Customer Reviews

The Romance Languages

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent book for either the interested layman or the refined linguist concerning the romance languages (more than the typial five, incidentally). The included languages are: Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Occitan, Rhaeto-Romance and Sardinian, with another chapter about various romance-based creoles and pidgins. Within each chapter, there is a section on phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. There are also interesting charts and maps, contrasting different features of the different languages.

The tone of the book is serious and academic, although the language is not so erudite that a hobby-linguist (like myself) cannot understand it. The five "standard" romance languages in the book also feature in Bernard Comrie's "The World's Major Languages", to which this book is best described as a supplement (it's the same publishing company and features many of the same writers), although these five have approximately twice as much treatment as they do in the latter book, albeit some of the text is lifted directly from "Major Languages". The tone and "feel" of the entries here are identical to those of "Major Languages", incidentally, so if you are familiar with that book you will instantly be comfortable with this one.

One feature that I appreciated was the many comparisons drawn between the various languages, with all of the shifts in phonology, morphology and syntax explained and contrasted. For example, if you have ever wondered why many words in French that begin with "f-" have a corresponding word in Spanish that begins with "h-", this is explained as are all other issues of this sort.

All in all, an excellent book for anyone interested in the romance languages.

This book offers an incredible comparison and representation of the romance languages. It discusses their similarities and individual characteristics. I recommend it not only for all students of the any romance languages but for anybody looking for an in-dept look at the grammar and developement of the romance languages from their "parent language" latin! This truly is a great book!

The book satisfied the strict demands of my university professor and I enjoy reading it. However,the vendor did not do a good job at describing the quality of the book.
The cover is falling apart, the borders are dirty,brown and curling, so much so that I had to take a wet paper towel with clorox and wipe the book before I could dare to touch it and read it, not to mention the expected highlighted pages. I paid over $ 80.00 for it. A classmate bought the same book for $35 in great condition. Shame on the seller that dares to get so much money for that book.