Introduce young readers to the most interesting aspects of languages, how they evolve and change over time.

Humans' use of language is one of our distinguishing features. Language allows us to communicate what we think, what we want, what we feel and what we have learnt. Some 100,000 years ago, humans began speaking. Since then, we have developed nearly 7000 languages. Languages are living things; they evolve and change over time. They even travel! People carry their language with them and spread it. Large language families even have their own family trees, such as Spanish, French, English. Different languages can be mixed and combined to create new languages with similar words, pronunciation and grammar rules. Languages can even become extinct if they are not shared and learnt by each new generation. Spoken languages are not the only way we communicate. Sign language, braille, symbols, music, art, computer codes - humans have invented numerous ways of communicating. Sharing feelings, thoughts and ideas through the power of language is an essential part of being human.

About the Author
I was born in a small village in Leicestershire on a snowy winters morning in the year of '85. Ever since I have known, I have always loved to draw. I was told that from a young age, I used to always put eyelashes on the characters I drew. This became one of my distinct quirks and has stuck with me ever since! As a child, I used to create paper houses and shops and I would play for hours in these imaginary worlds, creating little stories and acting them out. I would say this is where my love for illustration started, and from then I continued to study the 'arts' at school and went on to graduate at Loughborough University with a degree in Illustration. I work from home, in a lovely house with a beautiful spacious garden. The garden is full of greenery and flowers and the birds are always singing. We have two bunny rabbits named Hubert and Esme, they are quite some characters! I am fascinated with people and animals and turning them into characters... I love to add patterns and details to clothing, add fun hairstyles, hats, glasses and lots of other accessories! Everything always starts off as a sketch and then I scan in the sketches and painted textures and work in Photoshop to add colour to my illustrations.


Book Information
ISBN 9780241617144
Author Gill Budgell
Format Hardback
Page Count 48
Imprint DK Children
Publisher Dorling Kindersley Ltd
Weight(grams) 483g
Dimensions(mm) 246mm * 246mm * 10mm