by Guy Deutscher. Do the French have more esprit simply because they have a word for it? Or is it the other way round? Did Homer never describe the sea or sky as blue while mentioning violet sheep and green honey because he was colorblind? The explorations that Deutscher (former fellow, St. John's Coll., Cambridge; The Unfolding of Language) takes you on here are marvelous. He combines erudition, wry humor, and serious interpretation in this elegant and charmingly accessible study of the relation among language, culture, and thought and of how we have engaged in and reflected upon language over the years. Importantly, Deutscher takes issue with today's linguists who consider language as universally coded and inviolately distinct from culture. Deutscher's narrative introduces philologists, anthropologists, and linguists-beginning with William E. Gladstone. --Library Journal
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