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"Everyone likes to think they know a bit about language: There are some words that you simply can't translate into English. The origin of a word tells you how it should be used. A dialect is inferior to a language. The problem is, none of these statements are true. In Don't Believe a Word, linguist David Shariatmadari explodes nine common myths about language and introduces us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics. By the end of...
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English
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Perhaps the most important work of philosophy written in the twentieth century, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein published during his lifetime. Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme brilliance, it captured the imagination of a generation of philosophers. For Wittgenstein, logic was something we use to conquer a reality which is in itself both elusive and unobtainable. He famously...
4) Gibberish
Author
Language
English
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Description
When Dat starts school in a country where he does not speak the language, everything around him sound like gibberish until a new friend helps him make sense of his new world.
5) Fluent in 3 months: how anyone at any age can learn to speak any language from anywhere in the world
Author
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English
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Description
A new blueprint for fast language learning. Lewis argues that you don't need a great memory or "the language gene" to learn a language quickly, and debunks a number of long-held beliefs, such as adults not being as good of language learners as children. --
Author
Language
English
Description
Psychologist Pinker explains how the mind works in a completely new way--by examining how we use words. Every time we swear, we reveal something about human emotions. When we use an innuendo to convey a bribe, threat, or sexual come-on (rather than just blurting it out), we disclose something about human relationships. Our use of prepositions and tenses tap into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and our nouns and verbs tap into mental models...
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English
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2022 Bluestem Award Nominees
2023-2024 Crete Public Library's 3rd-4th Battle List
AANHPI 2022 - Kids
More Lists...
2023-2024 Crete Public Library's 3rd-4th Battle List
AANHPI 2022 - Kids
More Lists...
Description
"Sometimes life isn't a piece of cake ... When Jingwen moves to a new country, he feels like he's landed on Mars. School is torture, making friends is impossible since he doesn't speak English, and he's often stuck looking after his (extremely irritating) little brother, Yanghao. To distract himself from the loneliness, Jingwen daydreams about making all the cakes on the menu of Pie in the Sky, the bakery his father had planned to open before he unexpectedly...
Author
Language
English
Description
A collection of lectures by the "founder of modern linguistics" discusses fifty years of scientific development in the study of language as he expounds and criticizes a variety of theories. --Publisher's description.
"In clear, precise, and non-technical language, Chomsky elaborates on fifty years of scientific development in the study of language, sketching how his own work has implications for the origins of language, the close relations that language...
Author
Language
English
Description
Is vocabulary destiny? Why do clocks 'talk' to the Nahua people of Mexico? Will A.I. researchers ever produce true human-machine dialogue? In this mesmerizing collection of essays, Daniel Tammet answers these and many other questions about the intricacy and profound power of language. Tammet goes back in time to explore the numeric language of his autistic childhood; he looks at the music and patterns that words make, and how languages evolve and...
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English
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"What letter does the word bee start with? If you said "B" you're right - in English! But in many, many languages, it actually starts with A. Bee is Anū in Igbo, Aamoo in Ojibwe, Abelha in Portugese. And Arı in Turkish. Come and explore the gorgeous variations in the ways we talk about familiar things, unified and illuminated through Ellen Heck's eye-catching, graphic scratchboard details and hidden letterforms."--
14) Amatka
Author
Language
English
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Dystopian Novels
Let It Snow (SCPL)
Thomas Ford Library's Science Fiction Book Club Selections
Winter Reading
Let It Snow (SCPL)
Thomas Ford Library's Science Fiction Book Club Selections
Winter Reading
Description
"A surreal and shockingly original debut novel set in a dystopian world shaped by language--literally. Vanja, a government worker, leaves her home city of Essre for the austere, wintry colony of Amatka on a research assignment. It takes some adjusting: people act differently in Amatka, and citizens are monitored for signs of subversion. Intending to stay just a short while, Vanja finds herself falling in love with her housemate, Nina, and decides...
Author
Language
English
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Description
"How on Earth did we fix upon our twenty-six letters, what do they really mean, and how did we come to write them down in the first place? Michael Rosen takes you on an unforgettable adventure through the history of the alphabet in twenty-six vivid chapters, fizzing with personal anecdotes and fascinating facts. Starting with the mysterious Phoenicians and how sounds first came to be written down, he races on to show how nonsense poems work, pins...
Author
Language
English
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Description
For those who have despaired of ever learning a foreign language, here, finally, is a book that will make the words stick. At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently. He did not learn them in school -- who does? -- rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources. In Fluent Forever Wyner reveals what he has discovered.
17) Max's words
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
When Max cuts out words from magazines and newspapers, collecting them the way his brothers collect stamps and coins, they all learn about words, sentences, and storytelling.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a "bombshell" linguist and "instant folk hero" (Tom Wolfe, Harper's), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than seven thousand languages that exist...
20) One & everything
Author
Language
English
Description
Fine artist Sam Winston, cocreator of the New York Times best-selling A Child of Books, celebrates the power of stories and written languages--and the imperative to preserve them. Once there were many stories in the world. There were stories with sunsets and wonderful tales filled with fairies and dinosaurs. But one day, a story decided that it was the best, the most important story ever. It called itself the One and started to consume every other...
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