Through the Language Glass
By Guy Deutscher
Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. Picador, 2011.
Summary of Through the Language Glass book by Guy Deutscher
An exploration of whether our mother tongue affects the way we see the world, tracing how everyone from British prime ministers to Aboriginal tribes have contributed to our understanding of how language reflects culture and has power over our perceptions.
Chapters in Through the Language Glass book summary
What do you get from this book? An illuminating journey into how language affects the way we perceive reality
Philosophers and linguists have long agonized over whether our mother tongue makes us think differently
The century-spanning investigation into the language of color was started by an unlikely figure—British Prime Minister William Gladstone
Lazarus Geiger reformulated the question of perception, developing a theory about the universal sequence of color terms
Small social and linguistic groups from around the world offered clues that culture was behind the ancients’ peculiar color sense
Berlin and Kay discovered that there are “truer” versions of a color around which languages tend to coalesce
“Complexity” in language is difficult to define, and the smaller languages of “simpler” peoples can often pack the most meaning
The “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis” states that our mother tongue limits our ability to understand complex ideas, but it has been rejected
The Guugu Yimithirr Aboriginal language and its speakers’ “mental compasses” show the power of language to drive patterns of thought
Grammatical gender seems to influence speakers’ associations with objects, while color vocabulary is once again in the linguistic limelight
Summary of the key insights
Selected critiques in brief
Final word
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Through the Language Glass — Book Summary Snapshot
Who should read Through the Language Glass book
- Language learners
- amateur psychologists
- philosophers
- lovers of unusual trivia
About the author of Through the Language Glass
Guy Deutscher
Guy Deutscher is a professor of the languages of Ancient Mesopotamia at the University of Leiden. He has written for The Times and The New York Times, while his other publications include The Unfolding of Language (2005).
Books similar to Through the Language Glass
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Understanding the New Rules of Language. Riverhead Book, 2019.
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