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  • Published: 1 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099505570
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $35.00

Through the Language Glass

Why The World Looks Different In Other Languages




A brilliant and provocative exploration of how the cultures we live in affect the languages we speak and how we think of the world around us.

"Guy Deutscher is that rare beast, an academic who talks good sense about linguistics... he argues in a playful and provocative way, that our mother tongue does indeed affect how we think and, just as important, how we perceive the world." Observer

*Does language reflect the culture of a society?
*Is our mother-tongue a lens through which we perceive the world?
*Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts?

In Through the Language Glass, acclaimed author Guy Deutscher will convince you that, contrary to the fashionable academic consensus of today, the answer to all these questions is - yes. A delightful amalgam of cultural history and popular science, this book explores some of the most fascinating and controversial questions about language, culture and the human mind.

  • Published: 1 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099505570
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $35.00

About the author

Guy Deutscher

Born in 1969, Guy Deutscher read Maths at Cambridge before doing a PhD in Linguistics. Formerly a Research Fellow in Historical Linguistics at St John's College, Cambridge, he is now at the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Languages in the University of Leiden. He lives in Amsterdam.

Also by Guy Deutscher

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Praise for Through the Language Glass

Fabulously interesting ... a remarkably rich, provocative and intelligent work of pop science

Sunday Times

Brilliant [and] beautifully written

Financial Times

So robustly researched and wonderfully told that it is hard to put down

New Scientist

A delight to read

Spectator

Jaw-droppingly wonderful ... A marvellous and surprising book which left me breathless and dizzy with delight. The ironic, playful tone at the beginning gradates into something serious that is never pompous, intellectually and historically complex and yet always pellucidly laid out. Plus I learned the word plaidoyer which I shall do my utmost to use every day

Stephen Fry

Fascinating

Alex Bellos, author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland

The book that I've found myself telling other people about most has been Through The Language Glass, Guy Deutscher's gripping pop-science book about linguistics and neuropsychology, describing how language shapes our perception of reality

Spectator

Playful and provocative ... Guy Deutscher is that rare beast, an academic who talks good sense about linguistics

The Observer

A sceptical reappraisal of the popular, and often misunderstood, notion that language influences thought

Economist