Review of The Languages of the World

Abstract

After 21 brief essays on the language families of the world, this book gives a series of one- to two-page entries on 200+ different languages. Each of these entries includes: (1) a passage, poem, or paragraph from this language, in its distinctive script, often something from the great literature of the language, (2) an English translation of that, and (3) a few paragraphs about this language, various interesting stuff, and where it fits into the world geographically, historically, or linguistically. Part III is a country-by-country survey, with a few sentences about the main language or languages of each, or their linguistic makeup.