The World's Major Languages - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195205219 ISBN 13: 9780195205213

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1987

Synopsis

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. Writen 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.

About this title

About the Author:

Bernard Comrie is Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0195205219
• ISBN 13: 9780195205213
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 1040
• Editor: Comrie Bernard