{"product_id":"the-book-of-lost-languages-an-epic-quest-to-decipher-the-past-9781526645982","title":"The Book of Lost Languages: An Epic Quest to Decipher the Past","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn immersive journey into the art of decipherment and the lost past that emerges when ancient scripts are brought back to life.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Brilliantly conveys the thrill of connecting with the ancient world’ \u003c\/b\u003eALEX BELLOS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eAll the drama of a political thriller, the intrigue of a detective story, and the \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003echallenge of a cryptic crossword'\u003c\/b\u003e DAVID CRYSTAL\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'There is magic in this book . . . The perfect passport into lost worlds' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eUNSEEN HISTORIES\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Harbour is the real thing' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eSPECTATOR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn immersive journey the lost past that emerges when ancient scripts are brought back to life\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo hundred years ago, in the 1820s, history did not reach back further than the Iron Age. Less than a hundred years later, an extraordinary group of people had pushed our knowledge of the past back by 3,000 years. Sixty per cent of the timeline of recorded world history went from unreadable to read in a matter of decades.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePart detective story, part history, part linguistic adventure, \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Lost Languages \u003c\/i\u003etraces the decipherers who made this happen. In cracking lost languages, they recovered forgotten worlds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe meet the novelist, saved from the French Revolution by his fictions, whose love of forgotten classics led him to decipher an ancient alphabet in a single night – and who then sifted through the king's coin collection to decipher a second, then a third. We meet the Irish cleric, banished to an insignificant parish, who had an almost magical intuition for lost languages. With time, wit and a good armchair, he cracked the writing of Mesopotamia. And we encounter the mysteriously inscribed 'dragon bones' unearthed by illiterate farmers that drove the decipherment of Old Chinese.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMoving through these discoveries, Daniel Harbour celebrates the minds behind them – their strengths and quirks, their brilliance and pettiness, their inexplicable flashes of insight. He reveals the astonishing engine that drives decipherment: when we unravel forgotten scripts, we connect across millennia with the minds that created them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe result is an exhilarating story of people and politics, dogma and doubt, genius and ingenuity, and of the beguiling artistry behind some of the greatest puzzles ever created.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eDetails\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cp\u003eISBN13: 9781526645982\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFormat: Paperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNumber of Pages: 496\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEdition: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication Date: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication City, Country: London, United Kingdom\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDimensions (cm): 23.2(H)x15.2(L)x4(W)600\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWeight (gm): 600\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cb\u003eDaniel Harbour \u003c\/b\u003eis a leading expert on writing systems and formal linguistics and a Fellow of the British Academy. For 25 years, he has worked with speakers of endangered languages from the United States to the South Caucasus, helping preserve their knowledge for future generations. Raised in Australia and educated at Oxford and MIT, he is one of the few people alive, outside tribal elders, familiar with the Kiowa language of Oklahoma. A research professor at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and University Paris 8, he regularly works in eight languages and is conversant in several more. He lives in London.\u003ch4\u003eReviews\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cb\u003eHarbour is the real thing\u003c\/b\u003e – a theoretical linguist \u003cb\u003efluent in more languages than you can shake a wedge-shaped reed at.\u003c\/b\u003e But \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Lost Languages\u003c\/i\u003e is accessibly done, its \u003cb\u003efocus as much on the lives of the decipherers \u003c\/b\u003ewho have come before him – their travels and spats and eccentricities – \u003cb\u003eas it is on the technicalities of early Chinese or Anatolian hieroglyphs\u003c\/b\u003e. At heart, it is a book about writing – and what it is about\u003cb\u003e this extraordinary global invention that is essentially human\u003c\/b\u003e. Right now that feels like a very welcome thing -- Dennis Duncan * SPECTATOR *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEngrossing \u003c\/b\u003e. . . There is \u003cb\u003emagic in this book\u003c\/b\u003e. As Harbour himself notes, \"to decipher a script\" from some distant era, \"is to converse with people from those times, their writers, readers and inventors.\" \u003cb\u003eOne of decipherment's great contemporary figures himself\u003c\/b\u003e, Harbour is an authoritative guide to this \u003cb\u003ebeguiling \u003c\/b\u003esubject. A playful book, loaded with puzzles for the reader, it's \u003cb\u003ethe perfect passport into lost worlds\u003c\/b\u003e * UNSEEN HISTORIES *\u003cbr\u003eDaniel Harbour has done a \u003cb\u003emasterful \u003c\/b\u003ejob at bringing decipherment to life. \u003cb\u003eRich in historical anecdote\u003c\/b\u003e, with clear linguistic exposition\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e– and entertaining puzzles – he \u003cb\u003ebrilliantly conveys the thrill of connecting with the ancient world\u003c\/b\u003e. Harbour is an immensely knowledgeable guide and he has written a \u003cb\u003eplayful, deeply-researched book\u003c\/b\u003e full of \u003cb\u003efascinating detail \u003c\/b\u003ethat will delight lovers of languages and ancient scripts -- ALEX BELLOS, author of The Language Lover's Puzzle Book\u003cbr\u003ePlato said that writing was dangerous, linguists call it irrelevant, Harbour shows that it is brilliant and strange . . . \u003cb\u003eThe pace never lets up\u003c\/b\u003e as the scripts keep coming, with new solutions still arriving as the book is being written. And \u003cb\u003eHarbour doesn’t just tell us about decipherment, he teaches us how to do it ourselves\u003c\/b\u003e, with ingenious puzzles that pull us into the story he is telling -- JOSEPHINE QUINN, author of How the World Made the West\u003cbr\u003eThere is so much more to decipherment than meets the eye of the uninitiated. It’s \u003cb\u003ea gripping science that draws on a dizzying number of disciplines\u003c\/b\u003e. Its heroes – those who gave our ancient ancestors their voices back – are more like superheroes, with the powers of tenacity, wisdom and encyclopaedic knowledge. You really have to suspend disbelief to take it all in. \u003cb\u003eDaniel Harbour does an outstanding job of opening up this world\u003c\/b\u003e with – as he describes one of his protagonists – ‘one eye for enchantment, the other for exactitude’. It’s \u003cb\u003ean impossible book to put down\u003c\/b\u003e -- YOTAM OTTOLENGHI\u003cbr\u003eA \u003cb\u003ecompelling and authoritative global code-cracking adventure\u003c\/b\u003e, with tales of historical decipherment \u003cb\u003eso thrilling they set the pulse racing\u003c\/b\u003e -- EDWARD BROOKE-HITCHING, author of Phantom Atlas\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eT\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003ehe Book of Lost Languages\u003c\/i\u003e is a \u003cb\u003eremarkable uncovering\u003c\/b\u003e of hidden \u003cb\u003etreasures \u003c\/b\u003ethat, once rediscovered, \u003cb\u003eshine in the beautiful light of rediscovery\u003c\/b\u003e -- IAN McMILLAN, Presenter of The Verb\u003cbr\u003eA \u003cb\u003eriveting \u003c\/b\u003ebiographical history of decipherment, told with \u003cb\u003eexemplary clarity\u003c\/b\u003e, and combining all \u003cb\u003ethe drama of a political thriller\u003c\/b\u003e, the \u003cb\u003eintrigue of a detective story\u003c\/b\u003e, and the \u003cb\u003echallenge of a cryptic crossword\u003c\/b\u003e -- DAVID CRYSTAL, Author of Crystal's Curiosity Cabinet\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Book of Lost Languages\u003c\/i\u003e is \u003cb\u003ea joy and a gift to lovers of language, history and puzzles\u003c\/b\u003e. Daniel Harbour makes the intricacies of decipherment readily accessible for newcomers, engrossing them through a relaxed tone of authorial voice, a judicious inclusion and exclusion of details, and practical ‘hands on’ sections throughout. He demonstrates both his \u003cb\u003econsiderable talent as a writer \u003c\/b\u003e(with many pithy phrases and punchy sentences demanding a reread for full delectation) and his \u003cb\u003eimmense knowledge of decipherment and adjacent fields\u003c\/b\u003e -- DANNY BATE, author of Why Q Needs U\u003cbr\u003eDaniel Harbour's \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Lost Languages\u003c\/i\u003e tells the \u003cb\u003egripping \u003c\/b\u003etale of the individuals who pushed back the dawn of history by 3,000 years. These were the \u003cb\u003ebrilliant decipherers who groped their way into lost linguistic universes using every clue at their disposal\u003c\/b\u003e, and what makes their story so \u003cb\u003epalpitating \u003c\/b\u003eis that luck and timing so often played a part in their breakthroughs. Luck and timing, therefore, may be all that separate today's decipherers from unlocking those universes still closed to us -- LAURA SPINNEY, author of Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global","brand":"Daniel Harbour","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51528087535833,"sku":"9781526645982","price":39.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0502\/9530\/8441\/files\/9781526645982.jpg?v=1794035355","url":"https:\/\/www.arielbooks.com.au\/products\/the-book-of-lost-languages-an-epic-quest-to-decipher-the-past-9781526645982","provider":"Ariel","version":"1.0","type":"link"}