I'm writing this review a good number of months since I've read the original. If I remember correctly, there is as much history of other lingua francas as there is talk of English. The part about lingua francas becoming unimportant because of machine translation is overly optimistic. ( )

This book's about linguas franca and the ideas about English remaining as an eternal world language, or being overtaken by Chinese or what-haveyou. It's decent enough, but I've got to say I couldn't quite fathom the intended readership. It's really pretty dense as a piece of pop linguistics (I've read my share) but it's clearly not a textbook either. It goes into quite a lot of historical detail, and throws in lots (really, really lots) of linguistic examples throughout, which is excellent scholastic practice but does make it pretty heavy unless you're really into those languages and cultures - there's a very long section about Persian and mid-Eurasia, for example, which most people in the West (like me) are utterly ignorant about, so that was heavy going. I'm not really sure what I think would improve it, though - it's just in a slightly odd niche. I'm glad I've read it, and I agree broadly with the book's conclusions, though I've got to say I didn't really feel like there was a strong thread of argument running through the book - it's more a patchwork most of the time, but then it's social and cultural linguistics, not physics. So, broadly, it's worth a look, but be aware it's slightly genreless and you'd probably do best to just flick through it and focus on the bits you're most interested in, rather than trying to soak in everything. ( )

Pomposity, pedantry, and an author too in love with himself.

I had read Nicholas Ostler's "Empires of the Word" and enjoyed it and learned from it. Based on that positive experience and the good reviews of "The Last Lingua Franca," I bought his new book.

What a disappointment. I didn't finish the book. I rate the book as high as three stars only because Ostler is a bright and accomplished scholar and his underlying theme is a good one. From the parts I read I feel that a reader could get the most important thoughts contained in the book through reading the jacket copy or from reviews.

Academia has a lot of virtues, but in "Lingua Franca" Ostler parades the worst of the negative stereotypes of academics: smugness, pedantry, pomposity, leaden writing. The book's many errors of fact, spelling and grammar show that he and his editors need to be more attentive. Some simple examples among the many errors: on page xii in the "Acknowlegments" he refers to the English language having been spoken "these last fifteen centuries;" and on pages 11 to 12 he writes, "Secondly, at the center of the Indian Ocean coastline, the polices [sic] of India stand in contrast to those of Sri Lanka ..." -- neither "polices" nor policies are at the center of the coastline. The writing is in the inflated style of an undergraduate seeking to impress the reader. ( )

Segnalato da Flavia Vendittelli