I'm currently clearing out all of the books that were published in 2019-20 from my title feedback view!

I received a copy of Don't Believe a Word from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Don't Believe a Word is a perfect book for language-nerds and history buffs. I found the first few pages to be a bit academic and stuffy, but then I surprised myself by laughing out loud! The author presents many interesting ideas about language and how it reflects changes (and resistance to change) in society.

My electronic galley was nearly impossible to read due to the formatting of footnotes, so I did not finish the book and will not be posting a formal review online. It was hard to figure out which parts were footnotes and which were text, and by the time I read a very long footnote I could not find my way back to the text.

Of the roughly half of the book I was able to get through, some parts were absolutely fascinating and others were quite dry and long-winded. I was intrigued by NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) due to never having heard of it before. I think the author was aiming for a popular audience and could have made the topics addressed much more brief and done a better job at being accessible for the intended reader.

As an amateur linguistic enthusiast, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I learned a lot of new theories about language development and Mr. Shariatmadari presents them in such a delightful and informative way.

I hate to say it, but this book was frankly a bit boring and nothing really new. Shariatmadari lays out nine myths relating to language and linguistics and goes to great, verbose lengths to disprove them:

1. Language is going to the dogs
2. A word's origin is its true meaning
3. I control what comes out of my mouth
4. We can't talk to animals
5. You can't translate this word
6. Italian is a language
7. What you say is what you mean
8. Some languages are better than others
9. Language is an instinct.

I found two of these chapters interesting - the one on the Internet's favorite "untranslatable" words in other languages and the one arguing that Italian is not a language, but rather comprised of several dialects and is itself a dialect of other languages in the area. I found these to be something like fun(-ish) dinner party conversation, although you run the risk of being that annoying person in the room dead set on proving everyone wrong. The other chapters were nothing very interesting or new to me, and I'm a person who rather likes learning about linguistics and the history of language. I don't even find most of these to be commonly-held beliefs about language that I've encountered; I wouldn't really put up a fight to around half of his "myths."

Many of these chapters were also far too long to enjoy - the book is about 330 pages, but could have easily been cut down by 30-50% if you remove all of the somewhat random stories and repetitive points.

Thank you to W.W. Norton for the ARC via Netgalley.