Language Evolution

Master software engineering paradigms by decoding the brutal hardware constraints that forged modern computer science. Perfect for your commute or a deep-focus learning session, this analytical journey transforms how you view everyday coding tools. Instead of memorizing syntax, you will grasp...

From blurry vision to crooked teeth, ACLs that tear at alarming rates and spines that seem to spend a lifetime falling apart—it’s surprising that human beings have beaten the odds as a species Evolution Gone Wrong is an eye-opening look into why our bodies work—or don’t—the way they do...

Master the evolution of software engineering as you explore tech history from raw machine code to AI ecosystems. Perfect for your morning commute or focused deep work, this captivating narrative tracks the brilliant pioneers who transformed human logic into the digital frameworks powering our...

Forget the language instinct—this is the story of how we make up language as we go Language is perhaps humanity’s most astonishing capacity—and one that remains poorly understood. In The Language Game, cognitive scientists Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater show us where...

As language evolves faster than ever before, what is the future of 'correct' style? With wry cleverness and an uncanny intuition for the possibilities of Internet-age expressiveness, Favilla argues that rather than try to preserve the sanctity of the written language as laid out by Strunk and White, we should be concerned with the larger issues of clarity, flexibility, playfulness and political awareness. Her approach to the new rules - as practical as they are fun - will fascinate and delight believers and naysayers alike.

Born into a digital wonderland, our children are practically mini hackers right from the crib! Most of them were handed a device before they could walk, they clicked before they took their first bite and scrolled before they said their first words. But living online is a giant uncontrolled...

Warum sind wir Menschen so verschieden? Sind wir nicht merkwürdig, wir Menschen, mit verschiedenartigem Aussehen, anderen Sprachen und unterschiedlichen Religionen? Der Evolutionsbiologe Josef H. Reichholf greift das Thema Evolution anhand der alltäglichen Erfahrungen auf, die junge Menschen z.B. bei ihren Mitschülern machen: Jeder Einzelne ist anders, dazu kommt die äußerliche Verschiedenheit durch Kinder asiatischer oder schwarzafrikanischer Herkunft.

Melanie Mitchell separa la ciencia real de la ciencia ficción en este amplio examen del estado actual de la inteligencia artificial y de cómo está rehaciendo nuestro mundo. Ninguna empresa científica reciente ha resultado tan seductora, aterradora y llena de extravagantes promesas y...

In 1831, Charles Darwin embarked on an expedition that, in his own words, determined my whole career. The Voyage of the Beagle chronicles his five-year journey around the world and especially the coastal waters of South America as a naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle. While traveling through these...

Explore the captivating cultural history of linguistics, where eccentric scholars battled to tame rebellious living speech. Perfect for a stimulating morning commute, this thought-provoking narrative turns an ordinary reference tool into a gripping saga of ambition, power, and obsession. Whether...

In this ambitious book, Jieun Kiaer explores the lives of English words in the twenty-first century, when the creation and use of language has become an increasingly dynamic, interactive, and diverse process in which ordinary people have taken leading roles—offering such coinages as "flexitarian," "MeToo," "glow up," and "shitizen" to "No sabo kids" and beyond. As English language grows ever more diverse, Kiaer believes, we need a paradigm shift. 

In its long history, the English language has had many lawmakers - those who have tried to regulate or otherwise organize the way we speak. The Lexicographer's Dilemma poses a pair of questions: What does proper English mean? And who gets to say what's right? Our ideas of correct or proper English have a history, and today's debates over the state of the language - whether about Ebonics in schools, the unique use of language in a South Park episode, or split infinitives in the Times - make sense only in historical context.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR An urgent, globe-spanning exploration of languages at risk, from Kichwa to Ukrainian, that asks: What do we lose—culturally, politically, and personally—when a language is silenced? “Fascinating . . . Galer casts a bright light on the massive...

Brought to you by Penguin. What is language? Why do we have it? Where does it come from? Why does that matter? Upending centuries of scholarship (including, most recently, Chomsky and Pinker) The Language Game shows how people learn to talk not by acquiring fixed meanings and rules, but by...

"With easygoing authority... [Fridland] offers context, and a welcoming spirit, to the many contentious realignments in our language."—The Wall Street Journal “Smart and funny—I loved it!" —Mignon Fogarty, author of New York Times bestseller Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for...

Healing, Guidance, and Miracles—Through the Lost Vocabulary of the Soul To connect with the ultimate creative power that shapes and directs our lives, teaches Caroline Myss, we first need to learn its sacred medium of communication—what she calls "holy language." Whether through prayer...

In the 1970s, the behavioral psychologist Herbert S. Terrace led a remarkable experiment to see if a chimpanzee could be taught to use language. A young ape, named “Nim Chimpsky” in a nod to the linguist whose theories Terrace challenged, was raised by a family in New York and instructed in American Sign Language. Initially, Terrace thought that Nim could create sentences but later discovered that Nim’s teachers inadvertently cued his signing. Terrace concluded that Project Nim failed - not because Nim couldn’t create sentences but because he couldn’t even learn words.

Matthew Syed traces the origins and evolution of the word 'woke’ Once a watchword for African Americans in the early 1900s, 'woke' is now used as an insult across the political spectrum, and it has become synonymous with our era of angry debate. As the word has spread, what people mean by it...

Brought to you by Penguin. "Vital is [Gaia Vince's] narration: enthusiastic and lucid." - The Times Humans now live longer and better than ever before, and we are the most populous big animal on earth. Meanwhile, our closest living relatives, the now-endangered chimpanzees, continue to live as...

Discover the epic history of communication, where the rise of written language rescued humanity's fragile memories. Perfect for an educational daily commute, this awe-inspiring journey explores the cognitive shock of capturing spoken words outside the human body. Transitioning from...