The Secret History of Language

Lyle Campbell is Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawai'i Mānoa. His research specializations include historical linguistics, language documentation, America's Indian languages, and typology. He has been awarded the LSA's Leonard Bloomfield Book Award twice, for American Indian Languages (Oxford University Press, 2000) and Historical Syntax in Cross-linguistics Perspective (with Harris, Cambridge University Press, 1995).

'Engagingly written by a leading historical linguist, this book treats its readers to a richly illustrated exposé of popular myths about language in general, specific languages, and change in language(s). Campbell explores how words and names (including his own!) originate, how meanings, sounds, and grammatical constructions and categories are transformed over time, how linguists determine, analyze, and model such changes, and more. All in all, an informative - and entertaining - read!' Brian D. Joseph, The Ohio State University

• 1. Language history: past offenses or glorious achievements?; 2. What's in a word?; 3. You get my drift? Meaning change; 4. Language mooching: loanwords and borrowing; 5. Sound change costs and benefits; 6. How do languages clean up their act? The might of analogy; 7. Can languages change their grammatical spots? Can old grammars learn new grammatical tricks?; 8. All in the family: language classification; 9. Writing and the magic of writing systems; 10. Thereby hangs a tale: Linguistic prehistory; 11. Is linguistic Armageddon nigh? What's ahead for the world's languages?; Appendix: language families of the world (including language isolates).