History and the Testimony of Language

California World History Library

by Christopher Ehret

This book is about history and the practical power of language to reveal historical change. Christopher Ehret offers a methodological guide to applying language evidence in historical studies. He demonstrates how these methods allow us not only to recover the histories of time periods and places poorly served by written documentation, but also to enrich our understanding of well-documented regions and eras. A leading historian as well as historical linguist of Africa, Ehret provides in-depth examples from the language phyla of Africa, arguing that his comprehensive treatment can be applied by linguistically trained historians and historical linguists working with any language and in any area of the world.

Genres: History

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

A scholar of African history and African historical linguistics specializing in efforts to correlate linguistic taxonomy and reconstruction with the archeological record, Christopher Ehret was Distinguished Research Professor in History at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught from 1968 until his retirement in 2011.