The Language Families of the World is written by John McWhorter and co-authored by The Great Courses. The creativity, versatility and imagination of the author can be well understood by knowing that he himself is the narrator of this book. John McWhorter as a narrator is a completely different person and knows his job pretty well as what emotions he needs to portray for the characters he is playing.
The book talks about languages and its endless varieties in the whole world. The story is about John McWhorter, professor in the Columbia University, who takes people back into history and all around the globe. He is more concerned about discussing the linguistic traits left by earlier people and that exactly resulted in the starting of the actual languages.
The historical theories and the modern research resulted in the introduction of 34 distinct lectures related with the main stream language families of the world, which further had a number of offspring as well.
On top of that, there a number of languages that were once spoken but today, they are completely wiped out of the face of the world and nobody knows about these languages. However, these extinct languages are still pivotal and provides us with critical links that binds are present with the past.
If you are a fan of John McWhorter, then you must also check out his other fabulous work, including Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage and The Story of Human Language. Both are outstanding novels and worth investing your time to get hours of entertainment.
