Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth about Language

by David Shariatmadari

Overview

A linguist’s entertaining and highly informed guide to what languages are and how they function.

Think you know language? Think again.

• There are languages that change when your mother-in-law is present.
• The language you speak could make you more prone to accidents.
• Swear words are produced in a special part of your brain.

Over the past few decades, we have reached new frontiers of linguistic knowledge. Linguists can now explain how and why language changes, describe its structures, and map its activity in the brain. But despite these advances, much of what people believe about language is based on folklore, instinct, or hearsay. We imagine a word’s origin is it’s “true” meaning, that foreign languages are full of “untranslatable” words, or that grammatical mistakes undermine English.

In Don’t Believe A Word, linguist David Shariatmadari takes us on a mind-boggling journey through the science of language, urging us to abandon our prejudices in a bid to uncover the (far more interesting) truth about what we do with words.

Exploding nine widely held myths about language while introducing us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics, Shariatmadari is an energetic guide to the beauty and quirkiness of humanity’s greatest achievement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324004257
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/07/2020
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	639,457
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

David Shariatmadari is a writer and editor at the Guardian. He studied linguistics at Cambridge University and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he now lives.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Language is going to the dogs 21

2 A word's origin is its true meaning 41

3 I control what comes out of my mouth 71

4 We can't talk to the animals 105

5 You can't translate this word 128

6 Italian is a language 162

7 What you say is what you mean 184

8 Some languages are better than others 217

9 Language is an instinct 242

Acknowledgments 276

Glossary 278

References 296

Index 315

Editorial Reviews

…a brisk and friendly introduction to linguistics, and a synthesis of the field's recent discoveries…The scope of Don't Believe a Word is impressive. It pauses to consider what modes of communication can tell us about the working of the brain, its role in communal violence in India and whether some languages are genuinely richer, more expressive or efficient. Shariatmadari is an earnest writer—clarity, not style, is his priority—but the quirks of human and animal speech are strange and alluring enough to leaven the narrative.

The New York Times - Parul Sehgal

10/14/2019

Guardian editor Shariatmadari’s mostly accessible debut about modern linguistics aims to debunk certain prevailing beliefs about language. He begins by showing the long history of an often-voiced opinion—that English is now in a state of unprecedented decline—citing a 14th-century complaint that too much Danish and French had entered the language. Shariatmadari follows up by demonstrating how commonly words change meaning (such as the verb “like”) and argues that language is “change.” Other chapters take on etymology, pronunciation, and accent. While Noam Chomsky, and his theory of a universal grammar, is one of the author’s idols, Benjamin Lee Whorf, and his hypothesis that language shapes our perception of reality, is one of his whipping boys. Shariatmadari argues at length that Whorf’s characterization of Hopi as a kind of “mysterious code” was both condescending and simply inaccurate. Shariatmadari has a gift for making obscure linguistic concepts plain, such as the function of recursion in grammar, which “means that there is no ‘longest’ sentence in a language—you can just keep adding to it,” as illustrated by the nursery rhyme “The House That Jack Built.” Shariatmadari, however, does have a tendency to belabor his points (as in his overlong discussion of dialect vs. language). Nevertheless, this is an engrossing introduction to some basic problems in contemporary linguistics. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Come for the myth-busting, stay for the lighthearted introduction to linguistics. David Shariatmadari ably demonstrates that there are plenty of fascinating things to learn about language without indulging in sensationalist headlines."

Gretchen McCulloch

"Delves into the riddles of language [for] a brisk and friendly introduction to linguistics, and a synthesis of the field's recent discovers. ...[I]mpressive."

New York Times - Parul Sehgal

"An illuminating and thought-provoking journey through language."

Dean Burnett

"Don’t Believe A Word is too wise, and too personal, to be regarded as just another book on language: it entertains just as much as it informs."

Observer - Alexander Larman

"David Shariatmadari…makes us look afresh at the language we speak and how it structures our intimacies, our thoughts, and our identities. Wry and immensely intelligent, Don’t Believe a Word awakens us to complexities of communication that we too readily ignore, and it does so with both deep scholarship and a light touch."

Andrew Solomon

"[A] meaty, rewarding and even necessary read."

Guardian - Joe Moran

"Don't Believe a Word is a serious piece of research, cogently and carefully presented…[A] richly rewarding read."

The Mail on Sunday

"Wonderful. David Shariatmadari wears his deep learning with such an admirable and alluring lightness of touch. You finish Don’t Believe a Word more alive than ever to the enduring mystery and miracle of that thing that makes us most human, the gift of language."

Stephen Fry

2019-09-25
The beauty and intrigue of language.

Shariatmadari, a linguist and Guardian editor, is anxious to remove linguistics from its ivory-tower encampment and make it understandable for general readers. He cuts "through the fallacies and folklore that cloud our understanding" of this social science and provides some entertainment along the way. The author begins with the age-old myth that "language is going to the dogs." On the contrary, language is "constantly evolving….It's the speed of change, within our own short lives, that creates the illusion of decline." A history of the word "toilet" helps Shariatmadari shatter the myth that the origin of a word, its etymology, is a guide to its true meaning. How a word sounds when spoken, the "very fount of our self-expression," is largely unconscious. The shapes of our vowels and consonants, as well as accents, can change "whether you know it or not." Can animals speak? Meet Alex, an African grey parrot that could respond to complicated questions and even create a metaphorical compound. He said "rock corn" to describe dried corn. Using a specially designed board of symbols, Kanzi, a bonobo, can respond to around 3,000 words. The author also delves into where dialects come from, how to decide where a language begins and ends, and African American Vernacular English. AAVE has been branded slang or ghetto language, but using it "to help students acquire standard English actually speeds up that process." Are some languages better than others? Korean is held up by some as a "superior" language while German is a "time-honoured whipping boy." Mandarin is "slow but dense, Spanish quick but light." Shariatmadari enters into the fray over the noted linguist Noam Chomsky's controversial belief that language is instinctual. He votes no. Inquiring minds curious about epenthesis backronyms and heteronymy will find answers here.

An at-times quite challenging but agile and lively introduction to language.

Kirkus Reviews