The World's Major Languages features over 50 of the world's languages and language families. This revised edition includes updated bibliographies for each chapter and up-to-date census figures. The featured languages have been chosen based on the number of speakers, their role as official languages and their cultural and historical importance. Each language is looked at in depth, and the chapters provide information on both grammatical features and on salient features of the language's history and cultural role. The World’s Major Languages is an accessible and essential reference work for linguists.

This innovative introduction outlines the structure and distribution of the world’s languages, charting their evolution over the past 200,000 years. Balances linguistic analysis with socio-historical and political context, offering a cohesive picture of the relationship between language and society Provides an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of language by drawing not only on the diverse fields of linguistics (structural, linguist anthropology, historical, sociolinguistics), but also on history, biology, genetics, sociology, and more Includes nine detailed language profiles on Kurdish, Arabic, Tibetan, Hawaiian, Vietnamese, Tamil, !Xóõ (Taa), Mongolian, and Quiché A companion website offers a host of supplementary materials including, sound files, further exercises, and detailed introductory information for students new to linguistics

Before the first appearance of the Atlas of the World's Languages in 1993, all the world's languages had never been accurately and completely mapped. The Atlas depicts the location of every known living language, including languages on the point of extinction. This fully revised edition of the Atlas offers: up-to-date research, some from fieldwork in early 2006 a general linguistic history of each section an overview of the genetic relations of the languages in each section statistical and sociolinguistic information a large number of new or completely updated maps further reading and a bibliography for each section a cross-referenced language index of over 6,000 languages. Presenting contributions from international scholars, covering over 6,000 languages and containing over 150 full-colour maps, the Atlas of the World's Languages is the definitive reference resource for every linguistic and reference library.

Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World is an authoritative single-volume reference resource comprehensively describing the major languages and language families of the world. It will provide full descriptions of the phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax of the world's major languages, giving insights into their structure, history and development, sounds, meaning, structure, and language family, thereby both highlighting their diversity for comparative study, and contextualizing them according to their genetic relationships and regional distribution.Based on the highly acclaimed and award-winning Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, this volume will provide an edited collection of almost 400 articles throughout which a representative subset of the world's major languages are unfolded and explained in up-to-date terminology and authoritative interpretation, by the leading scholars in linguistics. In highlighting the diversity of the world's languages — from the thriving to the endangered and extinct — this work will be the first point of call to any language expert interested in this huge area. No other single volume will match the extent of language coverage or the authority of the contributors of Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. - Extraordinary breadth of coverage: a comprehensive selection of just under 400 articles covering the world's major languages, language families, and classification structures, issues and dispute - Peerless quality: based on 20 years of academic development on two editions of the leading reference resource in linguistics, Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics - Unique authorship: 350 of the world's leading experts brought together for one purpose - Exceptional editorial selection, review and validation process: Keith Brown and Sarah Ogilvie act as first-tier guarantors for article quality and coverage - Compact and affordable: one-volume format makes this suitable for personal study at any institution interested in areal, descriptive, or comparative language study - and at a fraction of the cost of the full encyclopedia

A practical guide to cataloging materials in languages from all parts of the world. Some of the cataloging methods covered include using archives and manuscript control formats to provide access to a large collection of Spanish materials, using the PA schedule for cataloging the literature of classical antiquity, the advantages and disadvantages of vernacular versus transliterated Hebrew, and cooperative cataloging from the point of view of a Southeast Asian biographer. Simultaneously published as Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, v.17, nos.1/2. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Provides linguistic descriptions of a selected assortment of languages from renowned scholars, as well as historical and cultural information for each language.

This third edition of Compendium of the World’s Languages has been thoroughly revised to provide up-to-date and accurate descriptions of a wide selection of natural language systems. All cultural and historical notes as well as statistical data have been checked, updated and in many cases expanded. Presenting an even broader range of languages and language families, including new coverage of Australian aboriginal languages and expanded treatment of North American and African languages, this new edition offers a total of 342 entries over nearly 2000 pages. Key features include: Complete rewriting, systematization and regularisation of the phonology sections Provision of IPA symbol grids arranged by articulatory feature and by alphabetic resemblance to facilitate use of the new phonology sections Expansion of morphology descriptions for most major languages Provision of new illustrative text samples Addition of a glossary of technical terms and an expanded bibliography Comparative tables of the numerals 1-10 in a representative range of languages, and also grouped by family Drawing upon a wealth of recent developments and research in language typology and broadened availability of descriptive data, this new incarnation of George Campbell’s astounding Compendium brings a much-loved survey emphatically into the twenty-first century for a new generation of readers. Scholarly, comprehensive and highly accessible, Compendium of the World’s Languages remains the ideal reference for all interested linguists and professionals alike.

Introduces readers to the rich diversity of human languages, familiarizing them with the variety of languages around the world.

This bold and accessible study of human languages and communication explores issues which are at the forefront of today's globalized society. The human species is divided into more than five thousand language groups that do not understand each other. And yet these groups constitute one coherent world language system, connected by multilingual speakers in a surprisingly powerful way. The chances of a language thriving depend on its position in the system. There are thousands of small, peripheral languages, each connected to one of a hundred central languages. The entire system is held together by one global language: English. A language is a 'hypercollective' good: the more speakers it has, the higher its communication value for each one of them. Thus, when people think that a language is gaining new speakers, that in itself is a reason for them to want to learn it too. That is why, in an age of globalization, only a few languages remain for transnational communication and these often prevail even in national societies. This important book discusses a number of specific constellations in detail: India, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa and the European Union. De Swaan concludes by providing a sober but illuminating view of language policy in multilingual societies. This book will be essential reading for those studying sociology, communication studies and linguistics.