Language both sets us apart from our fellow creatures and identifies us as uniquely human.

We use language to establish and maintain group membership, to express our emotions, to amuse ourselves and to entertain friends, to convey information both serious and trivial and to exist in a world populated by others.

Linguistics is the discipline which studies the structure and functions of both individual languages and the phenomenon of language itself. In spite of early efforts by ancient and medieval scholars, most of our progress in understanding language has come only within the last century, and much of this work is very recent indeed.

R.L. Trask and Bill Mayblin’s book is a thrilling introduction to the most important concepts in the study of language, explaining too some of the most recent, dramatic and fascinating advances.