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    Modern Language: Sound smarter without trying harder
    Modern Language: Sound smarter without trying harder
    Modern Language: Sound smarter without trying harder
    Ebook54 pages1 hour

    Modern Language: Sound smarter without trying harder

    By Adams Media

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    About this ebook

    You speak it everyday, but have you ever really thought about language? Where it originates? What its evolutionary purpose is? The Very Lazy Intellectual: Modern Languages teaches you the history and etymology of the world’s most common languages. With information on everything from American Sign Language to Russian, you’ll be an armchair linguist in no time.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateAug 1, 2012
    ISBN9781440556968
    Modern Language: Sound smarter without trying harder
    Author

    Adams Media

    At Adams Media, we don’t just publish books—we craft experiences that matter to you. Whether you’re diving deep into spirituality, whipping up delights in the kitchen, or planning your personal finances, our diverse range of lifestyle books, decks, journals, and more is designed to feed your curiosity. The Adams team strives to publish content that celebrates readers where they are—and where they’re going.

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      Book preview

      Modern Language - Adams Media

      The Very Lazy Intellectual

      Modern Language

      Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

      Avon, Massachusetts

      Contents

      Introduction

      American Sign Language

      Arabic

      Bengali

      Chinese

      Endangered Languages

      English

      Esperanto

      French

      German

      Hindi

      International Language

      Italian

      Japanese

      Portuguese

      Romance Languages

      Russian

      Spanish

      Linguistics

      Cheat Sheet for Modern Languages

      Also Available

      Copyright Page

      Introduction

      If we were to look up the term lazy in a dictionary, we might expect to find some unflattering connotations. Let’s skip over such definitions as adverse or resistant to work, slothful, and sluggish, and adopt a more positive, charitable perspective. If instead we consider lazy as economical or avoiding waste, we get a much better picture of the idea behind The Very Lazy Intellectual series.

      This series of books is a set of short, economical references full of the fundamental knowledge you need to know to sound as if you really know something about a particular academic subject. The Very Lazy Intellectual: Modern Languages lays out the indispensable facts, sample words and phrases, and fascinating elements of the world’s most commonly spoken languages to build your knowledge foundation.

      Whether you want to refresh your memory of a long-since forgotten course, or merely wish to be able to say something intelligent about or in another language, this book will help. Enjoy the low-effort scholarship of The Very Lazy Intellectual: Modern Languages.

      If you’d like to learn more about modern languages and more, check out The Lazy Intellectual, available in print (978-1-4405-0456-3) and eBook (978-1-4405-0888-2) formats.

      American Sign Language

      American Sign Language (ASL) is a complete and complex language that uses hand signs and other movements, including body postures and facial expressions, for communication. It is the first language of many deaf people in North America.

      Other than its means of expression, sign language resembles spoken languages in every way. This includes the lack of a universal sign language; even ASL and British Sign Language are so different as to be mutually unintelligible. This situation also demonstrates that sign languages are not dependent on oral languages but have developed on their own.

      The exact origin of ASL is not clear. French Sign Language was brought to this country in 1817 and used in the first school for the deaf in the United States, the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. As a result, ASL and French Sign Language share a large vocabulary but

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