Linguistics now extinct but in a piece of parchment
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Proto
Laura Spinney (Harpercollins (United Kingdom) Bloomsbury Publishing (USA, May 13))
A new book by Laura Spinney is very temptingly called ProtoThe question began: what proto-what? Prototype, the earliest version of a technology? Protoplasma, the things of our cells? Or even Protople, a small piece of space rock with a great future ahead?
The answer, in fact, is already above those words: protoindoeuropeo. This is the great original language from which English derives, among many other languages, both living and dead. As Spinney says: “Almost every second person in …
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