This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

This 16th volume in the Extraordinary Brain Series focuses upon current research regarding language development, covering many aspects thereof: evolutionary, biological, sociocultural, cognitive, and affective. It is based on the meeting of the Extraordinary Brain Symposium hosted by The Dyslexia Foundation (TDF) from May 28 through June 1, 2018 in St. Petersburg, Russia. This volume complements the forthcoming volume edited by Julie Washington and Don Compton, which examines dyslexia across the linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic spectrum.

Human language allows us to plan, communicate, and create new ideas, without limit. Yet we have only finite experiences, and our languages have finite stores of words. Drawing on research from neuroscience, psychology, and linguistics, David Adger takes us on a journey to the hidden structure behind all we say (or sign) and understand.

In clear, congenial style Barry Blake explains how language works. He describes the make-up of words and how they're built from sounds and signs and put together in phrases and sentences. He examines the dynamics of conversation and the relations between the sound and meaning. He shows how languages help their users connect to each other and to the world, how they vary around the world, why they never stop changing, and that no two people speak a language in the same way. He looks at how language is acquired by infant children, how it relates to thought, and its operations in the brain. He investigates current trends and issues such as the levelling of linguistic class differences and the rise of new secret or in-group languages such as argot and teenspeak. He describes the history of writing from its origins to digital diffusion, and ends by looking at how language might have originated and then evolved among our distant hominid and primate ancestors. Language is crucial to every aspect of our lives whether we're thinking, talking, or dreaming. Barry Blake reveals the wonders that lie beneath the surface of everyday communication, enriching his exposition with a unique blend of anecdote and humour. His engaging guide is for everyone curious about language or who needs to know more about it.

From ancient times, we are told in the story of the Tower of Babel, human beings have been separated by different languages and, consequently, different cultures. Over the centuries, this division has increased and the distance between nations and peoples has prevented true communication and understanding. Gradually, mutations of meaning within single languages have further isolated individuals from one another. Toward the end of the twentieth century, however, a newly intensified consciousness arose--one that sought the basis of a new unity. This has resulted in, among other things, the budding globalization of world societies, economically, politically, and culturally. Linguists and language historians have long searched for the source of our original unity--the one language from which we were separated. Inspired by a pamphlet on the origin of language by Hermann Beckh, and encouraged by his study of Rudolf Steiner's works, Dr. Arnold D. Wadler began thirty years of devoted research into the tongues of various human families. In One Language, he lifts the veil from pre-Columbian America and reveals its place in the developing life of earthly human beings. Based on language and custom, ancient America can be seen as the key to the question of the common primeval tongue of the origin of humanity and modern civilization. His comprehensive grasp of the subject and his broad understanding of history, religion, art, and the science of language places this book among the classics of spiritual scientific literature. Chapters include: The Tower of Babel The Origin of Writing in Picture Consciousness The Spirit of Words The Lost Continent of Atlantis American Tongues and Universal Human Speech Language in the Past and Future

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer "LOL" or "lol," why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.