Crystal is one of the world's foremost experts on linguistics, but this particular book dials back the academic side of things, being presented for children. This meant that the style was simple, the content laid out in a straightforward manner, and everything backed up with plenty of practical examples. And as good as my technical knowledge of language - or rather languages - may be, I appreciated it for all of these things. As Crystal says, the study of language is perhaps the biggest field of study of all, and I'm sure I would have felt lost at least in some places had things not been spelled out so clearly.
That being said, there were moments where I wished that he had been a bit more direct. While the examples were useful, there were also a lot of them; at times too many for my liking for the sake of making what could be quite simple points. And the writing style as a whole came across at times like a grandfather rambling on to his grandchildren, whether they showed any interest or not.
Ultimately, though, there was a lot to enjoy here, and a lot to learn. For instance, how the majority of the world's languages have never been properly studied and mapped out, to the extent that we still have no idea how most languages outside of the Indo-European sphere relate to each other. Or that we probably never will, as one language is lost every couple of weeks. And how even languages that have been studied for centuries, like English, are far from being completely documented in terms of their every usage.
Best of all were the chapters on the very first stages of language - the ways in which parents adapt their speech patterns to pass language onto their children, who then go through a multitude of processes to form sound, combine sounds to form words, and then words to speak coherently. It seems like an impossible task when broken down that way, and I was left amazed that we ever managed to talk at all.
4/5
So I can only imagine the amount of brainpower that would go into something like this:
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