Contributors Preface 1.The Role of the Language Myth in the Western Cultural Tradition 2.The Language Myth and Historical Linguistics 3. The Language Myth and Standard English 4.The Language Myth and Linguistics Humanised 5. The Mythical, The Non-Mythical and Representation in Linguistics 6. Folk Psychology and The Language Myth: What would the Integrationists say? 7. The Language Myth and the Race Myth: Evil Twins of Modern Identity Politics? 8.The Language Myth and Mathematical Notation as a Language of Nature 9. The Language Myth and The Law 10. The Language Myth and Western Art 12. The Language Myth, Schopenhauer and Music Index

The basic claim of this book is that for 2000 years and more the western tradition has relied on two very dubious assumptions about human communication: that each national language is a unique code and that linguistic communication consists in the utilization of such codes to transfer messages from mind to mind.