El árbol de la lengua

Do we use anglicisms because they sound more modern, because they are more concrete or to hide uncomfortable realities? Do bullying, mobbing, or minijob sound more harmless than "bullying," "bullying," or "precarious employment"? How much does the diminutive you use say about where you belong? If the ax is silent, why is it not useless? How much do color names teach us about our linguistic biases? Why do we all speak at least one dialect? Questions like these are asked and tried to be answered by Lola Pons in her new book The Tree of Language. The author defends that linguistic purity is as dangerous as racial purity, that the word has the ability to both light and extinguish the fire, that those who deceive with speech will be able to trick with the accounts and the laws and that seats are, by etymology, but, above all, for what it implies to be a politician, a seat to share. The language tree is a delicious and intelligent book aimed at those who do not confuse pedantry with linguistic richness, nor plain inaccuracy. Those who are not satisfied with the cliché that linguistic care is politically conservative and that linguistic creativity is politically progressive; and those who understand, in short, that the language that does not change will be the next owner of the cemetery.