Spoken Here

Shortlisted for the Pearson Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize in 2004. One of the most critically-acclaimed non-fiction titles of 2004, both fascinating and moving, this is award-winning journalist Mark Abley's story of his travels to visit the world's dying and threatened languages and the people who speak them.

Riveting... learned, thought-provoking, bouncing with ideas, yet funny and wry... Inspiring

A fascinating and addictive book. It is more than that: it is a lucid, often eloquent journey through the crumbling linguistic foundations of humanity

Mark Abley, a winner of Canada's National Newspaper Award, is the author of nine critically-acclaimed books, ranging from children's fiction to poetry, via journalistic non-fiction. He has written for the TLS, the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Montreal Gazette, amongst other publications. Winning a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005 inspired his 2008 book The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English. He lives in Montréal and speaks English, French, and a little Welsh.

Half the world's languages are threatened with extinction over the next century, as English and the rest of the world's top twenty languages drive all before them. What ways of looking at the world will die along with them, what cultural riches, what experiences, histories and memories? And how does it feel to be one of the last remaining speakers of a language that is on its way to extinction? What chance is there of saving any of these languages? Is it feasible in the long term or even worthwhile? 
 
Mark Abley's journeys among the speakers of languages at the brink takes him to aboriginal Australia (where he meets the last surviving fluent male speaker of Mati Ke, who cannot speak to the only other fluent speaker, as she is his sister and in their culture it is forbidden to speak to siblings once one has reached puberty) and to American Indian reservations, as well as to places where the languages are fighting back - Wales, the Faeroe islands, the Isle of Man - whilst also charting the triumphant return of Hebrew.

Mark Abley

[A] fascinating account of developing English.

In The Prodigal Tongue, Mark Abley investigates the deep flux in contemporary English... Attuned to pop culture as well as to scholarship...it stylishly covers a large amount of ground, from Lee Kuan Yew to YouTube, via Spike Lee and Ice Cube... Joyous - a paean to the dynamic energies of English.

The Prodigal Tongue takes the reader on an informative and frequently entertaining journey.

[A] witty and well-documented treatise on the ways -- some of them alarming -- in which the English language is changing

As a poet, journalist, editor, intrepid traveller, scholar and endlessly curious spirit, Abley brings an appropriately eclectic perspective to the subject. ... Writing as an inquisitive, bemused Everyman, Abley leads us on a lively intellectual journey through uncharted territory, his comfort in the zone of ambiguity making him the ideal travel guide

Attuned to pop culture as well as to scholarship, Abley proves a deft social anthropologist

Dispatches from the Future of English

Mark Abley takes the reader on a world-wide trip like no other - from Singapore to Japan, Oxford to Los Angeles, through the web and even back in time. As much a travel book as a linguistic study, this book goes beyond grammar and vocabulary; more importantly, this book is about the people of the world. 
 
On his travels Abley encounters bloggers, translators, novelists, therapists, dictionary makers, hip-hop performers and web-savvy teenagers. He talks to a married couple who were passionately corresponding online before they met in 'meatspace.' And he listens to teenagers, puzzling out the words they coin in chat rooms and virtual worlds. 
 
Lively, evocative, passionate and hilarious, this is a book for everyone who cherishes the words we use.

The Prodigal Tongue

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Mark Abley

Praise for The Prodigal Tongue

[A] fascinating account of developing English.

In The Prodigal Tongue, Mark Abley investigates the deep flux in contemporary English... Attuned to pop culture as well as to scholarship...it stylishly covers a large amount of ground, from Lee Kuan Yew to Y ...

The Prodigal Tongue takes the reader on an informative and frequently entertaining journey.

[A] fascinating account of developing English.

In The Prodigal Tongue, Mark Abley investigates the deep flux in contemporary English... Attuned to pop culture as well as to scholarship...it stylishly covers a large amount of ground, from Lee Kuan Yew to Y ...

The Prodigal Tongue takes the reader on an informative and frequently entertaining journey.

[A] fascinating account of developing English.

In The Prodigal Tongue, Mark Abley investigates the deep flux in contemporary English... Attuned to pop culture as well as to scholarship...it stylishly covers a large amount of ground, from Lee Kuan Yew to Y ...

The Prodigal Tongue takes the reader on an informative and frequently entertaining journey.

Books by Mark Abley

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