Customer Reviews

Historical Linguistics (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

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Theodora Byron's HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS, published in 1979, is an entry in the Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics series. I found it to be very unimpressive. The problem with Byron's work is that she doesn't seem to know which audience she is writing for. On one hand the book is rigorously structured and uses terminology familiar only to those with previous experience in the field. Therefore, it doesn't compete with the very basic primers of Winfred Lehmann or Lyle Campbell. On the other hand, certain elements of its writing style seem targeted towards simple classroom students, and it isn't a pure handbook. Because of this, it isn't as useful as Hock's magnum opus PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS.

The first half of the book presents the three main models of language development: the Neogrammarian model, the structuralist model, and the transformational-generative model. This sets it apart from many introductory works on historical linguistics, which still limit themselves to Neogrammarian notions for the sake of clarity. The second half is concerned with language contact. Byron admirably gives coverage to the Balkan sprachbund and even muses on Europe as a linguistic area. Unlike most textbooks which use the Indo-European family in general to illustrate points, or Campbell's book which packs in examples from multiple language families, Byron mainly limits examples of the comparative method to English and German,

Besides the book's odd duck status, it also suffers from some of the worst typesetting I've ever seen from Cambridge University Press. Bottom line: if you are a neophyte looking for a simple introduction and don't have much prior experience in general linguistics, seek out the primers of Lehmann or Campbell. If your interests go purely to comparative Indo-European linguistics, Benjamin Fortson's textbook may be worth reading. If you are looking for a rigorous handbook on the entire body of general knowledge of historical linguistics, you can't beat Hock's.