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The World's Major Languages
From English, French, Spanish and Russian to Pashto, Tagalog, and Swahili, this is the first comprehensive reference work to provide detailed information about the world's forty major languages. Written by acknowledged specialists in the field, the volume begins with a general introduction to language and language families, followed by language-family sections that provide an informative essay about that language, and individual chapters that discuss the history, distribution, syntax, grammar and punctuation, writing and spelling systems, standards of usage, and other important aspects of each language.
1025 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 23, 2015
This book was intense. I did have some issues with it (like the exclusion of Native American languages and the poor quality of a few of the later chapters), but overall it was a great (if dense) read. Speaking as a failed linguist, it was fascinating to read about all the different features of different languages. Speaking as a new conlanger, it was inspiring, and it gave me a lot of good ideas of things I could try with my own languages.
February 7, 2017
A very strong book on the subject, but quite dense - by no means is this for someone looking for light reading, and if you're not familiar and well-versed in linguistic terminology, a lot of the book will be confusing or obtuse.
Plenty of languages are given short shrift or ignored completely, but that can be rebutted with the title ("Major Languages"). I'd also note that this is a compilation, so the style does vary from section to section.
If you want a relatively quick and accessible read on the differences between English and German or Japanese and Swahili, this book can definitely help.
Plenty of languages are given short shrift or ignored completely, but that can be rebutted with the title ("Major Languages"). I'd also note that this is a compilation, so the style does vary from section to section.
If you want a relatively quick and accessible read on the differences between English and German or Japanese and Swahili, this book can definitely help.
July 18, 2011
Solid foundation book for all aspiring linguists.
April 18, 2008
A more excellent linguistic guide to the world's major languages I could not ask. I love the section on Latin and th4e Romance languages (of course).
March 9, 2023
As reviewers of the first edition agreed, this is a magnificent book. The second and third dead-tree editions had incremental changes: updated bibliographies, minor additions, some improvements, and some concessions to diminishing academic freedom, e.g. the renaming of the chapter on Serbo-Croatian and the replacement of B.C. by B.C.E.
The first Kindle version, of the second edition, was, however, a disgrace, with, for instance (I am not making this up) Greek theta transcribed as Roman O, and eta by n; see my review of the second edition. Amazon temporarily admitted the problem and withdrew the book, later re-issuing it with corrections for some of the problems I had reported here and to Professor Comrie, but with huge problems remaining.
I am delighted to say that the Kindle version of third edition actually uses a full Unicode character set, but Routledge’s electronic publishing section is still incompetent and/or ethically deficient. The incompetence shows in some non-ASCII characters being converted to distinct but related ASCII, e.g. (Italian, 27%) in “The oppositions /e~e/ and /o~ͻ/ are neutralised outside stress,” where the second “e” was converted from the printed version’s “ɛ”. (I checked in BBEdit — this is not a rendering problem: the two “e”s in the Kindle edition are identical, not merely similar, giving a nonsensical opposition.)
The active malfeasance by Routledge is at least blatant, with half a dozen duplicated garbled bits of text inserted in the Italian section alone. The most amusing and confusing example, given that it happened for examples of ungrammaticality, is:
(contrast the ungrammaticality of the ‘who do you think will come?’ are grammatical (contrast the ungrammaticality of literal English rendering * the literal English rendering * who do you think that will come? ). If such an example who do you think that will come? ). If such an example was was chi , …
Purchasers of the Kindle second edition deserve to receive a future corrected third edition without further payment, and I would urge serious scholars to avoid the once-distinguished Routledge.
The first Kindle version, of the second edition, was, however, a disgrace, with, for instance (I am not making this up) Greek theta transcribed as Roman O, and eta by n; see my review of the second edition. Amazon temporarily admitted the problem and withdrew the book, later re-issuing it with corrections for some of the problems I had reported here and to Professor Comrie, but with huge problems remaining.
I am delighted to say that the Kindle version of third edition actually uses a full Unicode character set, but Routledge’s electronic publishing section is still incompetent and/or ethically deficient. The incompetence shows in some non-ASCII characters being converted to distinct but related ASCII, e.g. (Italian, 27%) in “The oppositions /e~e/ and /o~ͻ/ are neutralised outside stress,” where the second “e” was converted from the printed version’s “ɛ”. (I checked in BBEdit — this is not a rendering problem: the two “e”s in the Kindle edition are identical, not merely similar, giving a nonsensical opposition.)
The active malfeasance by Routledge is at least blatant, with half a dozen duplicated garbled bits of text inserted in the Italian section alone. The most amusing and confusing example, given that it happened for examples of ungrammaticality, is:
(contrast the ungrammaticality of the ‘who do you think will come?’ are grammatical (contrast the ungrammaticality of literal English rendering * the literal English rendering * who do you think that will come? ). If such an example who do you think that will come? ). If such an example was was chi , …
Purchasers of the Kindle second edition deserve to receive a future corrected third edition without further payment, and I would urge serious scholars to avoid the once-distinguished Routledge.
February 3, 2011
A collection of articles, one for each of the 35 most spoken languages on earth. Details the basic linguistics of each language: distribution, genetic classification, lexicon, phonology, morphology, and syntax. For people with some knowledge of linguistics. Some articles are outdated, and articles do not consistently use a single phonetic alphabet. Also covers some historical linguistics.
June 27, 2008
This book is extremely thorough on all accounts of the languages covered. My only problem with it was the degree of techinical, linguistic language employed... and I majored in linguistics. Otherwise, an incredible reference book.
February 23, 2014
This might be even better than Mario Pei or Frederick Bodmer. It's a bit more dry and academic than those two, but it lays everything out nicely and doesn't get boring even if you can almost hear the screeching chalk drowning out the snoring of your imaginary classmates. Damn, it's late.
August 17, 2009
I am perpetually reading this book, but it's a great read and reference book for the linguistic obsessed.
December 31, 2008
Read:
Introduction
Ch 41: Chinese
Introduction
Ch 41: Chinese
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews