Books like Language for everybody by Mario Pei

Guy Deutscher explores how culture and language influence each other, arguing that linguistic structures shape thought and that our experience of the world depends on words—and that words are shaped by cultural practices.

A practical guide to crafting artificial languages for writers, gamers, and language enthusiasts, with tools, history, and case studies from famous fictional tongues.

"The Newly Born Woman" by Hélène Cixous explores feminist psychoanalysis, the politics of language, and sex differences, revealing how women’s writing reshapes gendered discourse.

A comprehensive collection of Noam Chomsky’s essays tracing the biological basis of language and cognition, from Universal Grammar to contemporary biolinguistic challenges.

"There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today, each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years ago. How did they all develop? What happened to the first language?". "In this tour of territory too often claimed by stodgy grammarians, linguistics professor John McWhorter ranges across linguistic theory, geography, history, and pop culture to tell the fascinating story of how thousands of very different languages have evolved from a single, original source in a natural process similar to biological evolution. While laying out how languages mix and mutate over time, he reminds us of the variety within the species that speaks them, and argues that, contrary to popular perception, language is not immutable and hidebound, but a living, dynamic entity that adapts itself to an ever-changing human environment.". "Full of humor and imaginative insight, The Power of Babel draws its illustrative examples from languages around the world, including pidgins, creoles, and nonstandard dialects. McWhorter also discusses current theories on what the first language might have been like, why dialects should not be considered "bad speech," and why most of today's languages will be extinct within one hundred years.". "The first book written for the layperson about the natural history of language, The Power of Babel is a dazzling tour de force that will leave readers anything but speechless."--BOOK JACKET.

Springing from writer and journalist Mark Forsyth's hugely popular blog The Inky Fool and including word-connection parlour games perfect for any word-lovers get-together, The Etymologicon is a brilliant map of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language. There's always a connection. Sometimes, it's obvious: an actor's role was once written on a roll of parchment, and cappuccinos are the same color as the robes of a Capuchin monk. Sometimes the connection is astonishing and a little more hidden: who would have guessed that your pants and panties are named after Saint Pantaleon, the all-compassionate?

A comprehensive survey of the history, structure, and social role of languages, tracing their development and exploring the features of modern tongues and their potential as an international language.