G.'s book aims to give readers who do not know the languages a feeling for Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, Sanskrit, Old Irish and Hebrew among others. He devotes a chapter to each, outlining its unique features and those it shares with its forebears, siblings and descendants. He illustrates each language by carefully analysing three or four well-known passages that a general reader can relate to.

His Greek chapter starts with a survey of phonology and provides a good introduction to the concepts of declension and conjugation, applicable also to the other inflected languages that follow. He includes a nice section on orality and what he calls formulas (not formulae?), the standardised expressions like ‘swift-footed Achilles’ that lend the ancient epics so much of their sonic property. For his sample Greek texts, he uses the famous opening lines of the Iliad (1.1‒7) and the equally famous scene of the men finding Achilles in his camp (9.186–9). He follows this up with rather too much analysis of a passage from Thucydides and even more from the apostle Paul.

The second chapter asks why Latin has prevailed as the classical language ‘par excellence’ and seeks to show ‘how Latin does things in ways that English typically doesn't’ (p. 58). He begins with a neat history of the development of the language. His main focus is on the concision of Latin that is enabled by nominal case endings. He uses examples of common phrases like mutatis mutandis, but he does tend to labour his points. For textual examples he draws on Lucretius, Horace and Tacitus.

At this point I noted that, if you know this subject matter, you may want to skim it, but if you do not know it, then you will probably skim it as well. Much of the focus of this section is on the difficulty of translation, but did we really need two and a half pages on how to deal with a principio? To be fair, there are many delightful titbits along the way. In Benjamin Britten's Turn of the Screw ‘Mālō₁ mālō₂ mălō₃ mălō₄’ is glossed as ‘I-would-rather-be₁ in-an-apple-tree₂ than-a-naughty-boy₃ in-adversity₄’ (p. 77).

The chapter on Old English and Germanic Languages also opens with a good question: What makes a Germanic language Germanic? The short answer is Grimm's Law and umlaut. The long answer is five more pages on umlaut. One would have to be a serious historical linguistic nerd to require this much detail. The chapter includes a good section on the regular sound changes from Proto-Indo-European to its daughters and granddaughters. I never knew that High German was high because of its geography, rather than its social status. I also enjoyed G.'s general playfulness, even if he is sometimes overly thorough. Imagining how one Germanic language might evolve, he suggests for the future tense of aising ‘I sing’ → ailsing ‘I'll sing’, yusing → yulsing, wising → wilsing, and third singular, shisingz → shilsing (p. 111). He illustrates Old English with a wonderful passage from Beowulf.

The Sanskrit chapter should perhaps have followed the Greek and Latin chapters, as it begins with a good comparison between these three languages. He asks, ‘What makes Sanskrit look like Sanskrit?’ Again, one short answer is the general ‘downward drift’ of vowels and the predominance of short a. Another feature is the retention of aspirated consonants, which cause students so much trouble. He also gives an excellent introduction to sandhi, the bane of many Sanskrit learners. (Tip: check the etymology of bane, p. 151.) He illustrates Vedic (not Classical Sanskrit) with ṚV 1.1, the famous hymn to Agni. I usually expect to find mistakes in the Sanskrit of general introductions of this kind, but this one is excellent. One tiny slip: a space is missing between nāmāni and guhyā in the Devanāgarī on page 153. Vishnu (not Viṣṇu?) is not a particularly Vedic god. His time is later.

G.'s chapter on Old Irish and Welsh has everything you could possibly need to know about lenition (such as the change from stops like p, t and c to fricatives like ph, th and ch) and rather a lot that the average lay reader does not need to know. For me the chief pleasure in this chapter was discovering the fact that Old Irish prepositions are conjugated – yes, conjugated – like verbs. I also enjoyed the overview of Welsh.

To illustrate how all these Indo-European languages ‘work’ in similar ways, G. concludes with a chapter on Hebrew, the Semitic language that ‘works’ in quite different ways. As a reader with little or no exposure to Hebrew, this was in some ways the most rewarding chapter for me. Here, as in many places elsewhere, G. makes interesting points from material we all recognise, like mazel tov and mitzvah, and illustrates Hebrew with some well-known Biblical passages. The book concludes with a promising list of sources for readers who want to learn more about these languages, and a good index, but regrettably, no bibliography.

Who is this book for? The style is light and breezy, and is generally easy to follow, but G. tends to dwell in great depth on highly specialised points. There is something for everyone, but it is difficult to imagine that many readers will get equal pleasure from six pages on the waw-conservative in Hebrew and the quirky nasalisation of Old Irish. I sense a great enthusiast at work. G. sounds like an inspiring teacher, and in fact, the book sometimes reads like a series of lectures. It is clear that G. loves his material, but I am not sure he has ‘read the room’. My recommendation would be to buy the book, read the sections that are of interest, but do not feel too guilty about skipping the bits that are not. It would be good holiday reading for most classicists and linguists, and the relevant chapters would also be of interest to their second- and third-year students.

My only real quibble is with the book's title. G. admits that the d-word inflicts ‘negative publicity’ (p. 157). I recognise the expediency of catchiness and good marketing, but I have spent my career teaching Sanskrit as a living language, one that is spoken, sung, chanted and composed every day (if you know where to look). I physically wither whenever I hear the d-word applied to this and other classical languages. I am sure my European classicist colleagues feel the same way, not to mention 861,700 Welshmen and -women and 9 million speakers of Hebrew.