Customer Reviews

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages

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This book is probably the most comprehensive work on the languages of the ancient world, including even the only recently-deciphered Epi-Olmec script of Mesoamerica.

However, there is no good definition provided of what is 'ancient' and what is not: should Old Japanese and Old Korean have been included? What about Old Nubian?

Surely more could've been written about some of the as-yet undeciphered ancient languages, such as Rongorongo, Meroitic, Linear A, Zapotec, and the Indus script?

It's also a bit heavy on Semitic languages: while some languages are grouped with other languages into a single chapter for all of them, each of the ancient Semitic languages has a separate chapter.

Some of the ancient languages of Asia, Africa, and the Americas are omitted completely.

As a reference book for an experienced linguist, this book might be excellent. However, I have no formal training in linguistics analysis, so this book did not support me as much as a beginner would need. In particular, some terms were not explained, but I found these within a dictionary and then continued. The histories of each language and the overviews of current understandings about the language's translations were thorough and quite interesting. You rarely see dozens of pages explaining the translations of the more common Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was organized well and the only other improvement I would suggest would be to insert more writing examples with their translations. Marvelous.

This book is an invaluable tool for anyone with a passion in ancient philology and linguistics. If you have scoured the internet for information on obscure ancient languages only to find meager tidbits, or if you have been overwhelmed by grammars that are too large and too detailed to be any use, this book will solve your problems. It is certainly a book for the serious student, someone who takes the time to learn the basics of phonetics, morphology, and syntax, but with these easily obtainable keys, the Encyclopedia is a true treasure. It provides enough information to satisfy curiosity, but it does not become so heavy on details that one gets lost in the text; and, if you want to pursue the language further, the recommended texts section at the end of each chapter provides plenty of resources.