it should have repercussions in a variety of disciplines, ranging from anthropology and psychology to epistemology and the philosophy of science. . . . Lakoff asks: What do categories of language and thought reveal about the human mind? Offering both general theory and minute details, Lakoff shows that categories reveal a great deal."—David E. Leary, American Scientist

    为什么大多数语言都管妈妈叫“mama”？     这是因为婴儿在张嘴吐气和吸吮时会发出“ma” 的声音，此时“妈妈”只是乳汁和温暖的象征……（本书第49页）     为什么韩国人说话总是语调高昂，带着一股孩子气？     因为韩语有着成千上万的拟态词，让情感更加饱满，说话人变得更有说服力。在韩国，能够有效使用拟声词，非但不是幼稚，还是口才好的表现。（本书第37页）     语言学家加斯顿·多伦在书中逐一探索全球20大语言，包括汉语、英语、斯瓦希里语、波斯语、越南语等。他以独特的视角，精心搭配66幅插图，旁征博引、风趣幽默地为大家展现了人类语言的妙趣，专为语言爱好者打造！     翻开本书，满足你对人类语言的全部好奇！

Here is the captivating story of humankind’s enduring quest to build a better language—and overcome the curse of Babel. Just about everyone has heard of Esperanto, which was nothing less than one man’s attempt to bring about world peace by means of linguistic solidarity. And every Star Trek fan knows about Klingon. But few people have heard of Babm, Blissymbolics, Loglan (not to be confused with Lojban), and the nearly nine hundred other invented languages that represent the hard work, high hopes, and full-blown delusions of so many misguided souls over the centuries. With intelligence and humor, Arika Okrent has written a truly original and enlightening book for all word freaks, grammar geeks, and plain old language lovers.

In seminal works ranging from Sources of the Self to A Secular Age, Charles Taylor has shown how we create possible ways of being, both as individuals and as a society. In his new book setting forth decades of thought, he demonstrates that language is at the center of this generative process.
For centuries, philosophers have been divided on the nature of language. Those in the rational empiricist tradition—Hobbes, Locke, Condillac, and their heirs—assert that language is a tool that human beings developed to encode and communicate information. In The Language Animal, Taylor explains that this view neglects the crucial role language plays in shaping the very thought it purports to express. Language does not merely describe; it constitutes meaning and fundamentally shapes human experience. The human linguistic capacity is not something we innately possess. We first learn language from others, and, inducted into the shared practice of speech, our individual selves emerge out of the conversation.
Taylor expands the thinking of the German Romantics Hamann, Herder, and Humboldt into a theory of linguistic holism. Language is intellectual, but it is also enacted in artistic portrayals, gestures, tones of voice, metaphors, and the shifts of emphasis and attitude that accompany speech. Human language recognizes no boundary between mind and body. In illuminating the full capacity of “the language animal,” Taylor sheds light on the very question of what it is to be a human being.
Reviews
“There is no other book that has presented a critique of conventional philosophy of language in these terms and constructed an alternative to it in anything like this way.”—Akeel Bilgrami, Columbia University
“Taylor is one of the handful of most important thinkers of our era. The line of thinking he develops in The Language Animal is basic to his whole work since Explanation of Behaviour. Many readers will grasp the importance of a constitutive view of language, and for them this will be a landmark book.”—Craig Calhoun, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science
“Just as Humboldt believed that ‘possessing a language is to be continuously involved in trying to extend its powers of articulation,’ Charles Taylor’s new book, The Language Animal, demonstrates how the very study of language over time embodies the evolving human effort to extend our understanding—not only of language, but of the very self language helps to describe, propel, and transcend. It is a deeply thoughtful, historically enriching, and ultimately luminous book.”—Maryanne Wolf, Tufts University

世界上大约有一半的人所讲的语言源于同一语系，即原始印欧语。但是这种古老母语的早期使用者是谁？他们如何将这种语言在全球范围内传播开来？直到现在，其身份对于语言学家、考古学家甚至追溯雅利安人种族起源的纳粹分子来说，仍然是个未解之谜。《马、车轮和语言》这本书揭开了长期遮盖着印欧语最初使用者的面纱，揭示出他们如何通过马的驯养和车轮的使用来传播语言与变革文明。通过将史前考古遗存和语言的发展联系起来，大卫·安东尼提出欧亚草原中部的史前人群是原始印欧语的最初使用者，并且阐释了他们在牛车、骑马和战车武士方面的革新如何将欧亚草原转变成一个繁荣的横贯大陆的交往、贸易和文化交流通道。他在文中解释了草原人群如何向外传播自己的传统，并极大地推进了铜矿开采、战争和庇从政治制度的发展，从而开创了一个充满活力的变革时代。安东尼还介绍了一个有趣的发现——古代马牙上佩戴马衔造成的磨损如何揭示骑马的起源。《马、车轮和语言》解开了一个困扰学者们长达两个世纪的难题——印欧语和英语的起源——并且复原了一个宏伟壮观又影响深远的历史文明。

本书所说的“上古中国”是指汉代以前的中国，在研究方法上充分利用历史音韵比较法和语音演变类型学方法，从古代中国周边语言（如阿尔泰语、梵文、波斯语、南亚语、南岛语）与文化来反观古代中国文明中重要的概念、语词以及意象的语源。

Bridges the gap between cognitive neuroscience and linguistic typology
Features many color figures to illustrate the results of brain mapping studies
Raises awareness about the value of endangered languages

★编辑推荐
◎普通话与汉语拼音是怎么来的？它们合理吗？
——从南系官话到普通话：国语是如何统一的？
——汉语拼音为什么不好用？
——“抗日神剧”里，日军说话为什么总是那么怪？
◎如何科学打脸地图炮
——粤语真的是古汉语的活化石吗？
——台湾腔为什么这么“娘”？
——北京话是满人从东北带过来的吗？
◎你深入考虑过你名字中的奥妙吗？
——李王张刘陈为什么称霸中国姓氏？
——为什么uncle和cousin就可以把七大姑八大姨通通代表了？
——中国姓氏势力分布地图
◎古人到底是怎么说话的？来一场影音现场式的逼真穿越
——古诗怎么读才科学？
——十二生肖是怎么来的？
——为什么南方多江，北方多河？
破解方言与古汉语的密码万花筒
化我们的方言为武器
打脸所有的地域歧视
捍卫你我昂起头颅讲家乡话的权利
以古人的声音为羽翼
踏上真正的穿越之旅
发掘历史长河中被遗忘的传统记忆
这里隐藏着一个更本真的中国
◎封面展开即是一张意想不到的民国语言小报。
除了把玩、收藏、炫巧，请勿忘记它还有重要功用——
用古汉语与方言，反击地图炮优越感，告诉他们，我们是方言党！
◎号外号外，寻人启事！
赵元任精通各地方言，每每“口技旅行全国”，郑子宁寻迹古代语音，竟还 “口技穿越时空”——你能找着郑子宁旅行到什么地方，穿越到哪朝哪代了吗？
★名人推荐
全球化浪潮下，今天语言消失的速度是前所未有的，从个人到国家，乃至所有民族，都有无尽的记忆与传统因之渐渐被我们忘却。语言就如生物基因一样，储存着丰富的历史信息，但却长期被人目作“绝学”。这本书化所谓“绝学”为人人可懂、妙趣横生的故事，引领我们在语言中找到了另一个更本真的世界。
——历史语言学家 上海师范大学/复旦大学教授 潘悟云
人人都会说话，所以关于语言文字，人人都喜欢说上两句，可惜即使是专家，也很少能把自己的专门以外的常识说清楚。郑子宁费心搜罗来了各方面“专家的常识”，为我们提供了一些可靠的谈资。
——汉藏语学者 伦敦大学亚非学院研究员 龚勋
当今中国流传着诸多关于古代汉语与汉语方言的说法，比如粤语更接近古代汉语、普通话其实是满语蒙古语的产物并非汉语之类的，言之凿凿，流毒甚广。虽然有人拨乱反正，无奈声音太小，效果不大。郑子宁这本书以轻松的语调清楚揭露了这些说法的错误（基于其上的一系列结论也就不攻自破了），向读者展示了真正的语言研究的方法和结论如何引人入胜、激动人心。但凡对语言感兴趣，不管是刚入门的新手还是懂多种语言/方言的老江湖，这都是一本不可多得的好书。
——伊朗学学者 哈佛大学伊朗学博士 张湛
★内容简介
日常语言影响着个体的思维方式，方言维系了民族的历史记忆，政治语言决定了国家的现实意识。《东言西语》是一部打破个人思维模式，追寻民族失落历史，探求家国意识逻辑的挑战读者智识边界之书。
郑子宁以共时的现代汉语方言为经，横观汉语方言与民族文化传承的现实全景，发散式阐明了凝聚于其中的文化偏见；以历时的古代汉语嬗变为纬，纵览中国语言与传统的历史面貌，系统性揭示了遮蔽于其下的文化记忆。由此，郑子宁用以一种深入浅出的方式，化门槛与难度极高、向来被目为“绝学”的方言学与历史语言学为近50个精彩绝伦的故事，把汉语普通话、拼音、方言、古汉语、姓名、称谓、外语习得等几乎所有语言与文化的核心问题融会贯通，用具有内在统一性的连贯逻辑，为我们在语言中找到了一个全新的中国。