Pun Salad

I like books about language, and this one's back-cover blurbs include praise from people I've heard of and like: Matt Ridley and John McWhorter. And yet, I found it kind of a slog. The author, Laura Spinney, occasionally tells some interesting parts of the story, but there are long stretches of dull. (I hasten to say: that's probably on me, not her.)

The ancient language that went global isn't Fortran, surprisingly, it's "Proto-Indo-European", born in the Ukrainian steppes thousands of years ago. No written records exist, and its features and vocabulary are reconstructed via (very) educated guesses from the myriad languages descended from it. In addition to the classic methods of anthropology and linguistics, modern researchers can now work with a powerful new tool: analysis of DNA extracted from tombs and graves show, roughly, who's descended from whom, and patterns of human migration over the centuries.

That's not always an easy collaboration, because according to Spinney, "linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists are barbarians to each other." (The image that generated for me was the opening battle of Gladiator.) The fields are occasionally influenced/polluted by racial/national politics. (And Spinney's concluding chapter discusses the damage done to research by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.)

The book is full of "didja know" snippets. E.g., ancient Hungarians used cow bones for ice skates. The reason major rivers flowing into the Black Sea begin with "D" (Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, Don) is due to an ancient Iranic word for "river", danu. And more. But alas, these nuggets are buried in a lot of stuff I didn't find of interest. (To repeat: me, not Spinney.)