Empires of the Word: A language History of the World

Nicholas Ostler’s Empires of the Word is the first history of the world’s
great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds
communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history
and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty
centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the
struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic
achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating
failures of once "universal" languages. A splendid, authoritative, and
remarkable work, it demonstrates how the language history of the world
eloquently reveals the real character of our planet’s diverse peoples and
prepares us for a linguistic future full of surprises.