Historical Linguistics [Paperback]

R. L. Trask (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0340607580 | ISBN-13: 978-0340607589 | Publication Date: September 27, 1996

This is a major introduction to historical linguistics, designed for students who have no background in historical linguistics but who have at least some knowledge of phonetics, phonology, and morphology. The author introduces all major types of change, consequences of change (dialect and language families), and methods in historical linguistics. Later chapters deal with sociolinguistic aspects of change, language contact, birth and death of languages, language and prehistory, and finally the issue of very remote relations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Larry Trask's introduction to historical linguistics is what I"ve been wanting for years: an introductory undergraduate textbook which presents the latest developments in historical research in a clear, exciting, and straightforward way."--Dorothy Disterheft, University of South Carolina

About the Author

Larry Trask is at University of Sussex.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Hodder Education Publishers (September 27, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340607580
• ISBN-13: 978-0340607589
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #625,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Paging Mr. Trask...., August 5, 2003

By 

A. Sullivan (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Historical Linguistics (Paperback)

Historical Linguistics is an interesting topic to read about. This book does a pretty good job explaining the tool kit an historical linguist needs to reconstruct proto-languages as well as understand language roots. In some cases it seems to be a little off balance, offering more attention to a particular topic and lacking information on another. But all in all it is a helpful text, providing good examples and practice data at the end of each chapter. It is annoying, however, that they didn't pay much attention to the editing. Often a set of data will be referred to in the text but won't show up until the next page or two and the topic of discussion has already changed.

The author provides a lot of interesting case studies with discussion, mostly in the English language since that's his native language. But they are great examples of the work accomplished by historical linguists and demonstrate clearly the principles he is discussing.

Good book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent presentation of historical linguistics, April 5, 2006

By 

Neal J. King (Munich, Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Historical Linguistics (Paperback)

As a lay reader, I found the coverage of topics to be impressive and detailed. Sometimes a bit too detailed; but you can always skip over anything that falls into the category of "more than I wanted to know about penguins." But this kind of material gives a sense for the kind of problems that a working linguist faces, and the kinds of solutions obtained.

Some readers have complained that there are no solutions given for the homework problems posed. This is true; but in how many non-mathematical books have you seen ANY homework problems posed? I did not stop to do them, myself, but I imagine that a real effort spent on these exercises would pay off in deeper understanding. If the author is willing, I would imagine that there would be a market for a small addendum which would provide discussion of these exercises.

The discussion of "proto-World" is very interesting, as the author presents both the proposed picture of the descent of all languages and the general skepticism about it.

The book is written with a dry sense of humor, rare in a scholarly book.

This is not a quick read, but will repay the diligent reader.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fantastic Introductory Text, December 27, 2005

By 

Whimemsz - See all my reviews

This review is from: Historical Linguistics (Paperback)

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in historical linguistics, even those with little background knowledge of the subject (although note that it does assume some basic background knowledge in rudimentary linguistic concepts like "phoneme," "syntax," or "nominative"). One of the largest benefits of the book, in my view, is the fact that Trask, who was one of the foremost experts on the Basque language, frequently uses examples from Basque to illustrate points, very useful additional perspective for those with a knowledge only of Indo-European languages. Trask still, however, uses plenty of examples from the Indo-European field, and does not neglect such famous topics as Grimm's Law or the English Vowel Shift. He provides numerous references for further and more in-depth reading for a given chapter's topic at the end of the chapter, and a brief description of each of these references.

He also, as mentioned by a previous reviewer, approaches the debate on alternatives to the comparative method much more even-handedly than some of his colleagues. Although he does dismiss Merritt Ruhlen's Proto-World proposals (offering a good deal of evidence in support), he nonetheless does his best to be more neutral for other controversies, such as the Nostratic hypothesis (the proposal linking the Indo-European, Altaic, Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, and Caucasian language families [and sometimes others]). He even asks other linguists to approach the Nostratic hypothesis fairly and with an open mind. Although he ultimately takes a stance against most radical proposals of this type, he nonetheless gives them a much more balanced portrait, and gives enough opposing arguments to allow readers to draw their own conclusions, which, considering the controversies in the world of historical linguistics today, is particularly impressive.

Ultimately, the one significant problem, also touched on by other reviewers, is that the excercizes at the end of each chapter have no solutions, and for those who, like me, study linguistics on their own and not in an academic institution, it is often frustrating to not know if they are doing the problems "right" or not.