Dictionary of Languages

by Andrew Dalby

s/t: The Definitive Reference to More than 400 Languages
This new tome of tongues is one of the most remarkable general reference works of the century. From Abkhaz and Abaza (300,000 speakers in Georgia, Turkey, and Russia) to Zulu (8,800,000 speakers in South Africa and Lesotho), Dalby comprehensively details more than 400 languages (living and dead), arranged A-to-Z for easy access, and delving into the political, social, and historical background of each. In addition, more than 200 maps indicate where the languages are spoken today, while sidebars show alphabets, numerals, and anecdotes.

If you've got even a passing interest in linguistics, this work of erudition is addictively browsable. In the entry on Greek is an insert on the dialect of Tsakonian. Spoken only in an inaccessible mountain district in the Peloponnese, it's a direct descendant of the ancient Greek Doric dialect. And Fulani is spoken by some 15,000,000 individuals in West Africa, thanks to the migrant, pastoral lifestyle of the Fulani people, which spread the language across the Western Sudan such that it is now a national language in Guinea, Niger, and Mali. The section on Australian languages notes that when Europeans first began to explore the continent, there were about 300 languages spoken by the people who lived there, with up to 12 existing on the island of Tasmania alone. In addition, Dalby explains "mother-in-law languages," separate speech registers that most Australian tongues have, with different vocabulary and sometimes even different sound patterns, for use in the presence of a taboo relative, such as a man's mother-in-law.

Honorary Librarian at the Institute of Linguists and a regular contributor to their journal The Linguist, Andrew Dalby makes it both easy and inviting to learn about the languages of the world. --Stephanie Gold

Genres: Reference, Language, Linguistics, Nonfiction, History, Dictionaries

800 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Andrew Dalby (born Liverpool, 1947) is an English linguist, translator and historian who most often writes about food history.

Dalby studied at the Bristol Grammar School, where he learned some Latin, French and Greek; then at the University of Cambridge. There he studied Latin and Greek at first, afterwards Romance languages and linguistics. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1970. Dalby then worked for fifteen years at Cambridge University Library, eventually specializing in Southern Asia. He gained familiarity with some other languages because of his work there, where he had to work with foreign serials and afterwards with South and Southeast Asian materials. In 1982 and 1983 he collaborated with Sao Saimong in cataloguing the Scott Collection of manuscripts and documents from Burma (especially the Shan States) and Indochina; He was later to publish a short biography of the colonial civil servant and explorer J. G. Scott, who formed the collection.[1] To help him with this task, he took classes in Cambridge again in Sanskrit, Hindi and Pali and in London in Burmese and Thai.

Reviews

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I checked this book out looking for some kind of reference guide that would help me understand the breadth of difference between languages in the world. I know enough of European languages, Russian, and Japanese to understand what they have in common (subjects, predicates, direct objects, adjectives, conjunctions, adverbs, tenses, syllables, etc...) and what they don't (word meaning, word order, information carried in suffixes, categories, gender, etc...) but I don't have a good feeling for how languages outside that range vary. Unfortunately, that wasn't provided in this book. It gave a little background on the history of the speakers of a language, the numbers from one to ten, and a few anecdotes about each language, but nothing like the kind of systematic description I was looking for.
The reason I am looking is that I don't want to artificially restrict the way my robotic systems reason based on representing meanings of words in an English-centric way. What kinds of concepts are out there that would require many words to get across in English? What kinds of alien tenses and categories are used in the languages of the Amazon basin, Tahiti, or New Zealand? I guess I can probably find something online, but I don't really know what I'm looking for exactly.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

We read about one language per week and zoomed through this in a mere 6.5 years :) Excellent introduction to some of the many languages out there. Many fascinating details are included along the way. I always enjoy discovering words that were borrowed from other languages. Plus it's encouraging to see how much influence missionaries over the centuries have had in helping develop written language, grammars, etc. Great stuff!

[TyLean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book (and gift idea) for anyone who is fascinated by languages. Even though it's more meant to be a reference book, I read it cover to cover and found it very enjoyable and digestible as well. There are two things that I would love to see in future editions:

#1 There is no entry for any of the sign languages or sign language in general (though they are mentioned in the glossary).

#2 The book is arranged alphabetically, which would be one's assumption for someone who is using it as a reference book... however, I think it would be much better if it was broken down into language families instead. I ended up skipping around and marking the entries I read rather than reading it in a linear fashion, but I did just start with A and read the first hundred pages in order. This made some of the entries more difficult to appreciate until I got further into the book and read about their language families.

[Louise Chambers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is very interesting. I wish the maps were better, though. And I wonder what language and political changes the 2010 update would contain or lose.

I don't think this is dry, but I'm kind of a language geek. This has history and culture as well. The author did his best to describe the history and growth of each language group. There is even a bit about how liguists are trying to trace the migration of homo sapiens from Africa using language groups and changes.

[Saleris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. It's not truly comprehensive, but if you want a comparative book on the major languages, It fits the bill. Some of the pages have examples of the languages - it would have been nice if that was a feature of all of them.

[Che-hi]

one of my favorite books