"Lingo takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of sixty European languages and dialects, sharing quirky moments from their histories and exploring their commonalities and differences ... Lingo takes us into the remote mountain villages of Switzerland, where Romansh is still the favored tongue; to formerly Soviet Belarus, a country whose language was Russified by the Bolsheviks; to Sweden, where up until the 1960s polite speaking conventions required that one never use the word 'you' in conversation"--Jacket flap.

Originally published: London : Profile Books, 2014. Based on the author's Taaltoerisme : feiten en verhalen over 53 Europese talen. Map on endpapers.

What Europeans speak -- Next of tongue : Languages and their families -- Past perfect discontinuous : Languages and their history -- War and peace : Languages and politics -- Werds, wirds, wurds ... : Written and spoken -- Nuts and bolts : Languages and their vocabulary -- Talking by the book : Languages and their grammar -- Intensive care : Languages on the brink and beyond -- Movers and shakers : Linguists who left their mark -- Warts and all : Linguistic portrait studies.