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Observer review: Empires of the Word by Nicholas Ostler | Review | The Observer |
 | | Ostler is clearly carrying a torch for Sanskrit, perhaps the most self-conscious language which the world has ever produced. |
| | Ostler, however, makes a provocative case that it actually builds on 19th-century British colonialism and is also strongly related to Britain's role in Europe, though the reasons why English has become the major working language of the EU may in itself have to do with the existence, offstage, of America. |
| | Ostler is looking for universal theories of why languages succeed, but what the stories boil down to is: this is what happened. |
| observer.guardian.co.uk /review/story/0,6903,1436278,00.html (976 words) |
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