I recently finished "Proto" by Laura Spinney, where she outlines what we know so far about Proto-Indo-European and how it spread on its branches. I liked the book, and I generally enjoy reading about linguistics. What would you recommend to read next?
by MUC-Cake-Connoisseur
3 Comments
The Language Instinct by Pinker
Language City by Ross Perlin
Kingdom of Characters by Jing Tsu
The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered by J.P. Mallory
Rare Tongues by Lorna Gibbs
Deorhord by Hana Videen
Wordhord by Hana Videen
The Language Puzzle by Steven Mithen
Wordslut by Amanda Montell
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language by David W. Anthony
Written in Stone by Christopher Stevens
I enjoyed the book **Four Lost Cities; a Secret History of the Urban Age**, by **Annalee Newitz.**
A little bit of archeology, a bit more of sociology, and a splash of geology and physical geography, all combined to tell the tale of 4 major urban cities and metropolises across the world that are largely unknown. Of the four cities, Pompei and Angkor are fairly well known, but Annalee has some very interesting history on them both. The 2 cities that really grabbed my attention in this book are:
1. The indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.
2. The Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey.
I did not realize that Cahokia, which was at its peak 200-400 years before Columbus arrived in the Americas, is estimate to have housed 10,000-20,000 people, and was about the same size as London at the time (in area and population). Yet it disappeared almost overnight
Çatalhöyük was only 34 acres in size, but its reported to have housed 4000-8000 people and that was 9500 years ago. At 5000 people per acre that is larger and more dense than most modern cities in 2026 (it comes out to around 94,000 people per sq mile while Manila, Philippines, the most densely populated city proper in the world, has a municipal density over 107,000 people per square mile approx. 168 people per acre).