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If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy the fascinating course "Language families of the world" by the excellent John McWhorter. He elaborates on many of the aspects mentioned in the article. (It's quite expensive though, unless you resort to a pirated version.)

https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/language-families-of-the...

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I express my dismay that you would even suggest using a pirated edition. Do you deny that McWhorter (and/or his publisher) is entitled to sell his work?

Don't.

Piracy has its awesome use-cases if not abused.

I grew up in Iran where we have access to very little. Had it not been for piratebay, I could not educate myself on so, so many topics. Even Udacity was blocked there cause their videos are hosted on Youtube!

So if someone reads HN and they need to pirate it, I'm pretty sure McWhorter would be okay, he's a chill dude.

I believe the problem lies with people who can buy it but decide to not; in which case it becomes abusive.

So I wouldn't express dismay just at the suggestion of piracy. It's more nuanced imho.

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