Help needed from those of you interested in languages and words please.........

[BettySpaghetti]

I'm trying to find a book for a Christmas present for my MIL.

I'll head off to Waterstones tomorrow and ask there but I'm hoping someone here may have a recommendation or suggestion.

MIL is fluent in 5 European languages and is interested in language in general. What I would like for her is a book that looks at how words evolve across languages, looks at the similarities of words in different languages IYSWIM.

All I can find from a quick search on Amazon are books looking at the origins of English words but this isn't "international" enough -she is interested in how languages overlap.

Not sure if I've explained myself well enough??

Thanks

Now there's a challenge, Betty. Will have a think/look and get back to you. What languages does she speak?

I did some of that in my linguistics option at university. Loved it, it's fascinating.

Not sure what you'd need to search for beyond Linguistics, though.

Sorry, that's not much help

i see what you mean, as ellbell said it would be handy to know what languages she's interested in.
I've got books on etymology - they trace words and languages (French, English, Italian) evolving mainly from latin & ancient greek, but that is precisely my interest as i did classics.
will keep watching this thread!!

She speaks:

German
French
Flemish
English
Spanish

Hope that helps!

(I'm all excited as I really didn't think I would get any replies as , like ellbells said its quite a specific challenge!)

How about something on language contact? As in how languages change each other through existing side by side.

this is good

not read but sounds good

Or something slightly different like sign language?

this is great

That last one is really wonderful for looking at the evolution of language.

Oh with speaking Spanish what about something on Spanglish?

Lipski is a sound linguist.

And I'm going to stop making suggestions now and get back to what I should be doing (which strangely enough involves linguistic issues surrounding Spanish in the U.S.)

For something (much, much) lighter, might she enjoy Bill Bryson?

Indith -thanks so much for those.

I quickly opened links but not sure if they might be a bit academic? I'll go and have a proper look now.

PS -Just noticed that on your post with 3 links the last 2 are the same???

ooops sorry, bit too hasty in my linkage!

this should be the right one.

the introduction to language contact and this one are pretty enjoyable reads, although I suppose that depends on how far into linguistics her interests lie. If she is more into the actual speaking of a language and the socio linguistic side of things then the one on Latino identity on the Spanglish link might be better.

JackieNo -I think Bill Brysons lighter approach and humour is good but I'm not sure it covers other languages enough. He tends to concentrate on the peculiarities of the English language.

However, saying that I might get it anyway as I expect she would enjoy it

Thank you all, you're doing a grand job

this is on my wish list come to think of it. Sounds like fun!

Betty, my sister is like yours, she is fluent in German, Italian, French, Spanish, English and Norwegian (native), and add Danish, Swedish and Portugese as good but non-fluent.

She is also a very keen amateur linguist, and very interested in the overlap of languages. Funnily, she once found herself in Italy, and was listening to the radio when she commented to an italian friend, it was a very strange dialect, but luckily understandable, to wich the friend said: "Umm, that is a Croatian station you are listening too, beyond me how you can understand it."

I can ask her, as she alternates the languages she reads in, she is currently reading English literature.

QS -thats exactly what MIL is like. She can pick up and understand things in languages she doesn't "know" simply because she is fluent in 5 languages, knows some bits of other languages so, somewhere in amongst that, she can piece togther things to get a rough translation .

I am so of people like that!

I love the science side of linguistics, I did the wrong degree really as I struggle with the language components!

I'm too -I struggled to get French O'level many years ago.

Nowadays my limited French ensures that I wouldn't starve or wouldn't die of thirst but thats about it

yay!
indith has got it covered, then

Is this too academic-looking?

This one is more political.

This one argues that languages are becoming progressively more and more similar.

This, by Umberto Eco, sounds interesting.

Or how about this one? Sounds really good to dip into and pick up lots of (probably useless, but interesting) information from.

Any of these on the right lines, Betty?

Also (getting into the swing of this now...) this looks interesting.

Was looking for Walter Redfern's book, Puns, which is not as multilingual as you'd like really (it only focuses on English and French) but interesting... but it seems to be out of print.

David Crystal very popular in our house

I love the look of the Umberto Eco one!

Steven Pinker?

What about this?

Well hello there...Tinker and Pinker sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g
We also love him (and his hair) but I thought he wrote mostly on language development in English Tinks, am I wrong then?