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The initial chapters of this book are fascinating. They explain the rules of language sound - phonology - how one sound changes to another over time. Since these 'rules' are consistent within a language, it is possible to work backwards from a present sound to one that might have existed. If many languages have similar words meaning the same thing, then it should be possible using these phonological rules to reconstruct the original word in Proto-Indo-European although that language was in the p
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The first several chapters, and the last several chapters are both excellent. The middle bogs down a bit. I'm interested in archaeology, but my eyes were crossing while trying to read some of the middle portion. Very interesting, however.
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That was a slog. It was actually pretty good especially the further it strayed from archaeology. Many of the later chapters were just filled with pottery in gravesites. The sections more on language were pretty technical but fascinating. It's kind of a complicated argument - trying to discover the origin of the Indo-European language - and the combination of language and archaeology and dna and geography and climate studies. All in all a pretty good read that I probably only got at most 60% out
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Yes, still reading it in bits and pieces. Really good, but in small amounts at a time.
May 15, 2009
AER
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Aug 08, 2012
Persephone
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Rebecca Huston
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Abhishek
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Paola
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Bosh
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Scott
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Gogeyi
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Franziska Koeppen
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Billy Waldie
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Britt Aamodt
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Sterling
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