All About Language

by Mario Andrew Pei, Donat Ivanovsky (illustrator)

hardcover book

Genres: Linguistics

186 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Mario Pei was Professor of Romance Languages at Columbia University.

Reviews

[amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. At the very least interesting and easy to read. This was educational without getting too deep, although I’m sure we know much more about languages now than we did in 1954. However, the social and cultural attitudes of the 1950s clearly stand out in the writing, as it leans towards the western anglocentrism and imperialist mindsets that read as racist now. (And would have read as racist when the book was released even as racism was baked into the culture of midcentury white America.)