Who Talks Funny?: A Book About Languages for Kids

by Brenda S. Cox

This introduction to linguistics discusses how language originated, how languages differ, and how they are related to one another, and offers simple vocabulary and pronunciation guides for several languages

211 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Brenda Cox studied Spanish, Russian, and linguistics while working toward her degree in chemical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She currently lives in Yemen, where she speaks Arabic and homeschools two of her four children.

Reviews

[Scott Coulter]

For the 2023 #vtReadingChallenge, this is my 35th (and final!) book, for the category (fittingly!) "A Book about Language." Many thanks to my dear wife, who recently borrowed this book from a friend (we happen to also have met the author), who let me grab it ahead of her so I could use it as my final book for the annual challenge.
What do you call somebody who speaks two languages? "Bilingual"
What do you call somebody who speaks three languages? "Trilingual"
What do you call somebody who only speaks one language? "American"
I'll plead "guilty-as-charged" to that mostly-accurate quip. This wonderful book was aimed at middle-grades students, and I think it would be excellent for that use, especially here in suburban America where many young people (or older people!) only speak one language and may not even have friends who speak a second one (although that is changing somewhat, of course). It covers a wide range of topics around language (spoken and written), to introduce the amazingly wide variety of languages in the world, including differences in sounds, sentence construction order, whether pre-, in-, or post-fixes are used to modify words, and so many other distinctives. I've dabbled in Spanish and French (but remember only tiny bits of each), and am somewhat aware of the distinctive features of some other common languages, but I learned a lot from this book and enjoyed the learning very much. It might even encourage me to re-start "foreign" language study at some point... although I'm a very "old dog" to be trying such "new tricks."

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure if my homeschool friends would be able to find this old treasure. It was loaned by a friend of mine who was given her copy by the author, a lady we know. This is a great way you can introduce the idea of languages respectfully and with an appreciation for and understanding of how they’ve grown and changed over many years. The author’s experience with living abroad and learning different languages herself, and communicating and building relationships with people of very different cultures makes this book a rich and entertaining read.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, great book