『ピダハン』のダニエル・L・エヴェレットを父に持ち、自身も言語人類学者として『数の発明』が話題を呼んだケイレブ・エヴェレットの待望の新著は、世界中の無数の言語の存在は思考の差異に対応しているのかというウォーフ以来の数々の言語学者を熱くさせてきたテーマに挑む。Caleb Everett takes readers around the globe, explaining what linguistic diversity tells us about human culture, overturning conventional wisdom along the way. Why do some cultures talk anthropocentrically about things being to one's "left" or "right," while others use geocentric words like "east" and "west"? What is the connection between what we eat and the sounds we make? This book answers these and other questions, yielding profound insights into the fundamentals of human communication and experience.