Philippe Wolff (1913–2001)

Ohhhh, I've written this book (this essay, anyway) before. Take a field distant from the one you're ostensibly writing in; do a crash course; misunderstand everything; apply it to the material at hand anyway because nobody in your field would know any better; and what you end up with, in Wolff's case, is a bit of historical review that purports to demonstrate the utility of linguistics for getting a new perspective on history, but really just misuses an outdated-anyway version of the show more field.


This is a half-decent review of medieval history with some tidbits about language thrown in, some correct and some false. show less

Western Languages: AD 100-1500 covers exactly what the title implies -- development of languages in Western Europe form the Roman Empire and Latin to the various modern languages at beginning of the modern era.

This book has much to recommend it. The author provides clear examples, wonderful maps, and simple terminology. He provides a nice overview of the political/historical context for the developments in each of the major languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian, and English). Where show more there are gaps in knowledge, he states that as opposed to making wild speculations.

On the downside, the actual writing is a bit strange at times. The book was originally written in French, so the strangeness may come from the translation. Another problem is the lack of footnotes to various points. There are 12 footnotes for a 200 page book! And similarly, the lack of references in English at the back of the book. The book also left out some of the Western European languages such as the Celtic languages and Basque.

Overall, I'm glad I read the book and I learned somethings from it, but I really wish it had a more scholarly bent to it with better footnotes and references. show less

Surprisingly readable tour of Latin, the rise of the Romance languages and the changes the Germanic ones went through.

Perhaps a bit of an awkward translation from French, and not really intended for a general audience, this was mildly interesting & informative.