The World's Major Languages [Paperback]

Bernard Comrie (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195065115 | ISBN-13: 978-0195065114 | Publication Date: June 28, 1990

From English, French, Spanish and Russian to Pashto, Tagalog, and Swahili, this is the first comprehensive reference work to provide detailed information about the world's forty major languages. Written by acknowledged specialists in the field, the volume begins with a general introduction to language and language families, followed by language-family sections that provide an informative essay about that language, and individual chapters that discuss the history, distribution, syntax, grammar and punctuation, writing and spelling systems, standards of usage, and other important aspects of each language.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This is a treasury of authoritative yet concise information about major languages and language families. The emphasis is on Indo-European, over half the book being devoted to that family. Each of the 50 chapters is written by an expert in that field. Phonology, morphology, and syntax are discussed, and, where appropriate, the writing system. Some chapters, such as that on Chinese, are very lucid and accessible to the non-expert; others are more difficult. This is not a book for beginners, and specialists will have more detailed treatments at their disposal. Its best use would seem to be in an academic reference collection, for the scholar to dip into to refresh his or her memory of a language once studied, or to get a birds-eye view of a language not studied. Includes a language index and bibliographies. Catherine V. von Schon, SUNY at Stonybrook Lib.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A magnificent piece of scholarship and editorical assembling, at--considering what books cost today--a surprisingly low price."--R.M.R. Hall, Queens College, CUNY

"This is the most thorough survey of languages and language families that I have seen which is suitable for undergraduate courses. The scholarship offers models to emulate while the selection of language groups and contributors can only serve to broaden multi-cultural awareness in students."--Patricia S. Burton, Northeast Missouri State University

"The best extant survey on the subject. It would be an excellent text for a course on world languages, or even one in general linguistics."--William E. McMahon, University of Akron

"The amount and quality of historical, sociological, and linguistic information presented in typical chapters dealing with a given language are amazing. Most chapters also include extensive descriptions of the phonological and graphic systems, morphology, word-formation, syntactic patterns, and characteristic features of the lexicon. For inflected languages, detailed and synoptic charts of major declension and conjugation classes are provided....This unique work is an important and reliable source of extensive knowledge about particular languages and their families."--American Reference Books Annual

"This impressive volume supersedes similar ones...in its treatment of families of languages and individual idioms."--Language Problems and Language Planning

"An excellent survey....The volume is recommended as a standard reference for all institutional libraries and for general readers."--Choice

"A treasury of authoritative yet concise information about major languages and language families."--Library Journal

"A substantial resource on modern languages....Recommended for all academic and large public libraries."--The Reference Book Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 1040 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 28, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195065115
• ISBN-13: 978-0195065114
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #560,662 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent 1-volume reference, January 30, 2001

By 

Scott Spires (Prague, Czech Republic) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World's Major Languages (Paperback)

This is a wonderfully thick, dense, wide-ranging piece of work. If you love delving into the complexities and peculiarities of individual languages, you could get lost in this book for hours on end. I checked out every section on a language &/or family that I'm well informed about, and found the info solid and trustworthy throughout.

The contributors are mostly British and American academic linguists, each of whom wrote a section. While there are differences in style--some iron-gray academic, some a bit more lively and colloquial--each author makes sure that each language receives coverage on all its levels. An abundance of examples and explanations ensures that the descriptions, though highly technical and dense, do not lapse into obscurity. This is probably the best 1-volume work of its kind that I have seen. Its only drawback is that some of the world's most interesting languages (such as Basque and other isolates; pidgins & creoles; and some Native American and Australian languages) receive little space due to the avowed focus on languages with large numbers of speakers. A volume which included sections on minor languages / families would more accurately represent the great variety that exists in languages throughout the world.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference for linguists of all levels, April 30, 2000

By 

Christopher Sundita - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World's Major Languages (Paperback)

Ever wondered how a particular language functions? Well, this book is the one to use! It includes grammatical sketches of languages with sizeable amounts of native speakers. Each section generally contains the some of the following about a language: brief historical background, phonology, morphology, syntax, and if it's not written in Roman letters, a chart for that particular alphabet/syllabary. One of the things I particular liked was giving word-for-word translations then giving a free one. This gives me an idea on how languages like German, Japanese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, etc. form their sentences (like SVO, VSO, SOV). And also for some languages, like Polish and Spanish, it lists the allophones for a phoneme. A word of advice, I highly recommend having at least some knowledge in linguistic terminology and in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), since this book uses them extensively. This is one reference work that you should definitely have.

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Tower of Babel of Language Books, June 3, 2000

By 

Luis Hernandez (New York, New York, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The World's Major Languages (Paperback)

One of the best books on languages, "The World's Major Languages," is a must have for all those who want to undertand the complexity and origins of many of the world's major languages. As the title reads, the book discusses the world's major languages in order by their origin groups (e.g. Teutonic/Germanic, Romance, Slavic, etc...) and Comrie in my opinion is the best author when it comes to distinguishing languages.

At 1,025 pages, this book gives an extensive history and study of most of the major languages. While one reviewer on this forum was upset that Native American languages weren't cover, I feel that Mr. Comrie did his best in discussing only those languages with over 10 million present-day speakers.

I feel it would be important for many interested in cultural politics where language places a major role in dividing a nation or region (e.g. Canada/Quebec, Flemish & Walloons in Belgium, Puerto Rico & U.S., Spain's central government and Catalans and Basques) to read this book. I feel that the only lanaguage that wasn;t covered but should have been was Catalan, seeing that over 13 million people speak it and it is the 7th most spoken in the European Union (although it is not officially recognized by the organization). Besides this omission, this is one of the nest books I have read in years! A must-read for anyone interested in languages and culture.