Cambridge Language Surveys – serie

Germanic - one of the largest sub-groups of the Indo-European language family - comprises 37 languages with an estimated 470 million speakers worldwide. This book presents a comparative linguistic survey of the full range of Germanic languages, both ancient and modern, including major world languages such as English and German (West Germanic), the Scandinavian (North Germanic) languages, and the extinct East Germanic languages. Unlike previous studies, it does not take a chronological or a language-by-language approach, organized instead around linguistic constructions and subsystems. Considering dialects alongside standard varieties, it provides a detailed account of topics such as case, word formation, sound systems, vowel length, syllable structure, the noun phrase, the verb phrase, the expression of tense and mood, and the syntax of the clause. Authoritative and comprehensive, this much-needed survey will be welcomed by scholars and students of the Germanic languages, as well as linguists across the many branches of the field.

The Dravidian languages are spoken by over 200 million people in South Asia and in Diaspora communities around the world, and constitute the world's fifth largest language family. It consists of about 26 languages in total including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, as well as over 20 non-literary languages. In this book, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, one of the most eminent Dravidianists of our time, provides a comprehensive study of the phonological and grammatical structure of the whole Dravidian family from different aspects. He describes its history and writing systems, discusses its structure and typology, and considers its lexicon. Distant and more recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups are also discussed. With its comprehensive coverage this book will be welcomed by all students of Dravidian languages and will be of interest to linguists in various branches of the discipline as well as Indologists.

Aboriginal people have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years, speaking about 250 languages. Through examination of published and unpublished materials on each of the individual languages, Professor Dixon surveys the ways in which the languages vary typologically and presents a profile of this long-established linguistic area. The areal distribution of most features is illustrated with more than 30 maps, showing that the languages tend to move in cyclic fashion with respect to many of the parameters. There is also an index of languages and language groups. Professor Dixon, a pioneering scholar in the field, brings an interesting perspective to this diverse and complex material.

This volume describes the six modern Celtic languages. Four of these, Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Breton, are living community languages. The other two, Manx and Cornish, survived into the modern period, but are no longer extant as community languages, though they are the subject of enthusiastic revivals. The Celtic Languages sets them briefly in their Indo-European context, and states their general relationships within the broader Celtic language family. Individual linguistic studies are first placed in their sociolinguistic and sociohistorical context. A detailed synchronic account of each language then follows, including syntax, morphology, phonology, morphophonology, dialect variation and distribution. Each description is based on a common plan, thus facilitating comparison amongst the different languages. This latest volume in the Cambridge Language Surveys will be welcomed by all scholars of the Celtic languages, but has also been designed to be accessible to any reader with only a basic knowledge of linguistics. It is the only modern account to deal with all surviving Celtic languages in this detail.

The Slavic group of languages - the fourth largest Indo-European sub-group - is one of the major language families of the modern world. With 297 million speakers, Slavic comprises 13 languages split into three groups: South Slavic, which includes Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian; East Slavic, which includes Russian and Ukrainian; and West Slavic, which includes Polish, Czech and Slovak. This 2006 book, written by two leading scholars in Slavic linguistics, presents a survey of all aspects of the linguistic structure of the Slavic languages, considering in particular those languages that enjoy official status. As well as covering the central issues of phonology, morphology, syntax, word-formation, lexicology and typology, the authors discuss Slavic dialects, sociolinguistic issues, and the socio-historical evolution of the Slavic languages. Accessibly written and comprehensive in its coverage, this book will be welcomed by scholars and students of Slavic languages, as well as linguists across the many branches of the discipline.

This volume describes the six modern Celtic languages. Four of these, Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Breton, are living community languages. The other two, Manx and Cornish, survived into the modern period, but are no longer extant as community languages, though they are the subject of enthusiastic revivals. The Celtic Languages sets them briefly in their Indo-European context, and states their general relationships within the broader Celtic language family. Individual linguistic studies are first placed in their sociolinguistic and sociohistorical context. A detailed synchronic account of each language then follows, including syntax, morphology, phonology, morphophonology, dialect variation and distribution. Each description is based on a common plan, thus facilitating comparison amongst the different languages. This latest volume in the Cambridge Language Surveys will be welcomed by all scholars of the Celtic languages, but has also been designed to be accessible to any reader with only a basic knowledge of linguistics. It is the only modern account to deal with all surviving Celtic languages in this detail.

This first volume of Holm's major survey of pidgins and creoles provides a readable introduction to a field of study that has become established only in the past few decades. Written for both students and general readers with a basic knowledge of linguistics, the book's original perspective will also attract specialists in the field seeking a broad overview of the linguistic and sociolinguistic relationships between these languages. Restructured versions of English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, and other languages arose during European colonial expansion, resulting in such creoles as Jamaican, Haitian, Papiamentu, and some one hundred others, as well as such semi-creoles as Afrikaans, non-standard Brazilian Portuguese, and American Black English. Scholars have tended to work on particular language varieties in relative isolation rather than undertaking comparative research into the genesis, development, and structure of creoles. In this book, however, Holm draws on studies of a broad range of languages to make clear the extent of creoles' differences and similarities. The core of this volume is a comparative study of creoles based on European languages in Africa and the Caribbean in terms of their lexical semantics, phonology, and syntax. Volume 2 presents an overview of the socio-historical development of each of some one hundred pidgins, creoles and semi-creoles, providing texts and highlighting the salient linguistic features of each.

What is a Romance language? How is one Romance language related to others? How did they all evolve? And what can they tell us about language in general? In this comprehensive survey Rebecca Posner, a distinguished Romance specialist, examines this group of languages from a wide variety of perspectives. Her analysis combines philological expertise with insights drawn from modern theoretical linguistics, both synchronic and diachronic. She relates linguistic features to historical and sociological factors, and teases out those elements which can be attributed to divergence from a common source and those which indicate convergence towards a common aim. Her discussion is extensively illustrated with new and original data, and an up-to-date and comprehensive bibliography is included. This volume will be an invaluable and authoritative guide for students and specialists alike.

This introduction to the descriptive and historical linguistics of the Papuan languages of New Guinea provide an accessible account of one of the richest and most diverse linguistic situations in the world. The Papuan languages number over 700 (or 20 per cent of the world's total) in more than sixty language families. Less than a quarter of the individual languages have yet been adequately documented, and in this sense William Foley's book might be considered premature. However, in the search for language universals and generalisations in linguistic typology, it would be foolhardy to neglect the information that is available. In this respect alone, the present volume, systematically organised on mainly typology principles, is particularly timely and useful. In addition, the processes of linguistic diffusion are present in New Guinea to an extent probably paralleled elsewhere on the globe. The Papuan Languages of New Guinea will be of interest not only to general and comparative linguists and to typologists, but also to sociolinguists and anthropologists for the information it provides on the social dynamics of language content.

The Slavic group of languages - the fourth largest Indo-European sub-group - is one of the major language families of the modern world. With 297 million speakers, Slavic comprises 13 languages split into three groups: South Slavic, which includes Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian; East Slavic, which includes Russian and Ukrainian; and West Slavic, which includes Polish, Czech and Slovak. This 2006 book, written by two leading scholars in Slavic linguistics, presents a survey of all aspects of the linguistic structure of the Slavic languages, considering in particular those languages that enjoy official status. As well as covering the central issues of phonology, morphology, syntax, word-formation, lexicology and typology, the authors discuss Slavic dialects, sociolinguistic issues, and the socio-historical evolution of the Slavic languages. Accessibly written and comprehensive in its coverage, this book will be welcomed by scholars and students of Slavic languages, as well as linguists across the many branches of the discipline.

This general introduction to the study of the Chinese language traces its history from its beginings in the second millennium BC to the present day and provides a clear picture of the contemporary language and its sociolinguistic status. Chinese in its numerous dialect forms, has more speakers than any language in the modern world, and this vast extension in time and space brings to its study an exceptional complexity. Nevertheless, Professor Norman handles this extraordinary range of material with a deftness of organization and lucid elegance of style that make his book of real interest to any reader with only an elementary knowledge of linguistics. It includes information on the genetic and typological connections of Chinese, traditional Chinese phonology, the writing system, the classical and early vernacular languages, the modern language and the non-standard dialects, and the history of linguistic reform in China, concluding with a discussion of present and future prospects.

At least a hundred indigenous Indian languages are known to have been spoken in Mesoamerica, the cultural area that includes most of Mexico and part of South America, but it is only in the past fifty years that many of them have been adequately described. For some we still have no more than a partial description, often in an obscure source. Professor Suárez draws together this considerable mass of scholarship in a general survey that will provide an invaluable source of reference. The approach is primarily descriptive, and a major part of the volume is concerned with synchronic descriptions of phonology, morphology and syntax. The volume will be of interest and importance both to general linguists and to others with a serious interest in Mesoamerican culture and society.

This book provides an authoritative survey of the several hundred languages indigenous to North America. These languages show tremendous genetic and typological diversity, and offer numerous challenges to current linguistic theory. Part I of the book provides an overview of structural features of particular interest, concentrating on those that are cross-linguistically unusual or unusually well developed. These include syllable structure, vowel and consonant harmony, tone, and sound symbolism; polysynthesis, the nature of roots and affixes, incorporation, and morpheme order; case; grammatical distinctions of number, gender, shape, control, location, means, manner, time, empathy, and evidence; and distinctions between nouns and verbs, predicates and arguments, and simple and complex sentences; and special speech styles. Part II catalogues the languages by family, listing the location of each language, its genetic affiliation, number of speakers, major published literature, and structural highlights. Finally, there is a catalogue of languages that have evolved in contact situations.

A general account of the languages of the Soviet Union, one of the most diverse multinational and multilingual states in the world as well as one of the most important. There are some 130 languages spoken in the USSR, belonging to five main families and ranging from Russian, which is the first language of about 130,000,000 people, to Aluet, spoken only by 96 (in the 1970 census). Dr Comrie has two general aims. First, he presents the most important structural features of these languages, their genetic relationships and classification and their distinctive typological features. Secondly, he examines the social and political background to the use of functioning of the various languages in a multilingual state. The volume will be of importance and interest to linguists and to those with a broader professional interest in the Soviet Union.

In his ambitious survey of the Indo-Aryan languages, Colin Masica has provided a fundamental introduction which will interest not only general and theoretical linguists but also students of one or more of these languages who want to acquaint themselves with the broader linguistic context. Generally synchronic in approach, concentrating on the phonology, morphology and syntax of the modern representatives of the group, the volume also covers their historical development, areal context, writing systems and aspects of sociolinguistics. The survey is organised not on a language-by-language basis but by topic, so that salient theoretical issues may be discussed in a comparative context.

This second volume of John Holm's Pidgins and Creoles provides an overview of the socio-historical development of each of some one hundred known pidgins and creoles. Each variety is grouped according to the language from which it drew its lexicon - Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, English, African and other languages. John Holm convincingly demonstrates the historical and linguistic reasons for this organisation, which also enables the reader to perceive with ease the interrelationship of all varieties within each group. The section devoted to each variety provides a discussion of its salient linguistic features and presents a brief text, usually of connected discourse, with a morpheme-by-morpheme translation. Readers thus have access to data from all known pidgins and creoles in the world, and the volume provides possibly the most comprehensive reference source on pidginization and creolization yet available. The emphasis of John Holm's first volume was on linguistic structure and theory. Each volume can be read independently, but together the two volumes of Pidgins and Creoles provide a major survey of current pidgin and creole linguistics which lays new foundations for research in the field.

This book is a detailed survey of the two main indigenous languages of Japan, Japanese and Ainu. No genetic relationship has been established between them, and structurally they differ significantly. Professor Shibatani has therefore divided his study into two independent parts. The first is a most comprehensive study of the polysynthetic Ainu language. The second part deals extensively with Japanese. It discusses topics from the evolution of the writing system and the differences between men's and women's speech, to issues of greater theoretical complexity, such as phonology, the lexicon and word-formation, and the syntax of agglutinative morphology. As an American-trained scholar in Japan, the author is in an unique postion that affords him a dual perspective on language deriving from Western linguistic scholarship and the Japanese grammatical tradition.

This book provides a detailed survey of the Korean language, covering its speakers, genetic affiliation, historical development, dialects, lexicon, writing systems, sound patterns, word structure, and grammatical structure. It is designed to be accessible to a wide readership, and provides a wealth of data in a user-friendly format that does not presuppose an in-depth knowledge of the latest linguistic theories. It will be used by general linguists and Korean linguists who are interested in the typological characteristics of the language from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, and by undergraduates and graduate students in those disciplines who seek a comprehensive introduction to the linguistics of Korean. Likewise, advanced students of the Korean language and language educators will find it offers valuable insights into lexical, phonological, morphological and syntactic aspects of the language for their purposes.

The Andean and Pacific regions of South America are home to a remarkable variety of languages and language families, with a range of typological differences. This linguistic diversity results from a complex historical background, comprising periods of greater communication between different peoples and languages, and periods of fragmentation and individual development. The Languages of the Andes documents in a single volume the indigenous languages spoken and formerly spoken in this linguistically rich region, as well as in adjacent areas. Grouping the languages into different cultural spheres, it describes their characteristics in terms of language typology, language contact, and the social perspectives of present-day languages. The authors provide both historical and contemporary information, and illustrate the languages with detailed grammatical sketches. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be a valuable source for students and scholars of linguistics and anthropology alike.

The Andean and Pacific regions of South America are home to a remarkable variety of languages and language families, with a range of typological differences. This linguistic diversity results from a complex historical background, comprising periods of greater communication between different peoples and languages, and periods of fragmentation and individual development. The Languages of the Andes documents in a single volume the indigenous languages spoken and formerly spoken in this linguistically rich region, as well as in adjacent areas. Grouping the languages into different cultural spheres, it describes their characteristics in terms of language typology, language contact, and the social perspectives of present-day languages. The authors provide both historical and contemporary information, and illustrate the languages with detailed grammatical sketches. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be a valuable source for students and scholars of linguistics and anthropology alike.

This book is a detailed survey of the two main indigenous languages of Japan, Japanese and Ainu. No genetic relationship has been established between them, and structurally they differ significantly. Professor Shibatani has therefore divided his study into two independent parts. The first is a most comprehensive study of the polysynthetic Ainu language. The second part deals extensively with Japanese. It discusses topics from the evolution of the writing system and the differences between men's and women's speech, to issues of greater theoretical complexity, such as phonology, the lexicon and word-formation, and the syntax of agglutinative morphology. As an American-trained scholar in Japan, the author is in an unique postion that affords him a dual perspective on language deriving from Western linguistic scholarship and the Japanese grammatical tradition.

This book provides a detailed survey of the Korean language, covering its speakers, genetic affiliation, historical development, dialects, lexicon, writing systems, sound patterns, word structure, and grammatical structure. It is designed to be accessible to a wide readership, and provides a wealth of data in a user-friendly format that does not presuppose an in-depth knowledge of the latest linguistic theories. It will be used by general linguists and Korean linguists who are interested in the typological characteristics of the language from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, and by undergraduates and graduate students in those disciplines who seek a comprehensive introduction to the linguistics of Korean. Likewise, advanced students of the Korean language and language educators will find it offers valuable insights into lexical, phonological, morphological and syntactic aspects of the language for their purposes.

Aboriginal people have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years, speaking about 250 languages. Through examination of published and unpublished materials on each of the individual languages, Professor Dixon surveys the ways in which the languages vary typologically and presents a profile of this long-established linguistic area. The areal distribution of most features is illustrated with more than 30 maps, showing that the languages tend to move in cyclic fashion with respect to many of the parameters. There is also an index of languages and language groups. Professor Dixon, a pioneering scholar in the field, brings an interesting perspective to this diverse and complex material.

Southeast Europe's Balkan peninsula is home to numerous languages that have come to converge structurally and lexically, due to complex social factors involving contact among speakers of these languages, constituting a 'sprachbund'. This volume provides the first comprehensive, book-length survey of the Balkan languages in English. It covers the full range of languages involved in the Balkan convergence zone, including Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Greek, Judezmo, Macedonian, Meglenoromanian, Romani, Romanian, Torlak, and West Rumelian Turkish. Balkan convergences - 'Balkanisms' - are presented, considering the grammatical domains of phonetics, phonology, morphology, morphosyntax, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and lexicon. It gives attention to relevant notions of contact linguistics and to the history of the field, while also introducing key conceptual innovations. Providing fresh data and perspectives on the most studied intense contact situation, this work is essential reading for anyone interested in Balkan languages. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

The Amazon Basin is arguably both one of the least-known and the most complex linguistic regions in the world. It is the home of some 300 languages belonging to around twenty language families, plus more than a dozen genetic isolates, and many of these languages (often incompletely documented and mostly endangered) show properties that constitute exceptions to received ideas about linguistic universals. This book provides an overview in a single volume of this rich and exciting linguistic area. The editors and contributors have sought to make their descriptions as clear and accessible as possible, in order to provide a basis for further research on the structural characteristics of Amazonian languages and their genetic and areal relationships, as well as a point of entry to important cross-linguistic data for the wider constituency of theoretical linguists.

The Amazon Basin is arguably both one of the least-known and the most complex linguistic regions in the world. It is the home of some 300 languages belonging to around twenty language families, plus more than a dozen genetic isolates, and many of these languages (often incompletely documented and mostly endangered) show properties that constitute exceptions to received ideas about linguistic universals. This book provides an overview in a single volume of this rich and exciting linguistic area. The editors and contributors have sought to make their descriptions as clear and accessible as possible, in order to provide a basis for further research on the structural characteristics of Amazonian languages and their genetic and areal relationships, as well as a point of entry to important cross-linguistic data for the wider constituency of theoretical linguists.

The Dravidian languages are spoken by over 200 million people in South Asia and in Diaspora communities around the world, and constitute the world's fifth largest language family. It consists of about 26 languages in total including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, as well as over 20 non-literary languages. In this book, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, one of the most eminent Dravidianists of our time, provides a comprehensive study of the phonological and grammatical structure of the whole Dravidian family from different aspects. He describes its history and writing systems, discusses its structure and typology, and considers its lexicon. Distant and more recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups are also discussed. With its comprehensive coverage this book will be welcomed by all students of Dravidian languages and will be of interest to linguists in various branches of the discipline as well as Indologists.

Germanic - one of the largest sub-groups of the Indo-European language family - comprises 37 languages with an estimated 470 million speakers worldwide. This book presents a comparative linguistic survey of the full range of Germanic languages, both ancient and modern, including major world languages such as English and German (West Germanic), the Scandinavian (North Germanic) languages, and the extinct East Germanic languages. Unlike previous studies, it does not take a chronological or a language-by-language approach, organized instead around linguistic constructions and subsystems. Considering dialects alongside standard varieties, it provides a detailed account of topics such as case, word formation, sound systems, vowel length, syllable structure, the noun phrase, the verb phrase, the expression of tense and mood, and the syntax of the clause. Authoritative and comprehensive, this much-needed survey will be welcomed by scholars and students of the Germanic languages, as well as linguists across the many branches of the field.

Afroasiatic languages are spoken by some 300 million people in Northern, Central and Eastern Africa and the Middle East. This book is the first typological study of these languages, which are comprised of around 375 living and extinct varieties. They are an important object of study because of their typological diversity in the areas of phonology (some have tone; others do not), morphology (some have extensive inflectional systems; others do not), position of the verb in the clause (some are verb-initial, some are verb-medial, and some are verb-final) and in the semantic functions they encode. This book documents this typological diversity and the typological similarities across the languages and includes information on endangered and little-known languages. Requiring no previous knowledge of the specific language families, it will be welcomed by linguists interested in linguistic theory, typology, historical linguistics and endangered languages, as well as scholars of Africa and the Middle East.