An A-Z guide to the languages of the world, detailing over 400 languages. This volume covers the political, social and historical background, offering insight into human culture and communication. The text is highlighted by maps, charts of scripts, proverbs, anecdotes and quotations.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Dictionary of Languages for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Learn more
|
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
'A welcome paperback edition of a wonderfully readable book which transcends its own limits as a super-specialised reference work to become a joyously accessible celebration of the sheer diversity of humankind.' The Scotsman 'Splendid guidebook... an endlessly fascinating achievement.' The Guardian 'A delight, a cornucopia of information, of easy reference, and of rich enjoyment.' The Linguist 'The linguistic waterfront it covers is concomitantly spacious... an astonishing quantity of information... certainly a candidate for any language fan's wishlist.' The Evening Standard
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
About the Author
Andrew Dalby is a historian and linguist. His languages include Sanskrit, Pali, Latin, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, German, and Burmese. He is the author of several books. He studied classics and linguistics at St John's College, Cambridge, and gained a PhD from London University.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
If you have an interest in languages, then this may well be the book for you. It deals with over 400 languages in greater or lesser detail, often giving intriguing insights into the language or people discussed. It is not a great reference work, it is not an educational text, you won't even learn any useful phrases (although you may learn to count to ten in hundreds of tongues!). But this is an excellent introduction to the variety of languages and alphabets in the world today (along with important extinct languages), and their geographical distribution. Taken for what it is, the only real criticisms of the book are the maps, which are not as clearly defined as they might be (perhaps in the interest of cost?), and the physical dimensions of the book. The hardback version is about 9 inches tall, and 5 inches thick. You need a table to read this for any length of time. Alphabetically ordered, this book is suitable for dipping in and out of as necessary, and you will find some golden nuggets of information. I bet I know of a Western European Language spoken by over 10 million people that you don't!!!
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
While this book serves its function as a reference work admirably, providing quick access to useful information on pretty-much any language or dialect in the world, it is equally fascinating as a book to browse. The information is certainly extensive, and seems to be reliable and unbiased.
Sadly, the book is not without its faults. The typography is very poor in places - tables of correspondence between other scripts and the Roman alphabet are often misaligned so that considerable effort is required to work out what's what. The maps are extremely crude, though functional. Informative and useful though it is, this book is not a thing of beauty.
Also, the book explicitly excludes languages other than naturally-evolved spoken and written languages. This means it contains nothing on sign languages, nor on synthetic languages such as Esperanto and Lojban - omissions that are a minor shame.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By sally tarbox
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
Fascinating book to browse, with a couple of pages given over to each of 400+ languages. With examples of different scripts, comparisons of related languages printed side by side and numerals, 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 their numerals with those of some modern languages spoken in the Pamirs and see the strong similarity. It doesnt go into any one area in depth but it gives you basic information to study further if you wish
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 7 reviews
4.1 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Its Okay
Having done lots of internet research on languages I found this book to try and improve my knowledge. Read more
Published 12 months ago by S. J. Eustace
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages
More than a specific and determined list of positive adjective to describe the emotion and motion of reading throgh this extensive narration of the encyclopedic text. Read more
Published on 26 Nov 2010 by La Caixa
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant!
An accessible and totally fascinating overview of a vital subject. An insidious and delightfully dangerous book, because you will go to it for a quick reference and still be... Read more
Published on 13 Dec 1999 by mackaignan@aol.com
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
