Read Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World Online
Authors: Nicholas Ostler
Tags: #History, #Language, #Linguistics, #Nonfiction, #V5
Trajan, Roman emperor 259
n
, 310
Treaties
Georgievsk 434
Nerchinsk 427
Paris 415, 494
Rastatt 411
St-Clair-sur-Epte 460
Tordesillas (Tardesilhas) 336-337, 385, 392
Utrecht 414
n
Waitangi 506
Trevisa, John de 467, 468, 471
Triadon
,
Coptic
poem 134
Triads of Ireland
, The (Meyer) 272
Trogodyte
131, 232
Tsunataro, Aoyagi, Japanese political analyst 453
Tuareg
101
Tunebo
363
Tungus languages
21, 138, 140, 142, 143
Tunisia 93, 97
Tupí-Guaraní languages
362, 363
Tupinambá
349-350, 363, 393, 571
n
15
Turkic languages
105-108, 138, 140, 141, 212, 219, 223
n
, 306
n
, 425, 427, 435, 443
n
, 514, 528
n
possible lingua franca 531, 547
runic alphabet 106
scripts 106
Turkmenistan 437, 443
n
Turks
advance across Anatolia/Aegean 264
and
Arabic
101
Christian Orthodoxy 264, 269-270
Turkish conquests 263-265, 528
n
Turkish
21, 97
n
, 105
n
, 108, 163, 263, 547, 554
Tyndale, William 473
Tyre 44, 68
n
, 71, 73, 75, 250
Tz’utujil
372
Uganda 105, 508
Ugarit 41, 60
n
, 62, 71, 128
Ugaritic
70, 71, 73
Uighur
21, 97
n
, 107, 142
script 106
Ukraine 425, 429, 431-432, 439, 443
Ulpian, Roman lawyer 299
’Umar ibn al-Khattab, Arab critic 94
Umbrian
242
United East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie -VOC) 397, 400
n
, 401-102, 457, 539
United Kingdom, population 153
n
United States Magazine
486
Ur 40, 67
Uralian/Uralic area to Russia’s North-East 423, 432
Uralic languages
429
Urartu 31, 33, 41, 43, 46-47, 50, 65
Urdu
12, 178, 223, 497-498, 503, 528-530;
see also
Hindi
Urfa 87, 247
Uruk 54
US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands 454
n
USA
African American Vernacular English (AAVE)
514
American Revolution 486-487
annexation of states 488, 494-495, 509-510
and
Australian English
514
n
and China 147
demographics 531
economy 379
General American
pronunciation 81, 514
Hispanic population 378
n
immigration 535
indigenous population 488-490
influence of 514-515
population 153
n
and
Spanish
378
spread of
English
489, 549, 577
n
9
Uto-Aztecan languages
351
Uwa
see
Tunebo
Uzbekistan 423
n
, 437, 443
n
, 547
Valentijn, François, Dutch writer 401
Valera, Father Blas, Spanish priest in Peru 345, 357-358, 360, 365
Valla, Lorenzo, Italian humanist 27
Valverde, Fray Vicente, Spanish friar 342
Vandals 20, 275, 305, 307, 309, 332
n
, 400
Vanuatu 508
Varangians
see
Vikings
Veda 175
Vega, Garcilaso de la, Peruvian writer 342-343, 344-345, 356, 360
Vega, Lope de, Spanish dramatist 344
Venerable Bede, English monk 31
n
Veneti 280-281, 290, 309, 423
see also
Slavs
Vercingetorix 301
Vergil, Roman poet 253
Vieira, Father Antonio, Portuguese priest 392
Vietnam 46
n
, 138, 146, 162, 204-205, 207, 529
Portuguese trading posts 387
Union indochinoise
417
Vietnamese
145
n
, 528
Quôc-ngu (’National Language’, romanized script) 414
n
Sino-Vietnamese
162-163
Vikings 312, 425, 426
n
, 447
n
, 460
Visigoths 101
n
, 275, 305-307, 310
Vlach nomads 310
VOC
see
United East India Company
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), French writer 410
Vulgate bible
294
Wace, Robert 459
Wade-Giles romanization of Chinese 115
n
Waiting for the Barbarians
(Kavafis) 228
Wales
and Norman invasions 463, 518
plague 313
Welsh
93, 270
n
, 274, 300, 303, 464, 473
n
, 517
Walter of Coventry, English writer 463
War and Peace
(Tolstoy) 410
Washington, George, US President 498
Wèi dynasty 140
see
Tabgach
Wellesley, Richard, British governor-general of Bengal 498
Wends 430
n
Wemdly, Georg Henrik, translator of Bible into Malay 402
West Asia 46-49
West India Company (Westindische Compagnie—WIC) 397-398, 493
Whitman, Walt, American poet 474
n
Wilberforce, William, British campaigner 501
William the Bastard (the Conqueror), Norman king of England 319, 460
Williams, Roger, British linguist 480-481, 484-485
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Austrian philosopher 13, 549
Women’s speech 51-53
World Almanac 378
Writing
accounting tallies 154
alphabetic script 63-64, 67
capitals, upper- vs lower-case 316
n
cuneiform 11
n
, 32, 37, 40, 42, 46, 50, 51, 54-55, 57, 61-63, 72
n
, 512
earliest known 34, 110
hieroglyphs 11
n
, 34, 113-116, 121, 124-125, 128, 132-133, 154-158, 173
ideographic systems, character of 46
n
, 54, 154-158
Japanese
kana
syllabary 116
logograms 37, 62
materials 63, 67, 78, 83, 97, 135
n
pictograms 51, 56, 113-116, 132, 135, 156, 157
scribes 67
shorthand symbols 46
syllabary 47, 56, 154, 156
Wu, Chinese empress 151
n
, 169
Wu Zong, Chinese emperor 120
Wyclif, John, English translator 473
Wyndham, Thomas, English traveller 388
Xerxes, king of Persia 68, 85
Xià dynasty 118
Xibo dialect of Manchu
144
Xiāngnú 106, 139-140, 144, 153, 219
Xuan-Zang, Chinese pilgrim 120, 138
n
, 159, 193-194, 198, 221
Yaghnobi
108
Yale romanization of Chinese 115
n
, 497
n
Yan kingdom 140
Yi
134, 145
n
Yi Jing, Chinese pilgrim 193-194, 201
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