An Introduction to the Languages of the World - Hardcover

Lyovin, Anatole V.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195081153 ISBN 13: 9780195081152

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1997

Synopsis

An Introduction to the Languages of the World is a text designed to introduce beginning linguistics students, who now typically come to their study with little background in languages, to the variety of the languages of the world. Lyovin begins by explaining the classification of languages, discussing not only genetic classification but typological and sociolinguistic classification as well. He follows this with an explication of the classification of writing systems. A chapter is then devoted to each of the world's continents, with in-depth analyses of representative languages of Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and America. A separate chapter is devoted to pidgins and creoles. Each chapter includes student exercises and suggestions for further readings. "The author succeeds in covering a broad range of important and interesting information, and I am not aware of any other work that could serve as an all-round textbook for a course on The Languages of the World". --Bernard Comrie, Linguistics, USC; author of The World's Major Languages (OUP) "clearly exhibits the author's very considerable erudition in several languages areas". Joseph Grimes, Linguistics, Cornell

About this title

About the Author:

Anatole Lyovin is retired Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Brett Kessler is Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.

William Leben is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at Stanford University.

Review:

"This book is an important pedagogical resource, presenting in succinct form information on the classification of the world's languages into language families and on the major structural types with regard to a wide range of phonological, morphological, and syntactic phenomena, as well as detailed presentations of languages selected to illustrate interaction of structural features as they occur in texts." --Bernard Comrie, Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara

"The second edition of An Introduction to the Languages of the World is a leap forward. I welcome the chapter on writing systems and the language sketches. The book stresses the diversity of the world's languages and is well balanced across the globe. The decision to use ISO coding for language names, now the standard nomenclature for languages, is also welcome. Altogether, a fine achievement." --Mark Aronoff, Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, Stony Brook University

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0195081153
• ISBN 13: 9780195081152
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 512