A review by blairconrad
The Prodigal Tongue by Mark Abley

4.0

An interesting book – I like the discussions of the changes English has undergone and is undergoing and the way it’s affecting other languages. (And all the pop culture references I’m familiar with were fun.)
I especially enjoyed the section on Japan(ese), as I’ve recently returned from there and had been wondering about all the English-derived words that existed, “Really, they had no word for ‘milk’? Or ‘green’?”).
Unfortunately, I didn’t find that the book was formed in such a way as to provide a guided message – it was a little looser, almost (but not quite) an amorphous mass of information about language change. I think a more obvious structure or message would’ve pushed this from a good book to a great one.