With this book, Ostler provides a strong argument against the label 'dead language' so often assigned to Latin. However, the title, 'Ad Infinitum,' refers not to this, but to his thesis that the Latin-speaking world was unconscious of its own limits, looking always back to its centre, rather than outwards.
Rating
(63) · In stock
In his erudite and entertaining "biography," Nicholas Ostler shows how and why Latin survived and thrived even as its creators and other languages failed.
Dec 8, 2007 · In Ad Infinitum, Nicholas Ostler proves a guide of fantastic erudition to a not-so-dead language. Charlotte Higgins enjoys the tour.
Rating
(63) · In stock
In 'Ad Infinitum', Nicholas Ostler examines the reasons why Latin made such a long-lasting impact on language, and how it managed to stay alive for two ...
Among many engaging things in this masterly book, Nicholas Ostler explains this connection between the ancient, dead language of Latin and the living, changing ...
Nicholas Ostler's Ad Infinitum is the story of Latin, and like the story of language itself, it's really the story of people — what they did, what they dreamed, ...
Nov 1, 2007 · The cultural, religious and scholastic history of the Latin language—2,500 years of a paradise won and lost. Polyglot Ostler—he possesses a ...
Recommendations from our site. “It's a brilliant book explaining how and why Latin became the European language.” Read more...
Ad Infinitum is a continuation of Nicholas Ostler's work in Empires of the Word, in which he developed the field of "language dynamics", a comparison of the ...
Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin, by Nicholas Ostler, Walker, $27.95. Latin, like contemporary poetry, is subject to a certain amount of boosterism.