An anthropological and psychological report contends that language is a human, societally driven, invention that can be reinvented and lost.

"Japanese has a term that covers both green and blue. Russian has separate terms for dark and light blue. Does this mean that Russians perceive these colors differently from Japanese people? Does language control and limit the way we think, such that each language gives its speakers a different 'worldview?' This opinionated book addresses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which argues that the language we speak shapes the way we perceive the world. Linguist...

"Words (and meaningful silences) matter enormously in our lives. They enable us to cooperate, collaborate, and ally with one another-as well as to exclude, exploit, and subordinate one another. They script our performances as certain kinds of people in certain social locations. They are politically powerful, both as dominating weapons that help oppress and as effective tools that can resist oppression. But words in and of themselves are impotent....

Photographs and text describes the hieroglyphic writing system of ancient Egypt.

"Quiara Alegria Hudes was the sharp-eyed girl on the stairs while her family danced in her grandmother's tight South Philly kitchen, "frizzy hair cut short, bangs teased into stiff clouds, sweat glistening in the summer fog, pamper-butt babies weaving between legs." Quiara was awed by her aunts and uncles and cousins, but haunted by the secrets of the family and the unspoken stories of the barrio -- even as she tried to find her own voice in the sea...

Fallows unravels Chinese culture by explaining the intricacies and subtleties of Mandarin, devoting each chapter to a particular linguistic quirk.