The great diversity of ethnicities and languages in Africa encourages a vision of Africa as a fragmented continent, with language maps only perpetuating this vision by drawing discrete language groups
Providing a contemporary and comprehensive look at the topical area of areal linguistics, this book looks systematically at different regions of the world whilst presenting a focussed and informed overview of the theory behind research into areal linguistics and language contact. The topicality of areal linguistics is thoroughly documented by a wealth of case studies from all major regions of the world and, with chapters from scholars with a broad spectrum of language expertise, it offers insights into the mechanisms of external language change. With no book currently like this on the market, The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics will be welcomed by students and scholars working on the history of language families, documentation and classification, and will help readers to understand the key area of areal linguistics within a broader linguistic context.
This edited volume is the first dedicated to language contact in Australia since colonisation, contributing new data to theoretical discussions on contact languages and language contact processes. It
2015 Caldecott Honor Book For shy young Peter Mark Roget, books were the best companions -- and it wasn?t long before Peter began writing his own book. But he didn?t write stories; he wrote lists. Pet
Wisconsin is one of the most linguistically rich places in North America. It has the greatest diversity of American Indian languages east of the Mississippi, including Ojibwe and Menominee from the Al
The study of English language and literature in Britain changed dramatically between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. From Philology to English Studies explores the contribution of philology to this movement. Haruko Momma charts both the rise and fall of philology from antiquity to the late eighteenth century, and the impact of modern philology on the study of modern languages and literatures. Focusing in detail on the work of key philologists in the nineteenth century, Momma considers how they shaped European discourse and especially vernacular studies in Britain: William Jones's discovery of Sanskrit in British India gave rise to Indo-European studies; Max Müller's study of this same language helped spread the Aryan myth to the English-speaking world; the OED achieved its greatness as a post-national lexicon under the editorship of James Murray, a dialectologist originally from Scotland.
South Asian languages are rich in linguistic diversity and number. This book explores the similarities and differences of about forty languages from the four different language families (Austro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan (Indo-European) and Tibeto-Burman (Sino-Tibetan)). It focuses on the syntactic typology of these languages and the high degree of syntactic convergence, with special reference to the notion of 'India as a linguistic area'. Several areas of current theoretical interest such as anaphora, control theory, case and agreement, relative clauses and the significance of thematic roles in grammar are discussed. The analysis presented has significant implications for current theories of syntax, verbal semantics, first and second language acquisition, structural language typology and historical linguistics. The book will be of interest to linguists working on the description of South Asian languages, as well as syntacticians wishing to discover more about the common structure
Geographies of Philological Knowledge examines the relationship between medievalism and colonialism in the nineteenth-century Hispanic American context through the striking case of the Creole Andres B
It is generally agreed that about 7,000 languages are spoken across the world today and at least half may no longer be spoken by the end of this century. This state-of-the-art Handbook examines the reasons behind this dramatic loss of linguistic diversity, why it matters, and what can be done to document and support endangered languages. The volume is relevant not only to researchers in language endangerment, language shift and language death, but to anyone interested in the languages and cultures of the world. It is accessible both to specialists and non-specialists: researchers will find cutting-edge contributions from acknowledged experts in their fields, while students, activists and other interested readers will find a wealth of readable yet thorough and up-to-date information.
This volume gathers studies and documentation on Bonaventura Vulcanius, a versatile philologist and writer who in 1581 settled in Leiden as a Professor of Greek and Latin. It includes many unpublished
This book is the first to focus on the African origins of human language. It explores the origins of language and culture 250,000-150,000 years ago when modern humans evolved in Africa. Scholars from
Nichols (emerita linguistics, San Jose State U.) describes how the many languages of three continents that were spoken in the colony in 1715 became the common language of today. Among her perspectives
In contrast to fields like anthropology, the history of linguistics has received remarkably little attention outside of its own discipline despite the undeniable impact language study has had on the m
Velde presents a grammar of Eton, an undescribed language from a subgroup of the Bantu family spoken in the Centre province of Cameroon. The author's study provides a basically theory-neutral synchron
The British Isles are home to a vast range of different spoken and signed languages and dialects. Language continues to evolve rapidly, in its diversity, in the number and the backgrounds of its speak
This book shows that the languages and dialects of Europe are becoming increasingly alike and furthermore that this unifying process goes back to Roman times, is accelerating, and affects every Europ
This book shows that the languages and dialects of Europe are becoming increasingly alike and furthermore that this unifying process goes back to Roman times, is accelerating, and affects every Europe
Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world's great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living o