num_pages: 19
description: I never met a person who is not interested in language wrote the bestselling author and psychologist Steven Pinker. There are good reasons that language fascinates us so. It not only defines humans as a species placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators but it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries. For example: * How did different languages come to be? * Why isnt there just a single language? * How does a language change and when it does is that change indicative of decay or growth? * How does a language become extinct? Dr. John McWhorter one of Americas leading linguists and a frequent commentator on network television and National Public Radio addresses these and other questions as he takes you on an in-depth 36-lecture tour of the development of human language showing how a single tongue spoken 150000 years ago has evolved into the estimated 6000 languages used around the world today.An accomplished scholar Professor McWhorter is also a skilled popularizer whose book The Power of Babel was called startling provocative and remarkably entertaining by the San Diego Union-Tribune.The London Times called him a born teacher. And Steven Pinker best known as the author of The Language Instinct offered this praise for the book: McWhorters arguments are sharply reasoned refreshingly honest and thoroughly original.Course Lecture Titles1. What Is Language? 2. When Language Began 3. How Language ChangesSound Change 4. How Language ChangesBuilding New Material 5. How Language ChangesMeaning and Order 6. How Language ChangesMany Directions 7. How Language ChangesModern English 8. Language FamiliesIndo-European 9. Language FamiliesTracing Indo-European 10. Language FamiliesDiversity of Structures 11. Language FamiliesClues to the Past 12. The Case Against the Worlds First Language 13. The Case For the Worlds First Language 14. DialectsSubspecies of Species 15. DialectsWhere Do You Draw the Line? 16. DialectsTwo Tongues in One Mouth 17. DialectsThe Standard as Token of the Past 18. DialectsSpoken Style Written Style 19. DialectsThe Fallacy of Blackboard Grammar 20. Language MixtureWords 21. Language MixtureGrammar 22. Language MixtureLanguage Areas 23. Language Develops Beyond the Call of Duty 24. Language Interrupted 25. A New Perspective on the Story of English 26. Does Culture Drive Language Change? 27. Language Starts OverPidgins 28. Language Starts OverCreoles I 29. Language Starts OverCreoles II 30. Language Starts OverSigns of the New 31. Language Starts OverThe Creole Continuum 32. What Is Black English? 33. Language DeathThe Problem 34. Language DeathPrognosis 35. Artificial Languages 36. FinaleMaster Class
language: English
title: The Story of Human Language
publisher: Teaching Company