The World Atlas of Language: Mapping the Story of Human Communication

A fascinating visual exploration of all things linguistic, tracing how words, sounds, scripts, norms, and borders are in constant fluxDid you know that more than 7,000 languages are spoken today, but that fifty percent of the world’s people use only fifteen of them? Or that there are hundreds of separate sign languages? Or that a dog’s bark is represented with wildly different sounds in English, Czech, and Thai?In The World Atlas of Language, Gaston Dorren, the international bestselling author of Lingo, Babel, and other books about languages, invites readers on a captivating journey that charts the geographical spread of languages and dialects around the world through the ages-and tells the incredible stories behind them in his unmistakable style.The result is an essential reference for anyone who loves how humans speak, write-and vary. Organized by theme and richly illustrated throughout with full-color maps, timelines, and other graphics, this book traces the origins and evolutions o