Proto, by Laura Spinney, has the has the provocative subtitle How One Ancient Language Went Global. What went global wasn’t one language but the many different languages that the first language gave birth to. This is a book for the ordinary reader who is interested in how speech as different as English and Russian and Iranian and Sanskrit came from one long-ago language.
For people living in Massachusetts April 19th is more than the day of the Boston Marathon, it’s Patriots Day — the day and date in 1775 when the British army, stationed in Boston, sent a force across the Charles River in the dark of night, planning a surprise march to Lexington to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and from there to Concord to seize gunpowder and other supplies stored by the disaffected citizenry.