How Dead Languages Work
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Narrated by:
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James Cameron Stewart
About this listen
This volume celebrates six such languages - Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, Sanskrit, Old Irish, and Biblical Hebrew - by first introducing listeners to their most distinctive features, then showing how these linguistic traits play out in short excerpts from actual ancient texts. It explores, for instance, how Homer's Greek shows signs of oral composition, how Horace achieves striking poetic effects through interlaced word order in his Latin, and how the poet of Beowulf attains remarkable intensity of expression through the resources of Old English. But these are languages that have shared connections as well. Listeners will understand how the Sanskrit of the Rig Veda uses words that come from roots found also in English, how turns of phrase characteristic of the Hebrew Bible found their way into English, and that even as unusual a language as Old Irish still builds on common Indo-European linguistic patterns.
Very few people have the opportunity to learn these languages, and they can often seem mysterious and inaccessible: Drawing on a lucid and engaging writing style and with the aid of clear English translations throughout, this book aims to give all listeners, whether scholars, students, or interested novices, an aesthetic appreciation of just how rich and varied they are.
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- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 2000, Words and Rules remains one of Pinker's most provocative and accessible books, illuminating the fascinating relationship between the brain, the mind, and how language makes us humans.
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Amazing how much irregular verbs can teach.
- By Tristan on 04-10-16
By: Steven Pinker
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Metamorphoses
- Penguin Classics
- By: Ovid, David Raeburn - translator, Denis Feeney
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis, John Sackville, Maya Saroya, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Ovid's sensuous and witty poetry brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation - often as a result of love or lust - where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best-known myths and legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, including Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Pygmalion, Perseus and Andromeda, and the fall of Troy.
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A revelation
- By Michael Cain on 05-24-20
By: Ovid, and others
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The Prodigal Tongue
- The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English
- By: Lynne Murphy
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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"If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd sound like an American." "English accents are the sexiest." "Americans have ruined the English language." "Technology means everyone will have to speak the same English." Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English.
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TOO MUCH BITTERNESS
- By Tina on 08-27-20
By: Lynne Murphy
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When God Spoke Greek
- The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible
- By: Timothy Michael Law
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The Septuagint, the name given to the translation of the Hebrew scriptures between the third century BC and the second century AD, played a central role in the Bible's history. Many of the Hebrew scriptures were still evolving when they were translated into Greek, and these Greek translations, along with several new Greek writings, became Holy Scripture in the early Church. Yet gradually the Septuagint lost its place at the heart of Western Christianity.
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A popular & much-needed intro to the Septuagint
- By Jacobus on 06-14-14
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The Pun Also Rises
- How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics
- By: John Pollack
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pun Also Rises is an authoritative yet playful exploration of a practice that is common, in one form or another, to virtually every language on earth. At once entertaining and educational, this engaging book answers fundamental questions: Just what is a pun, and why do people make them? How did punning impact the development of human language, and how did that drive creativity and progress? And why, after centuries of decline, does the pun still matter?
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Punderful Little Book
- By B. Lane on 01-10-13
By: John Pollack
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The Discarded Image
- An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Richard Elwood
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval worldview, providing the historical and cultural background to the literature of the middle ages and renaissance. It describes the 'image' discarded by later years as "the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science, and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe". This, Lewis' last book, has been hailed as "the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind".
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I hope more of Lewis's scholastic stuff is coming
- By James on 04-01-21
By: C. S. Lewis
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The Art of Nonfiction
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Rand takes listeners step by step through the writing process, providing insightful observations and invaluable techniques along the way. She discusses the psychological aspects of writing and the roles played by the conscious and subconscious mind. She talks about articles and books, explaining how to select a subject and theme, how to identify your audience, and how to write the first draft.
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Great Content, but the narrator is annoying
- By Ms on 01-26-09
By: Ayn Rand
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Clive James - translator, Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Renowned poet and critic Clive James presents the crowning achievement of his career: a monumental translation into English verse of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and this translation - decades in the making - gives us the entire epic as a single, coherent and compulsively listenable lyric poem. Written in the early 14th century and completed in 1321, the year of Dante’s death, The Divine Comedy is perhaps the greatest work of epic poetry ever composed.
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Brilliant!
- By Tad Davis on 10-18-13
By: Clive James - translator, and others
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A Most Elegant Equation
- Euler’s Formula and the Beauty of Mathematics
- By: David Stipp
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Bertrand Russell wrote that mathematics can exalt "as surely as poetry". This is especially true of one equation: ei(pi) + 1 = 0, the brainchild of Leonhard Euler, the Mozart of mathematics. More than two centuries after Euler's death, it is still regarded as a conceptual diamond of unsurpassed beauty. Called Euler's identity, or God's equation, it includes just five numbers but represents an astonishing revelation of hidden connections.
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Good treatment of the subject
- By Kindle Customer on 04-09-18
By: David Stipp
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The Heart Sutra
- A Comprehensive Guide to the Classic of Mahayana Buddhism
- By: Kazuaki Tanahashi
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra is among the best known of all the Buddhist scriptures. Chanted daily by many Zen students, it is also studied extensively in the Tibetan tradition, and it has been regarded with interest more recently in the West in various fields of study - from philosophy to quantum physics. In just 35 lines, it expresses the truth of impermanence and the release from suffering that results from the understanding of that truth with a breathtaking economy of language.
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Awful
- By Anonymous User on 08-21-17
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In Long Live Latin, Gardini shares his deep love for the language - enriched by his tireless intellectual curiosity - and warmly encourages us to engage with a civilization that has never ceased to exist, because it’s here with us now, whether we know it or not. Thanks to his careful guidance, even without a single lick of Latin grammar listeners can discover how this language is still capable of restoring our sense of identity, with a power that only useless things can miraculously express.
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Maddening! Does not work as an audiobook!
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Hard to endure
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Very Limited and One-sided View
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Not really a good audiobook
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Maddening! Does not work as an audiobook!
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This thorough guide explores those civilizations that have faded from the pages of our textbooks but played a significant role in the development of modern society. Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World covers the Hyksos to the Hephthalites and everyone in between, providing a unique overview of humanity's history from approximately 3000 BCE-550 CE. Each entry exposes a diverse culture, highlighting their important contributions.
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WHERE IS THE REFERENCE MATERIAL PDF????
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A Day's Read
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Join three literary scholars and award-winning professors as they introduce you to dozens of short masterpieces that you can finish - and engage with - in a day or less. Perfect for people with busy lives who still want to discover-or rediscover-just how transformative an act of reading can be, these 36 lectures range from short stories of fewer than 10 pages to novellas and novels of around 200 pages. Despite their short length, these works are powerful examinations of the same subjects and themes that longer "great books" discuss.
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Stories not included, only discussed
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The Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe.
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Explore the world of names: What is something that literally everything in existence has in common? It all has a name! With this audiobook, you can learn the origins of these names. From countries and cities to toys and animals to even planets, learn the etymology of interesting words in a fun and entertaining way. Learn new things: Why is New York called New York? Name Explain has the answer for you.
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Name Explain Is Fantastic!
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There are so many Latin phrases in everyday use that often we use them without understanding the background and context within which they were actually used. 'Carpe diem'; 'Stet'; 'Memento mori'; 'Et tu Brute' – examples would fill a book. And often these phrases are also used in English translation: 'The die is cast'; 'crossing the Rubicon'; 'Rome was not built in a day'.
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Speak Latin in just one short week! LANGUAGE/30 zeroes in on the most essential phrases for day-to-day communication. Whether you are a vacationer, a business traveler, a student, or just need a refresher course, you'll learn what you need to know in just three 30-minute sessions a day. Developed for U.S. Government personnel, this accelerated learning method will have you conversing after just a few easy 30-minute lessons! These widely acclaimed courses have yielded proven results for over 60 years.
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Where is the booklet?
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An epic history of a doomed civilization and a lost empire. The devastating struggle to the death between the Carthaginians and the Romans was one of the defining dramas of the ancient world. In an epic series of land and sea battles, both sides came close to victory before the Carthaginians finally succumbed and their capital city, history, and culture were almost utterly erased.
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Outstanding! This is THE book on Carthage.
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Homeland
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This stunning new release of the classic R.A. Salvatore novel recounts the origins of Salvatore's signature dark elf character, Drizzt Do'Urden. This title kicks off The Legend of Drizzt series, which will showcase the classic dark elf novels in these new audiobook editions.
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Among the drow, all trust is foolish.
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Learn German with Paul Noble for Beginners – Complete Course
- German Made Easy with Your Personal Language Coach
- By: Paul Noble
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With Paul Noble’s simple, relaxed approach you will learn in a way that suits you – without having to memorise long lists of words you won’t use, scribbling notes as you listen, or feeling frustrated. Instead, Paul will introduce you to the basics of the German language and guide you through over 12 hours of everyday scenarios – from simple situations like asking for directions and eating out to talking about yourself and how to master the different tenses – that are practical, fun, and applicable. Just listen, interact, and learn wherever you are.
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Best Teacher I have found
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What listeners say about How Dead Languages Work
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jason
- 03-21-24
Excellent overview of key ancient languages
Very broad, interesting selection of ancient languages: including Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, Old Irish (with a little Welsh), Sanskrit, and Hebrew.
Because of the many charts and the many pieces of morphology and phonology, the book is an odd one to enjoy as an audiobook. It is probably better read than listened to. That said, James Stewart handled the many readings quite well. I will say, though, that the book was enjoyable largely because I am already well versed in both linguistics and in several ancient languages; the book is likely to be a difficult one to enjoy as audio for a novice or for someone totally unfamiliar with linguistics.
Having said that, I recommend the book to everyone who shares an interest in ancient languages.
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- RB
- 09-29-21
Surprisingly fun
This book was more fun than it had any right to be, given how dry the subject matter is often treated.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Alex Padilla
- 02-09-22
Enjoyable for lovers of linguistics
I found this book fascinating. The author goes through Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, Sanskrit, Old Irish and Hebrew giving examples of what makes each language unique.
There are some parts that get tedious like when dictionaries of words or word forms are read. I think these sections lend themselves better to print than in audio form but on the whole it didn't detract enough for me to stop listening.
The flip side is that it is nice having the narrator pronounce the words which can be difficult to tell strictly from reading.
All in all I would recommend this book to all English speakers who want to know more about these languages and language in general.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-17-22
Useless but interesting
So this book is completely useless, but it is interesting-ish. It took the writer of this book a full ten minutes just to say that the only reason you should learn a dead language is to read it. No shit dude. It honestly teaches you absolutely nothing about how to actually read anything, but it does bring up some interesting points about language in general that make it still worth listening to.
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2 people found this helpful