About this title: A celebration of the language and culture of Italy, "La Bella Lingua" is the story of how a language shaped a nation, told against the backdrop of one woman's personal quest to speak fluent Italian.
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Broadway Books
Date Published: 2009-05-12
ISBN-13:9780767927697ISBN:0767927699
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780767927697. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Broadway
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780767927697ISBN:0767927699
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Random House Inc
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780767927697ISBN:0767927699
Description: New. A celebration of the language and culture of Italy, "La Bella Lingua" is the story of how a language shaped a nation, told against the backdrop of one woman's personal quest to speak fluent Italian. read more
"I got interested in Italy primarily because of ancient Rome, but now I've become more interested in modern Italy and Italian. Some of this comes from working with Professor Madison Sowell (recently retired professor of Italian at BYU). I picked this book up at the bookstore at MIT. It was a lot of fun to read--just what I hoped for. It's an exploration of the history and development of the Italian language for the general reader. A little knowledge of Italian helps, but it isn't necessary. The author tells the story of how the Tuscan dialect (spoken around Florence) eventually became a national and a world language. If you're a "word person," you'll like this book."
"Pretty good, although it did get slow at some parts. Great chapters on Italian food, literature and art (personal favorite subject of mine). Pick it up if you are intrigued by Italian."
"this is a memoir of how one non-italian woman spent 25 years becoming fluent in italian...or that's what i expected. it's really a lot more about the development of the italian language & the way the language unified the disparate regions throughout the italian peninsula & brought them together as a country. how much of this is bright shiny revisionist history, i am unqualified to say. i didn't dislike this book, but it was very different from what i expected. just look at the cover. doesn't it look like it's going to be, like, only the italian part of eat pray love? with more of an emphasis on language than food & hot italian men? that was probably the marketing angle behind the cover design. a more truthful cover probably would have depicted dante huddled over some parchment, inventing the italian language.
not bad at all, but rather than a light-hearted romp through the hijinks of foreign language classes, prepare yourself for historical lingusitic lessons, scads of info on regional dialects, & more historical context, on everything from the sacking of ancient rome to the development of opera, than you can shake a stick at."
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