Language Families of the World

What Hacker News says

1. jml7c5Jul 2021
   If anyone found this interesting, I highly recommend the audiobook/lecture "Language Families of the World" by John McWhorter. The title makes it sound dry, but he's a very entertaining lecturer. It's one of those works that - if you have never been exposed to the subject - is a window to an previously unnoticed detail in everyday life. Similar to when one learns about an architectural flourish and from that point forward sees it on buildings everywhere.
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2. FabHKApr 2021
   If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy the fascinating course "Language families of the world" by the excellent John McWhorter. He elaborates on many of the aspects mentioned in the article. (It's quite expensive though, unless you resort to a pirated version.)

   https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/language-families-of-the...

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3. danblickNov 2020
   John McWhorter is a well-known linguist who talks about things like comparative linguistics. He's said in the past that (colloquial) Indonesian is one of the most streamlined languages around. (But really English is becoming the world's international language.)

   One of the topics in McWhorter's research is about how languages become streamlined when they are learned by adults as a second language. English, Mandarin, and Swahili all show evidence of this (for English, it seems related to the Vikings).

   Related post:

   https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/06/co...

   For people interested in human languages (or people who don't yet know they're interested in human languages), you might enjoy the courses he's done for Great Courses (paid but worth it, available on ~Amazon):

   (1) The Story of Language: covers the topic of language evolution; how languages change over time, how new words are introduced, how languages mix (due to e.g. invasions), pidgins/creoles

   (2) Language Families of the World: a survey of what languages currently exist, features of languages in different families

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4. FabHKSep 2019
   Wonderful article, exposing some of the oddities of this non-Indo-European language in the middle of Europe, without becoming too technical.

   If you're interested in an entertaining overview of all of the world's languages, I can recommend the course Language Families of the World by The Great Courses - 34 byte-sized (half hour) lectures.

   https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/language-families-of...

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