The Five-Minute Linguist

The Five-Minute Linguist: Bite-sized Essays on Language and Languages takes a new approach to making accurate and up-to-date knowledge about language accessible in a non-academic way. It consists of some 55-60 chapters, each about 700 words long, adapted from the weekly scripts of a popular NPR series on language. The scripts, contributed by a cross-section of leading professional linguists in America and abroad, address questions like "How many languages are there in the world?" "Should we teach languages in elementary school?" and "How good is machine translation?" They are written with a light touch that has been highly successful in reaching an audience of intelligent non-specialists. The book will preserve that light touch while adding such features as an index (to help readers connect topics touched on in more than one chapter) and suggestions for follow-up reading.