Search Results: Returned 4 Results, Displaying Titles 1 - 4
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c2011., BenBella Books ; Distributed by Perseus Distribution Edition: eBook ed. Summary Note: "The scientific consensus is that our ability to understand human speech has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. After all, there are whole portions of the brain devoted to human speech. We learn to understand speech before we can even walk, and can seamlessly absorb enormous amounts of information simply by hearing it. Surely we evolved this capability over thousands of generations. Or did we? Portions of the human brain are also devoted to reading. Children learn to read at a very young age and can seamlessly absorb information even more quickly through reading than through hearing. We know that we didn't evolve to read because reading is only a few thousand years old. In "Harnessed," cognitive scientist Mark Changizi demonstrates that human speech has been very specifically designed" to harness the sounds of nature, sounds we've evolved over millions of years to readily understand. Long before humans evolved, mammals have learned to interpret the sounds of nature to understand both threats and opportunities. Our speech--regardless of language--is very clearly based on the sounds of nature. Even more fascinating, Changizi shows that music itself is based on natural sounds. Music--seemingly one of the most human of inventions--is literally built on sounds and patterns of sound that have existed since the beginning of time"--Provided by publisher.
![Harnessed [eBook] : how language and music mimicked nature and transformed ape to man](/Library/images/~imageCT76862.JPG "Harnessed [eBook] : how language and music mimicked nature and transformed ape to man")
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2016., Adult, Alfred A. Knopf Call No: Bio L183i Edition: First edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "The story of a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. And although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery had always eluded her. So in 2012, seeking full immersion, she decided to move to Rome with her family, for "a trial by fire, a sort of baptism" into a new language and world. In Rome, Lahiri began to read, and to write -- initially in her journal -- solely in Italian. This autobiographical work, written in Italian, investigates the process of learning to express oneself in another language, and describes the journey of a writer seeking a new voice. Presented in a dual-language format, it is a book about exile, linguistic and otherwise, written with an intensity and clarity not seen since Nabokov. A startling act of self-reflection and a provocative exploration of belonging and reinvention. Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein. Jhumpa Lahiri Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrants from West Bengal. Her family moved to the United States when she was two. Her debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake, was adapted into the motion picture of the same name. She is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University."--Provided by publisher.
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c2010., Yale University Press Call No: 400 C883l Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: With a language disappearing every two weeks and neologisms springing up almost daily, understanding the origins and currency of language has never seemed more relevant.
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2016., General, Penguin Press Call No: Bio C712w Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: When New Yorker staff writer Lauren Collins moves to Geneva, Switzerland, she decides to learn French--not just to be able to go about her day-to-day life, but in order to be closer to her French husband and his family. When in French is at once a hilarious and idiosyncratic memoir about the things we do for love, and an exploration across cultures and history into how we learn languages, and what they say about who we are.
