This is perhaps my worst buy in linguistics ever: I am so disappointed by the mess this book makes of such a fascinating subject that I am at pains in giving something of a well organized review.
The only assets are the chapters describing Danish and Frisian (10 and 16 respectively): concise, clear, simple, finely organised. Even the parts about syntax are well executed and understandable.
The chapter about Old and Middle Continental West Germanic (4) neglects lexis but is otherwise fairly clear and well balanced.
The rest of the book? Varying from outright bad to a total catastrophe.
Quoting from the blurb on the fourth cover:
"...focusing on the structure of the languages as they are spoken today, whilst also giving an analysis of language history and development.
...
"... designed for comparative study and incorporates the following key elements:
- An introductory description of the social context and the development of the language
- Extensive discussions of phonology, morphology, syntax and lexis
- An outline of the main dialects
..."
The first fault lies with the editors: this book is supposed to ease comparisons between the languages, which is quite an impossible task as every author chooses the approach he/she prefers and simply comply with the general partition of the chapter prescribed.
A second fault of the editors was in not realising that the book fails both its targets:
- undergraduates will profit very little from it because of the difficult jargon used by the authors; of the sheer complexity of the concepts mentioned and never explained; of the relevance given to syntax (a notoriously woolly sub section of linguistics); of the neglect of the lexis which is possibly the most interesting sub area for a non professional.
They will need to have passed several courses in theoretical and historical linguistics to simply understand what it is all about.
- trained linguists, especially those specialised in Germanic linguistics (such as myself), will find little use in chapters far too short to add information to that they already possess, omitting crucial analyses and irritatingly simplistic in their approach.
Another crucial fault is that the book is simply not up to what is mentioned on the cover:
- lexis is ridiculously neglected: there are languages where less than one page (out of 30-40) is dedicated to it. Chapters about Swedish, Yiddish, Pennsylvania German, Afrikaans and Frisian share this less-than-one-page lexical horror. On the other hand, in the chapter about modern English, I had to read the usual silliness of English having about 500.000 vocabulary items... Well, if one takes the inventory of the -glorious- Oxford English Dictionary this might very well be the case but no linguist in his/her own mind would do that considering the number of hapaxes/archaisms/loanwords included there and probably never ever used even by cultivated speakers.
-syntax is indeed longishly discussed: no one (not the editors in the first place) had the sense of prescribing comparative tables of a set number of phenomena and word by word translations of the examples given.
I heartily invite you to analyse Icelandic, Norwegian or Frisian sentences without one and to compare modern languages without schemata: please let me know about your achievements.
As it is the various authors rant on and on about syntax rules, mixing fundamental ones to futilities, but always carefully avoiding any reference to meaning (semantics) which only can justify the majority of exeptions they mention.
It took all my training to understand what these people were talking about and I did not always succeed. I cannot begin to imagine what an undergraduate can have retained of those ridiculous messes. AND I am not ashamed to admid that I know as much about Germanic syntax as I knew before.
- (quote) "introductory description of the social context and the development ... outline of the main dialects" were present indeed, simply ridiculous in their superficiality and shortness. Any general geography text is bound to provide you with many more details about them not to mention the sheer insensitivity of the authors when describing phenomena which are crucial for the discipline.
- That the varieties of German spoken in Switzerland and Luxembourg are absent is inexcusable.
I could go on of course but I will refrain.
Just a short note about the introductory chapters about older Germanic being less than useless (only ch. 4 has some merit).
Another note is that I do not question the erudition of the authors: it is their ability to pass it on.
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