Customer Reviews

Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More than 400 Languages

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Definitive indeed, Andrew Dalby's "Dictionary of Languages: the Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages" is an exhaustive reference source that examines the major languages of the 20th century. It is a source that can be used to answer everything from general reference questions to meeting the specific research needs of linguistic scholars. This dictionary thoroughly describes the history, geography, and interactions of exactly 400 languages that are currently spoken and have over a million speakers, thus for the reader that wants to learn more about extinct languages a linguistic encyclopedia would be the better option.

Referring to the boldness of this title, can Dalby really make the claim that this is the definitive dictionary of languages? Although there are several sources that examine world language, none have the format of brief encapsulations of linguistic information written in a style that suits both the non-specialist and the specialist in linguistics. The learning curve between linguistics scholars and other academics is lessened by the author's inclusion of easily understandable maps, statistics, and interesting fact boxes. Unfamiliar pronunciations, methods of gaining statistics, and instructions on how to use the maps are detailed in the preface and introductory chapter of this book.

The layout of this book is rather straightforward. There is an index of languages and language groups listed in the back of the book but the curious reader can easily browse the alphabetically organized entries. Thus, a reader interested in Germanic languages could look both in the index under Germanic or skip directly to the language entry entitled German. The back of the book also includes a glossary that focuses on explaining terms that may be slightly problematic for the non-specialist. Academic libraries would find this reference source a valuable addition to their collections.

This is such a cool book!

I've always been fascinated by languages and how their unique structures and sounds and vocabularies reflect whole histories of interactions with each other, and how each one still uniquely reflects the situations and traditions of a specific culture. And I've long hoped to find a reference listing every the languages of the world along with articles and maps and sidebars delving into who speaks what where when and for how long with whom.

And then I stumbled across Mr. Dalby's work here, and I cannot express how impressed I am. The thing followed me around from room to room for a solid month, eating up my free time. The thing even includes minor and disappearing languages. I had no idea Irish Gaelic (my forefathers' tongue) was spoken by so few, or that literally dozens of third-world languages I had never heard of were spoken by so many.

I could not have enjoyed it more.

This is really not a very academic reference. I am by no means a linguist, but I must say, there was very little of use in this book that I did not already know. With all due respect to the author, most people are really going to get less out of the articles in this book than out of wikipedia articles for the same languages. This is the unfortunate reality of the new information universe---information like this is really inferior when presented within the confines of book form, nowadays.

For what it is, though, it is fine. But if you are interested in more than how many people speak a language and where it is spoken, you'll really want to choose a different book. And if you ARE interested in how many people speak a language and where it is spoken, then you know where to find such information---there is no need to buy this book.

With all due respect to the author(s) of this book (which I am sure was a terrific effort to compile)---this book would have been great and relevant ten years ago. But with the other options nowadays available for anyone looking for "encyclopedic" knowledge of a subejct, it just falls flat.

Fascinating book to browse with a couple of pages given over to each of 400 plus languages. With examples of different scripts, comparisons of related languages printed side by side to show similarities, anyone with an interest in the subject can peruse the 700 pages for hours. Dalby includes extinct languages- from the section on Sogdian (extinct language of Uzbekistan) for example, you can compare the numerals with those of some modern languages spoken in the Pamirs and see the strong similarity. It doesn't go into any one area in depth but it gives you basic information to study further if you wish

I had previously bought Akira Nakanishi's "Writing Systems Of The World" and Kenneth Katzner's "Languages Of The World," and although I enjoy those, this book is better. It includes lots and lots of languages that I didn't even know existed (or in some cases, used to exist), and there a lot of interesting types of script that I didn't know about. (Out of all the scripts in the book, my very favorite might just be that of the Lisu language, which uses upside-down and backwards versions of Roman letters!) The information about the different cultures of the world, which Nakanishi's and Katzner's books didn't discuss, is also very interesting, in many cases at least (and I thought Americans had some strange ideas and customs!). However, I am a bit disappointed, as I was hoping that the book would tell more about the pronunciations of foreign letters, at least the Roman letters that have special marks. Many "special" letters appear for which the pronunciations are not given. Still, this is a great book, even though the numbers given in it are probably outdated by now.

Great book. Full of fascinating and detailed information. Anyone into languages must have this book.