John McWhorter, one of America’s 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 150,000 years ago has evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today.Īn 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. * How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth?ĭr. * Why isn’t there just a single language? * How did different languages come to be? 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. There are good reasons that language fascinates us so. "I never met a person who is not interested in language," wrote the bestselling author and psychologist Steven Pinker.
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