A new type of dictionary. An indispensable reference for language learners within the Indo-European language family, as well as for any who love words and want to deepen their understanding of English, or any of these other languages.This dictionary records words from 32 languages, covering eight of the nine living branches of the Indo-European language 'tree'. These languages are English, Old English, Frisian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Norse, Welsh, Irish, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Macedonian, Albanian, Sanskrit, Hindi, Persian, Pashto. Of these, the Germanic and Romance languages are covered far more completely and deeply, with nearly 32,000 of the 40,000 words in the dictionary belonging to these groups.The dictionary consists of two parts. The first part contains the pages for each Proto-Indo-European word (the root word), showing cognates in the chosen languages plus various descendants and derivatives. These pages are arranged thematically, allowing you to browse or study. Search is enabled by the second part to the dictionary, which contains a separate index for each language, telling you where to find each word.
As others have noted, this is not a scholarly work, but maybe that is an advantage. I bought it on a whim, and I've been enjoying it. So many linguistics books are filled with jargon understood only by those within the linguistics community (and even then there is disagreement) so I was glad to find none of that here.
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bushy BUT... 6/10
A string of words in a bunch of languages without translation under Indo-European roots arranged by theme. It is impossible, even with the help of one's own native language, to find a word. The book is too Anglo-centric. The Calvert Watkins “American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots” is a thousand times superior to it.
Lancelot Dulac
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This is the one for cataract sufferers
I liked the reasonable size of the type, a pleasant contrast with the miniscule of the American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. In other respects the latter is superior--more complete and easier to use .
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Good info
Really great but the index is a bummer; it's just a list that takes up almost half the book and doesn't have any page numbers.
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Thrilling concept, underwhelming resource 6/10
It is pity she did not find an Indo-Iranian scholar with whom to collaborate so that this branch could be presented in greater depth. This dictionary records words from 32 languages, out of a possible 53.
A dictionary covering cognates from all Indo-European languages would, as McPherson says, be a mammoth project - but that is exactly what I was hoping for.
It is also rather frustrating, in a reference book aimed at native speakers and (potentially) English learners, to find punctuation errors.
I like the Word Index section, but again the presentation of the text fails to make it easy to read. Which, if nothing else, at least proves the importance of good design in publishing.