Product Description

Covering the political, social and historical background of each language, Dictionary of Languages offers a unique insight into human culture and communication. Every language with official status is included, as well as all those that have a written literature and 175 'minor' languages with special historical or anthropological interest. We see how, with the rapidly increasing uniformity of our culture as media's influence spreads, more languages have become extinct or are under threat of extinction. The text is highlighted by maps and charts of scripts, while proverbs, anecdotes and quotations reveal the features that make a language unique.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #218874 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

Review
'A welcome paperback edition of a wonderfully readable book which transcends its own limits as a super-specialised reference work to become a joyously accessible celebration of the sheer diversity of humankind.' The Scotsman 'Splendid guidebook an endlessly fascinating achievement.' The Guardian 'A delight, a cornucopia of information, of easy reference, and of rich enjoyment.' The Linguist 'The linguistic waterfront it covers is concomitantly spacious an astonishing quantity of information certainly a candidate for any language fan's wishlist.' The Evening Standard

About the Author
Andrew Dalby is a historian and linguist. His languages include Sanskrit, Pali, Latin, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, German, and Burmese. He is the author of several books. He studied classics and linguistics at St John's College, Cambridge, and gained a PhD from London University.

Customer Reviews

A dip into the ocean of The Languages of the World
If you have an interest in languages, then this may well be the book for you. It deals with over 400 languages in greater or lesser detail, often giving intriguing insights into the language or people discussed. It is not a great reference work, it is not an educational text, you won't even learn any useful phrases (although you may learn to count to ten in hundreds of tongues!). But this is an excellent introduction to the variety of languages and alphabets in the world today (along with important extinct languages), and their geographical distribution. Taken for what it is, the only real criticisms of the book are the maps, which are not as clearly defined as they might be (perhaps in the interest of cost?), and the physical dimensions of the book. The hardback version is about 9 inches tall, and 5 inches thick. You need a table to read this for any length of time. Alphabetically ordered, this book is suitable for dipping in and out of as necessary, and you will find some golden nuggets of information. I bet I know of a Western European Language spoken by over 10 million people that you don't!!!

Good for browsing, and for reference
While this book serves its function as a reference work admirably, providing quick access to useful information on pretty-much any language or dialect in the world, it is equally fascinating as a book to browse. The information is certainly extensive, and seems to be reliable and unbiased.

Sadly, the book is not without its faults. The typography is very poor in places - tables of correspondence between other scripts and the Roman alphabet are often misaligned so that considerable effort is required to work out what's what. The maps are extremely crude, though functional. Informative and useful though it is, this book is not a thing of beauty.

Also, the book explicitly excludes languages other than naturally-evolved spoken and written languages. This means it contains nothing on sign languages, nor on synthetic languages such as Esperanto and Lojban - omissions that are a minor shame.

Brilliant!
An accessible and totally fascinating overview of a vital subject. An insidious and delightfully dangerous book, because you will go to it for a quick reference and still be entranced by something completely different an hour later.