Empires of the Word - Nicholas Ostler [358]
Yì Jīng (Classic of Changes) 154
Yi Zong, Chinese emperorl58
Yiddish 442
Yokot’an 348
Yoruba 530
Yuán dynasty 121, 141, 143, 146, 147
Yucatec Maya 1, 348
Yuè (Cantonese) dialect of Chinese 136, 141, 147, 528
Yuezhi see Kushāna
Yugoslavia 310
Yuta-Nawan languages see Uto-Aztecan
Zakar-baal, king of Byblos 71
Zambia 507
Zanzibar 104-105
Zapata, Juan Ventura, Nahuatl dramatist 368
Zapotec 348, 352, 355
Zend-Avesta 31
Zhao kingdom 140
Zheng-he, Chinese admiral 147, 160-161, 339
Zhōng-guo (China) 167
Zhāu dynasty 118, 136
Zhuang 134, 141
Zhuang-zi, Chinese sage 150
Zimbabwe 507
Zirids 100
Zoroastrians 48, 96, 98, 141, 158, 537
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The first seed for this book came from John Coates of BRLSI, Bath’s cultural society; he invited me to give a lecture on language, as part of a millennium series on ‘Histories of the Future’. Only when I sat down to consider the histories of a few major languages, did I realise what a vast and important theme this opened up, yet one that was largely omitted from general knowledge.
Lola Bubbosh guided my first steps into the world of literary agents. There I was fortunate to find Natasha Fairweather, who could see how best to present my theme to publishers. Besides that, she pointed out other works which have enriched my own understanding of it. It is thanks to her, and my perceptive and conducive editors, Richard Johnson, Andrew Proctor and Terry Karten, that my first foray into publishing has been so straightforward. Colleagues of theirs have also amazed me in different ways—at A. P. Watt Linda Shaughnessy selling translation rights across the world before I had even written a word; and at HarperCollins Kate Hyde coping with unprecedented material coming from all sides, and the UK and US cover-designers Dominic Forbes and Roberto de Vicq. Others closer to home gave stern but helpful criticism on early drafts, my daughter Sophia, my father-in-law David Thesen, above all my wife, and prime literary consultant, Jane Dunn. The faults that they found were not—as they charitably thought—the result of my being too deep, but just of my being too opaque. At any rate, their efforts have made it much easier for others to see what I have been getting at all along.
As for intellectual debts while writing, I have been aided by scholars all over the world, who have given of their time and generously clarified details of languages in which they were far more learned than I: Ghil’ad Zuckermann, Geoffrey Khan (Akkadian and Aramaic); Rashad Ahmad Azami (Arabic); Hassan Ouzzate, Salem Mezhoud (Berber); Abdou Elimam (Punic); Christopher Child (Swahili); E. Bruce Brooks (Chinese); Harekrishna Satpathy, Radha Madhav Dash, Sanghamitra Mohanty, Prativa Manjari Ralt (Sanskrit), Ether Soselia (Georgian), María Stella González de Perez (Spanish and Portuguese), Frances Karttunen (Nahuatl), Aurolyn Luykx (Quechua), Emma Volodarskaya (Russian) and David Crystal (English). Andy Pawley and Darrell Tryon have sharpened my knowledge of languages in the Pacific, and Otto Zwartjes, Even Hovdhaugen and Françoise Douay of language studies in Europe and the Middle East. Above all, Peter T. Daniels, after benefiting me with his profound expertise in Aramaic and Middle-Eastern languages, has gone on to improve the whole text in a variety of ways both as attentive reader and punctilious typesetter, even unto cuneiform. Other readers who have corrected errors include Frank Abate, Bart Holland, Dan Hughes, Tim Nau, Noriko Akimoto Sugimori, Mark Turin and most of all Stephen Benham and Fran Karttunen. I am sincerely grateful to them all. But needless to say, I am still responsible for mistakes that remain.
The intellectual journey to complete this book has incurred other debts. Most recently, my debts are to Tony McEnery, who conjured up my trips to India in 2001; and to Jane Simpson and David Nash, who—after twenty-five years of shared insights about languages and theories—made it possible for me in 2002 to visit Australia. That