The Book of Lost Languages: An Epic Quest to Decipher the Past
Daniel Harbour
Jan 2027 · Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Ebook
288
Pages
infoThis book will become available on January 19, 2027. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
“The Book of Lost Languages tells the gripping tale of the individuals who pushed back the dawn of history by 3,000 years.” -Laura Spinney, author of Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global
A riveting, immersive, and puzzle-packed journey through the decoding of ancient languages, unlocking the hidden secrets of human history.
In 1799, a lieutenant in the Napoleon's army accidentally stumbled upon an engraved rock near an Egyptian port city on the Nile. The long-hidden face of the half-buried boulder-the Rosetta Stone, as it came to known-bore the marks of three ancient scripts, an ancient Pharoah's message in triplicate. The stone became an essential key that allowed archaeologists and linguists to decipher the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egyptian, finally unlocking one of the world's most ancient written languages.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are only one of a dozen scripts we meet in The Book of Lost Languages. Endangered-language expert Daniel Harbour takes us on an adventure of discovery through the most extraordinary language decipherments in history: from the groundbreaking 18th-century effort by a French novelist to unlock the Phoenician alphabet; to an antique collector's use of engraved “dragon” bones to decipher Old Chinese; to revelations about the Andes' woolen writing that unraveled during the writing of this book. These intricate, obsessive quests illuminated millennia of human history that had long gone unread. And through them, ancient peoples now speak to us in words they themselves chose.
Featuring puzzles throughout that give readers the thrill of codebreaking, The Book of Lost Languages reveals the beguiling beauty that underlies the art of decipherment. Harbour weaves an utterly gripping story of people and politics, of genius and ingenuity, of blinkered skepticism and blind acceptance, and most of all, the very texture of ancient life on earth.
A riveting, immersive, and puzzle-packed journey through the decoding of ancient languages, unlocking the hidden secrets of human history.
In 1799, a lieutenant in the Napoleon's army accidentally stumbled upon an engraved rock near an Egyptian port city on the Nile. The long-hidden face of the half-buried boulder-the Rosetta Stone, as it came to known-bore the marks of three ancient scripts, an ancient Pharoah's message in triplicate. The stone became an essential key that allowed archaeologists and linguists to decipher the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egyptian, finally unlocking one of the world's most ancient written languages.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are only one of a dozen scripts we meet in The Book of Lost Languages. Endangered-language expert Daniel Harbour takes us on an adventure of discovery through the most extraordinary language decipherments in history: from the groundbreaking 18th-century effort by a French novelist to unlock the Phoenician alphabet; to an antique collector's use of engraved “dragon” bones to decipher Old Chinese; to revelations about the Andes' woolen writing that unraveled during the writing of this book. These intricate, obsessive quests illuminated millennia of human history that had long gone unread. And through them, ancient peoples now speak to us in words they themselves chose.
Featuring puzzles throughout that give readers the thrill of codebreaking, The Book of Lost Languages reveals the beguiling beauty that underlies the art of decipherment. Harbour weaves an utterly gripping story of people and politics, of genius and ingenuity, of blinkered skepticism and blind acceptance, and most of all, the very texture of ancient life on earth.
“The Book of Lost Languages tells the gripping tale of the individuals who pushed back the dawn of history by 3,000 years.” -Laura Spinney, author of Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global
A riveting, immersive, and puzzle-packed journey through the decoding of ancient languages, unlocking ...
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About the author
Daniel Harbour is a leading expert on writing systems and formal linguistics and a Fellow of the British Academy. For 25 years, he has worked with speakers of endangered languages from the United States to the South Caucasus, helping preserve their knowledge for future generations. Raised in Australia and educated at Oxford and MIT, he is one of the few people alive, outside tribal elders, familiar with the Kiowa language of Oklahoma. A research professor at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and University Paris 8, he regularly works in eight languages and is conversant in several more.
Daniel Harbour is a leading expert on writing systems and formal linguistics and a Fellow of the British Academy. For 25 years, he has worked with speakers of endangered languages from the United States to the South Caucasus, helping preserve their knowledge for future generations. Raised in Aust...
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