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    Written in Stone: A Journey Through the Stone Age and the Origins of Modern Language
    Written in Stone: A Journey Through the Stone Age and the Origins of Modern Language
    Written in Stone: A Journey Through the Stone Age and the Origins of Modern Language
    Audiobook9 hours

    Written in Stone: A Journey Through the Stone Age and the Origins of Modern Language

    Written by Christopher Stevens

    Narrated by Michael Healy

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Half the world's population speaks a language that has evolved from a single, prehistoric mother tongue. First spoken in Stone Age times, on the steppes of central Eurasia 6,500 years ago, this mother tongue spread from the shores of the Black Sea across almost all of Europe and much of Asia. It is the genetic basis of everything we speak and write today-the DNA of language.

    Written in Stone combines detective work, mythology, ancient history, archaeology, the roots of society, technology and warfare, and the sheer fascination of words to explore that original mother tongue, sketching the connections woven throughout the immense vocabulary of English, with some surprising results.

    In snappy, lively, and often very funny chapters, Written in Stone uncovers the most influential and important words used by our Neolithic ancestors and shows how they are still in constant use today-the building blocks of all our most common words and phrases.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 15, 2015
    ISBN9781494585587
    Written in Stone: A Journey Through the Stone Age and the Origins of Modern Language
    Author

    Christopher Stevens

    Christopher Stevens is a television critic, author and journalist. He began working as a journalist in 1983 and currently holds the position of Daily Mail TV critic, writing daily reviews of the previous night's viewing from Monday to Friday. He has written 6 books and is the father of two teenage boys.

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    Reviews for Written in Stone

    3/5

    11 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is my current bedtime book for unwinding at night. He talks about old sound that are the root of a bunch of examples. A lot of the times the words rhyme and it sound like an epic poem about the journey of words.
    • 4/5
      This book is really about Indo-European origins, but using the title of Stone Age tribes as a stand-in. I assume this is the reason for low ratings. The 80+ "stone age" words all seem to be a valid transcription of many of the Indo-European roots which can be gotten from other sources. So, I think the research and interesting descriptions are valid but not the nomenclature.
    • 2/5
      Interesting topic but the book is mostly a relentless instant gratification list of random facts explaining little and annoyingly peppered with awkward jokes and pop-culture references. I'm also surprised how the etymologies are presented as fact and without any caveats of being guesswork or there being any controversy around them.