Nicholas ostlers empires of the word is the first history of the worlds great tongues gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it from the uncanny resilience of chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self regard of greek and to the struggles that gave birth to . Nicholas ostlers empires of the word is the first history of the worlds great tongues gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it from the uncanny resilience of chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self regard of greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern europe these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored as are . Empires of the word a language history of the world item preview remove circle share or embed this item embed embed empires of the word a language history of the world by ostler nicholas publication date 2005 topics language and languages historical linguistics publisher. The story of the world in the last five thousand years is above all the story of its languages some shared language is what binds any community together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it yet the history of the worlds great languages has been very little told empires of the word by the wide ranging linguist nicholas ostler is the first to bring