Overview

Can a bump on the head cause someone to speak with a different accent? Can animals, aliens, and objects talk? Can we communicate with gods, demons, and the dead? Language Myths, Mysteries and Magic is a curio shop full of colourful superstitions, folklore, and legends about language.

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9781137404848

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Reviews

'Language, with its uncanny ability to transmit ideas from mind to mind, has always seemed to have magical powers. Karen Stollznow ably and engagingly debunks the nonsense and superstitions, and in doing so enhances, rather than diminishes, our appreciation of this wondrous human ability.' - Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, US, and author of The Language Instinct and The Sense of Style 'Language Myths, Mysteries and Magic could not be more timely. Here the accomplished linguist, Karen Stollznow, persuasively and forcefully dramatizes how language has many real world powers that might seem mysterious, as when a brain injury causes someone to switch from one language to another. But readers will soon grasp that while language does have power, it isn't particularly magical or mysterious. This engaging, one-of a kind, book deserves very wide readership.' - Elizabeth Loftus, University of California, US 'Stollznow is an author with a mission, and that mission is to debunk. This mission plays itself out in each chapter. We are given a brief introduction to the topic, including some of the more outrageous uses or abuses of it, and then the topic or some aspect of it is debunked. Stollznow performs this with intelligence, not by rote.' - Linguist

'Language Myths, Mysteries and Magic could not be more timely. Here the accomplished linguist, Karen Stollznow, persuasively and forcefully dramatizes how language has many real world powers that might seem mysterious, as when a brain injury causes someone to switch from one language to another. But readers will soon grasp that while language does have power, it isn't particularly magical or mysterious. This engaging, one-of a kind, book deserves very wide readership.' - Elizabeth Loftus, University of California, US

Author Information

Karen Stollznow is a linguist with a background in history and anthropology. She is a columnist, podcaster, and the author of God Bless America and Haunting America. Karen was a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and has spent many years teaching and writing about a diverse array of topics, including language, culture, religion, and unusual beliefs and practices. Karen was born in Sydney, and has a PhD in linguistics from the University of New England, Australia. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado.

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