A Myriad of Tongues review: How language may shape our world view

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Caleb Everett’s A Myriad of Tongues is an assured guide to new thinking about how language shapes the way we see the world – at a time when thousands of languages are vanishing

By Colin Barras

Understudied languages spoken by Indigenous communities are in danger of disappearing

David Tipling Photo Library/Alamy

A Myriad of Tongues
Caleb Everett (Harvard University Press)

THE 7400 or so languages in use today speak to the fact that our species is primed to communicate. But while it is tempting to view language as merely a consequence of our extraordinary cognitive powers, Caleb Everett thinks there may be more going on.

In A Myriad of Tongues: How languages reveal differences in how we think, he argues that language itself may shape our understanding of the world …

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