Geography is the key that unlocks the door to the world’s wonders. There are, of course, many ways of viewing the world and its diverse physical and human features. In this series - MODERN WORLD CULTURES - the emphasis is on people and their cultures. As you step through the geographic door into the ten world cultures covered in this series, you will come to better know, understand, and appreciate the world’s mosaic of peoples and how they live. You will see how different peoples adapt to, use, and change their natural environments. And you will be amazed at the vast differences in thinking, doing, and living practiced around the world. The MODERN WORLD CULTURES series was developed in response to many requests from librarians and teachers throughout the United States and Canada.

This book reconstructs what the earliest grammars might have been and shows how they could have led to the languages of modern humankind.
Like other biological phenomena, language cannot be fully understood without reference to its evolution, whether proven or hypothesized," wrote Talmy Givon in 2002. As the languages spoken 8,000 years ago were typologically much the same as they are today and as no direct evidence exists for languages before then, evolutionary linguists are at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in biology. Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva seek to overcome this obstacle by combining grammaticalization theory, one of the main methods of historical linguistics, with work in animal communication and human evolution. The questions they address include: do the modern languages derive from one ancestral language or from more than one? What was the structure of language like when it first evolved? And how did the properties associated with modern human languages arise, in particular syntax and the recursive use of language structures? The authors proceed on the assumption that if language evolution is the result of language change then the reconstruction of the former can be explored by deploying the processes involved in the latter. Their measured arguments and crystal-clear exposition will appeal to all those interested in the evolution of language, from advanced undergraduates to linguists, cognitive scientists, human biologists, and archaeologists.

From Writing to Computers takes as its central theme the issue of a unifying intellectual principle to connect books and computers. Julian Warner uses an approach based on semiotics, but also draws on linguistics, information science, cognitive science, philosophy and automata studies. Covering a range of topics--from the relations between speech and writing, to transitions from orality to literacy and claims for a transition to an information society--the author aims throughout to render complex ideas intelligible without loss of rigor. This text addresses ordinary readers who, as social beings and members of political communities, are affected by significant developments in methods for storing, manipulating and communicating information. It is also intended for students of the disciplines on which the draws: semiotics, information studies, linguistics, computer science, philosophy and psychology.

Geography is the key that unlocks the door to the world’s wonders. There are, of course, many ways of viewing the world and its diverse physical and human features. In this series - MODERN WORLD CULTURES - the emphasis is on people and their cultures. As you step through the geographic door into the ten world cultures covered in this series, you will come to better know, understand, and appreciate the world’s mosaic of peoples and how they live. You will see how different peoples adapt to, use, and change their natural environments. And you will be amazed at the vast differences in thinking, doing, and living practiced around the world. The MODERN WORLD CULTURES series was developed in response to many requests from librarians and teachers throughout the United States and Canada.

You're no idiot, of course. You've read a few books and can hold your own in a room full of university professors. But when it comes to problem-solving and understanding complex theories and facts, you feel like your brain is going to explode. Don't reach for the aspirin just yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your IQ unlocks the secrets of you brain and teaches you how to whip those sparking synapses into shape.