Category: History: Language

Copyright/published Year: 2007 by Walker & Company

ISBN: 080271515X

Binding: Hardcover

Description: The Latin language has been the one constant in the cultural ì history of the West for more than two millennia. It has defined ì the way in which we express our thoughts, our faith, and our ì knowledge of how the world functions, its use echoing on in the ì law codes of half the world, in the terminologies of modern ì science, and, until forty years ago, in the liturgy of the ì Catholic Church. In his erudite and entertaining "biography," ì Nicholas Ostler shows how and why Latin survived and thrived even ì as its creators and other languages failed. Originally the ì dialect of Rome and its surrounds, Latin supplanted its neighbors ì to become, by conquest and settlement, the language of all Italy, ì and then of Western Europe and North Africa. After the empire ì collapsed, spoken Latin re-emerged as a host of new languages, ì from Portuguese and Spanish in the west to Romanian in the east, ì while a knowledge of Latin lived on as the common code of ì European thought, and inspired the founders of Europe's New World ì in the Americas. E pluribus unum. Illuminating the extravaganza ì of its past, Nicholas Ostler makes clear that, in a thousand ì echoes, Latin lives on, ad infinitum.

Condition Information

This book is 'remaindered' and may have marks on the cover and/or bottom of pages in Very good condition.

Additional condition description

Minimal shelfwear. Clean and unmarked text. Small remainder dot on page bottom.