Product Description
New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms brings together various approaches to the contextualized teaching of grammar and communicative skills as integrated components of second language instruction. Its purpose is to show from both theoretical and practical perspectives that grammar teaching can be made productive and useful in ESL and EFL classrooms. In this text:
*First-rate scholars approach the teaching of grammar from multiple complementary perspectives, providing an original, comprehensive treatment of the topic.
*Discourse analysis and research data are used to address such pedagogical areas as grammatical and lexical development in speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
*The communicative perspective on ESL and EFL instruction that is presented provides ways for learners to enhance their production skills, whereas the meaning-based grammar instruction can supplement and strengthen current methodology with a communicative focus.

This volume is intended as a foundational text for second language grammar pedagogy courses at the advanced undergraduate and master's levels.
... Read more

Product Description
Language in the Schools: Integrating Linguistics Knowledge into K-12 Teaching addresses two important questions: *What aspects of linguistic knowledge are most useful for teachers to know? *What kinds of activities and projects are most effective in introducing those aspects of linguistic knowledge to K-12 students? The volume focuses on how basic linguistic knowledge can inform teachers' approaches to language issues in the multicultural, linguistically diverse classroom. The text also includes examples of practical applications of language awareness to pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum construction, which support the current goals of language arts, bilingual, and ESL education. Language in the Schools: Integrating Linguistics Knowledge into K-12 Teaching contributes to the resources on linguistics and education by taking prospective teachers beyond basic linguistics to ways in which linguistics can productively inform their teaching and raise their students' awareness of language. It is intended as a text for students in teacher education programs who have a basic knowledge of linguistics. ... Read more

Product Description
This book surveys the discipline of linguistics, the study of human language. An outline of the ways in which language has been defined, described, and explored is provided, and readers are guided towards further exploration. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Say what?
Although Widdowson is the editor of the Oxford Introductions to Language Studies series this book does not have the same feel as others in the series. The format is the same with a selection of readings following the author's introduction. However, this book seems to have been written as an introduction for experienced linguists. It contains all of the information but with none of the details that would make it a pleasant read for novices. Ultimately, trying to squeeze everything there is to be said about linguistics into 77 pages is an impossible task and makes for an unprofitable read.

That said, the selection of readings is particularly strong and Widdowson asks some pointed questions of each author. It is at times very apparent what answer he expects because he goes on to ask questions based on what his answer would be. This would annoy those who disagree with him.

This book only rated two stars because I expected more from the series editor. Widdowson seems to have missed the second word of the series title: introductions. Only those with a graduate level reading ability in the field of linguistics would find this book enjoyable. I would recommend Jean Aitchison's book instead (0340870834). It is highly readable and geared more for the novice.

short but essential reading
There are many introductions to linguistics; Henry Widdowson's book not only provides an excellent overview of the basics it does so on only 80 pages (main text). For those who want (or need) more, the author provides excepts from other books, a list of references and a glossary.

Because the book is short it is necessarily dense. However, the concepts are explained clearly and'without being overly verbose. To say that Widdowson "calls on the reader to define what the subdisciplines of linguistics should be studying" (an Amazon reviewer) is only partially true. In the main text the areas of inquiry are clearly outlined. In the extracts from other books, however, Widdowson shows that different authors draw the boundaries between the various sub-disciplines differently. Of course, this may be difficult to accept for those who demand one irrevocable academic truth.

Oxford Introductions to Language Study: Linguistics
I was pretty disappointed with this book. Despite calling itself an introduction, it was a very heavy going read - even for someone like me with 6 years experience in TESOL. Widdowson's style is to define the mainareas of enquiry very briefly and then call on the reader to makejudgements about what each discipline should be studying. However, withthese abstact definitions alone, the reader cannot even begin to make ajudgement. I felt that these kind of questions would only be suited tothose who already have an extensive knowledge of linguistics. I also feltthat such questions were irrelevant - it doesn't matter what area oflinguistics a certain type of study comes under; what's important iswhether it's worth studying. I would have preferred a book that actuallygot down to concrete examples of what lingustics was actually studying.Nevertheless, the book is useful in that it explains the meaning of all theterminology used in linguistics. This will no doubt be useful for furtherreading. ... Read more

Product Description
More than forty years ago it was demonstrated that the African continent can be divided into four distinct language families. Research on African languages has accordingly been preoccupied with reconstructing and understanding similarities across these families. This has meant that an interest in other kinds of linguistic relationship, such as whether structural similarities and dissimilarities among African languages are the result of contact between these languages, has never been the subject of major research. This 2007 book shows that such similarities across African languages are more common than is widely believed. It provides a broad perspective on Africa as a linguistic area, as well as an analysis of specific linguistic regions. In order to have a better understanding of African languages, their structures, and their history, more information on these contact-induced relationships is essential to understanding Africa's linguistic geography, and to reconstructing its history and prehistory. ... Read more

Product Description

Language, Society and Power is the essential introductory text for students studying language in a variety of social contexts.

This book examines the ways in which language functions, how it influences thought and how it varies according to age, ethnicity, class and gender. It seeks to answer such questions as: How can a language reflect the status of children and older people? Do men and women talk differently? How can our use of language mark our ethnic identity? It also looks at language use in politics and the media and investigates how language affects and constructs our identities, exploring notions of correctness and attitudes towards language use.

This third edition of this bestselling book has been completely revised to include recent developments in theory and research and offers the following features:

• a range of new and engaging international examples drawn from everyday life: beauty advertisements, conversation transcripts, newspaper headlines reporting on asylum seekers, language themed cartoons, and excerpts from the television programme South Park and satirical news website The Onion
• new activities designed to give students a real understanding of the topic
• a new chapter covering Student Projects – giving readers suggestions on how to further explore the topics covered in the book
• updated and expanded further reading sections for each chapter and a glossary

While it can be used as a stand-alone text, this edition of Language, Society and Power has also been fully cross-referenced with the new companion title: The Language, Society and Power Reader. Together these books provide the complete resource for students of English language and linguistics, media, communication, cultural studies, sociology and psychology.

Customer Reviews (2)

Great
The book came quickly and was in the condition stated in the description. I was very happy with what I received!

Great Explanation; a bit polluted by modern society
Clarity and logical explanation of the modern theories of language and linguistics is this book's strength.I exhaustively covered this book because of a college class that it was required for.Much about language that is basic for moving on from elementary linguistics is covered in this book.

Contemporary classic theories of language are included (ie Saussure's theories, Sapir-Whorf, etc) which sets the reader off into a fascinating discovery of how language promotes or inhibits one's power in modern society.

In such contemporary issues as political correctness and the Standard American English debate, a slightly more leftist view is employed in the writing of the book than I would've preferred, but nonetheless, there is a suffice and clear explanation of the information throughout.

A quality book.Check it out! ... Read more

Product Description
This book documents a sixteen-year study of two elementary school foreign language programs. With a strong focus on what `works' and is possible, the authors provide an evaluation of what is necessary to plan, implement and sustain a successful language course. A Tale of Two Schools contains invaluable information for those involved in these processes worldwide. ... Read more

Product Description
Eugene Charniak breaks new ground in artificial intelligence research by presenting statistical language processing from an artificial intelligence point of view in a text for researchers and scientists with a traditional computer science background.New, exacting empirical methods are needed to break the deadlock in such areas of artificial intelligence as robotics, knowledge representation, machine learning, machine translation, and natural language processing (NLP). It is time, Charniak observes, to switch paradigms. This text introduces statistical language processing techniques -- word tagging, parsing with probabilistic context free grammars, grammar induction, syntactic disambiguation, semantic word classes, word-sense disambiguation -- along with the underlying mathematics and chapter exercises.Charniak points out that as a method of attacking NLP problems, the statistical approach has several advantages. It is grounded in real text and therefore promises to produce usable results, and it offers an obvious way to approach learning: "one simply gathers statistics."Language, Speech, and Communication ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Dr. Charniak, could you change our paradigm again, please??
A few weeks ago I was browsing in a bookstore and saw this book on the shelf.As I reread the preface for the first time in 13 years, memories of a time gone by rushed over me.Memories of 1993, back when I was young, good-looking,and had a full head of hair...ahhhh those happy grad school years.

I can still remember reading this book's preface so many years ago, and feeling the excitement!A new age is upon us--the old paradigms are crumbling, but not to worry!Statistical parsing will save the day!And Dr. Charniak gave us such an incredibly easy on-ramp: this book is fat-free, crystal-clear, and mercifully short.Ideal for busy professors and grad students, you too could change your paradigm in only 10 days of assiduous reading.

But in 2006, this book doesn't sound anymore like a manafesto for a new era.Indeed, it sounds more like a survey and summary of the last 10 years worth of research in statistical language processing. After so many years, statistical parsers are still only around 90% accurate in picking the best parse for a sentence.Rereading this book makes it PAINFULLY obvious that the field of NLP has been treading water for over a decade.

What could have gone so wrong???I went back to the preface to find out, and my conclusion is that although Dr. Charniak accurately diagnosed the disease, he prescribed the wrong medicine.

What was the disease?Listen to how cogently he characterises what was wrong with NLP in 1993:"...language understanding depends on a lot of "real-world knowledge" ...But....the study of knowledge representation....is not going anywhere fast....AI has become notorious for the production of countless non-monotonic logics and almost as many logics of knowledge and belief, and none of the work shows any obvious application to actual knowledge representation problems".

The coup-de-grace is delivered by Dr. Charniak as follows:"Thus many of us in AI-NLP have found ourselves in the position of basing our research on the successful completion of other's reasearch--a completion that is looking more and more problematic."One would expect Dr. Charniak at this point to say something like "so lets all pitch-in and give the knowledge-representation folks a hand for a while." But no.Instead, he suggests that we all start inducing statistical parsers.

Nowlet's step back for a moment and marvel at what a great strategy this is.If your current search space is exhausted, you have no choice--you must create a newsearch space for yourself.I'm reminded of the marketing plan for Altoids.The market for breath-mints is incredibly crowded, so what's a newcommer to do?Create a _new_ space (strong mints) and give the consumer a reason to buy Altoids (they're curiously strong!)Dr. Charniak made a similar move when he wrote this book--create a new space (statistical parsing) where he could be number one (I wrote the book).Historically, this strategy worked flawlessly--statistical parsing has so dominated the field that you are hard-pressed to find a course at any university called "natural language processing" which doesn't deal exclusively with inducing grammars from corpora.Its not too much of an exaggeration to say that every NLP textbook written for 10 years after this book is just a retread of this slim volume, but with horrendous page counts and larded with extrainous techniques. Appolgies to Dijkstra, but this book truly is an improvement on all of its sucessors.

So its impossible to critique this book on clarity, subject mattter, historical significance, prophetic powers, or ultimate success and influence on the field. Truly, Dr. Charniak was talking about a revolution.So what's not to like?

Well.......this book does an excellent job of identifying the problem: our knowledge representation methods are weak.Where I fault this book is that it doesn't present a solution to the problem it identifies.Statistical parsing has absolutely no hope of helping out with the knowledge representation problem. Say curent statistical parsers were more than 90% accurate--say they were 100% accurate, i.e. we can parse any dang sentence.The knowledge representation problem remains.A simple example: given the two sentences "There are three chickens.Every chicken has two legs." Can you write a program which can answer the question "How many legs are there?" Does statistical parsing help?Parsing each of those sentences is no problem, even for the nonstatistical parsers available in 1993.There is no syntactic ambiguity at all, but even if you have the correct parse trees, those two sentences bristle with semantic difficulties.How do we represent the plurals? (three chickens, two legs).How do we know that "each chicken" ranges over the the chickens described by "three chickens?"How do go from parse trees to the multiplication problem "3 chickens times 2 legs per chicken" to yield the desired answer "6 legs?"It seems to me that although millions of dollars and millions of person-hours have been spent in NLP in the 13 years since this book was published, almost no effort has gone into answering these sorts of semantic problems--the problems which this book so eloquently identifies as what is holding up NLP research.

13 years is a long time.I've gone from a young and good-looking grad student to a bald 40-year old since this book was published, and I do believe that this whole endeavor of inducing statistical grammars from corpora is also showing its age.13 years is longer than we gave to neural networks or to unification grammars to prove their worth. Its time for a new paradigm.

And I can't think of anybody better than Dr. Charniak to once again show us the way!How I would love to see another slim little book from him--another slim little book which will change the way NLP is done for years to come!

Nice little book with 3 well-covered topics
Note that this is a small book (roughly 160 pages of text) so don't expect to find a broad coverage of the field in it. The (only) 3 topics covered in a satisfactory detail are Hidden Markov Models, Probabilistic Grammars and Word Sense Disambiguation.

The first chapter ("The Standard Model") is probably included just for comparison to the statistical model, so it's a bit surprising to find the good coverage of the Chart Parsing there.

If you are interested in some of the 3 topics mentioned above, consider buying this book. Don't forget that it's been written in 1993 (so it's pretty old). For this reason (or maybe others) it is less known than other similar writings in the field, so you may also surprise some of your colleagues with it :-)

Brilliant introduction to the subject
This book is one of the most concise presentations of the subject of natural language processing using statistical theory. It gives a very thorough introduction in the areas of hidden Markov models (HMMs), PCFG(probabilistic context-free grammar) and other related areas, with goodcoverage of the mathematics behind the theory. There is quite an extensiveuse of relevant samples, and the bibliography is extensive. It is a verygood introduction to this area for professionals and studentsalike.

Juntung Wu University College (University of Oxford) Oxford,England ... Read more

Product Description
A must have for all those following the debate about language, instinct vs learned debate. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

The value of contrarian views
I'm torn between a three and a four on this one.I'd recommend this to anyone interested in the issue of whether or not language is instinctual. Sampson scores some hits against those believing that language is inborn. I admit that I'm a pushover for discrediting Noam Chomsky. I consider him to be a philosopher, rather than a scientist, since he doesn't empirically test his ideas.Logic is a valuable tool, but ideas that originally seemed logical litter the path of science when they don't stand up to testing.

Sampson is particularly strong when he catches his opponents making assumptions rather than basing their arguments on actual data. He searches databases like the British National Corpus, that includes samples of everyday speech, to show that many forms of speech aren't as rare as was supposed, and it is therefore more likely that a child could learn them by observation. He also catches them in overgeneralizations about things that are frequently, but not always true.These are the strongest parts of the book.

Still, in the end I am not convinced that he is right. He argues that the idea that language is entirely learned, like games or dances, is the "commonsense" position. I don't know about that: I have read that in the Middle Ages, efforts were made to isolate infants from adult speech in the belief that they would then speak the original language. And I am unaware of any culture that does not have a language. Even deaf infants babble.

I also think that Sampson overstates the "instinct" position, to set up a straw man.He says: "All of us, surely, would rather be what most of us have supposed we are: creatures capable of coming to terms with whatever life throws at us because of our ability to create novel ideas [...] Who would not prefer this picture to that which portrays biology as allotting to the human mind a range of available settings, like a fully featured washing machine [...] The former concept of Man is far nobler.The evidence suggests that it is far more accurate." I don't think that most people are arguing that either all behavior is instinctive or it is all learned. The "instinct" proposal still leaves room for the great variety that we find in languages, and it doesn't necessarily mean that any other behavior is instinctive.Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we would like to believe, but what is true.

So I think that Sampson does the noble work of pointing out weaknesses in the instinct language, and good scientists will thank him, even if it is through gritted teeth, for helping them perfect their data collection. On the other hand, he has chiefly presented arguments against his opponents, not for his own position.

Not what I was looking for
I enjoy looking at both side of an argument; as an introductory linguistics course I am taking has highlighted this book as a good way of looking at the other side of the Chomskyan claims I swiftly ordered my copy, fully expecting several evenings of intellectual challenge and brain stretching. The book has thoroughly disappointed me. It is a pamphlet rather than a scientific work.

I'll propose that the first paragraph of the book is an acid test for the potential reader. It reads as follows: "the English language, and other languages, are institutions like country dancing or the game of cricket: cultural creations that individuals may learn during their lifetimes, if they happen to be born into the appropriate cultures, but to which no one is innately predisposed".
If you're struck by the fact you hardly know anybody who doesn't speak a language (I know nobody having chosen to not learn one during her lifetime), but probably know several people who don't play cricket you'll be hard pressed to find a satisfying explanation.
If on the other hand, you find this claim fairly self obvious (maybe you don't know anybody who doesn't play cricket for instance) and are in fact scandalized anybody could think otherwise, you'll probably enjoy the book.

Extreme lack of scholarship and insight
I approached this book with some enthusiasm as it had promised to disprove nativist theories. However, from the first page it was obvious that the author is quite uninformed and had not delved deep enough into the nativist literature to postulate a reasonable argument. (Come'on, do you actually think you can write off the CPH in 3 pages...?) The tone of the entire book is extremely sophomoric reflecting an emotionally driven stance and lack of theoretical foundation. It is no wonder Chomsky and Pinker have written this author off as a buffoon. The poor scholarship in this book is not deserving of their attention.

If nativism is to be disproved one must go about such an enterprise with some guile and intelligence. This book was written too disingenuously to be of any merit or threat to the theory. If you are a linguist you will find this book quite comical, but it's not worth the money to actually buy it. My suggestion is to check it out from the local library if your curiosity gets the best of you.

Dense, repetitive and could have been better researched
Geoffrey Sampson's critical approach to Pinker's best-selling "The Language Instinct" makes some good points against the nativist position on language acquisition. Mostly, advocating for a return to empiricism, and using the science philosophy of K. Popper, Sampson tries to debunk the basic tenets of Chomsky's (and Pinker's) theory of language acquisition.

Some arguments are clearly backed by evidence. For instance, the idea that "language mutants" with an specific genetic disorder that affects the use of suffixes has been not well research by Pinker, since further evidence shows that the gene involved in the problem is NOT only relevant for linguistic forms, but to more general learning processes.

However, the philosophical and logical arguments against Chomsky's classic proofs such as "poverty of stimulus" and the like are not as clear. Maybe Sampson keeps his arguments at a logical level (which makes it harder to fallow the argumentation, very dense at moments), instead on relying on more empirical evidence.

In sum, it is an interesting book, but the style and the dense argumentation (as well as some subtle clear dislike for Chomsky and his role in the world of ideas) doesn't make it a candidate to be THE definite critical voice in the linguistic innateness debate.

Spoiler Alert!
This book certainly brought a different perspective to the empiricist/ nativist debate.It shed reasonable doubt upon the idea that we are born with innate semantic structure.Mr. Sampson does a good job of showing the empirical evidence does not always indicate the universals the nativists claim are substantial.After reading this book, I am certainly more confident in the creativity of human intelligence.

However, I have my qualms with Mr. Sampson.I am not a linguist, but most of the arguments were not out of my grasp.At times the author was repetitive, ambiguous and he often went on tangents, particularly in the last few chapters in which it seems he is struggling to respond to all of the critics of his first edition.Particularly I note how he struggled to convince the reader that Karl Popper would advocate his position.I am not very familiar with this philosopher, but Mr. Sampson is forced to combine quotes to manipulate his words.It seems that he just wants people to be on his side.All this, after he argued against the atrocities of hegemony!Aside from his prose, the biggest annoyance I had with this book was that he waits until the end to reveal his true stance.This is the spoiler: he believes that the mind is literally infinitely creative.This seems to contradict his statement earlier in the book that he believes Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate to be of great value despite the fact that this conclusion can only come from complete denial of everything this book stands for.Mr. Sampson calls upon the ghost in the machine, Descarte's dualism, as the source of human creativity.This view was not integrated into the book but simply pops out at the end, at least from my perspective.Regardless of whether it is true or not, as he admits, it is not a scientific argument.

It is a shame that Steven Pinker did not write this book, as it would have been more eloquent, and without the unnecessary supernatural conclusion.This book is at least a good start, hopefully someone will build off of it ... Read more

Product Description
O'Malley and Chamot review the literature on learning strategies and present instructional models for learning strategy training that teachers can apply to their own classes.The material is based on current research in second language acquisition and cognitive theory. This book will be of interest to applied linguists, educational researchers, teacher trainers, course designers, and language teachers who wish to apply research findings to their classroom situations and help students become more effective and independent learners. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

useful to know about but difficult to teach from
Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisitionlooks at language as acomplex cognitive skill which can be defined within the context ofcognitive theory. There is a lot of research in cognitive theory as itrelates to learning in general, but as O'Malley and Chamot point out, verylittle has been done specifically with SLA in mind. Consequently, althoughLearning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition is comprehensive in itsoverview of the techniques that learners adopt while studying a foreignlanguage, the paucity of research as to the efficacy of using suchstrategies, and whether or not they can be taught, is still inconclusive.Clearly more research is needed before one can suggest pedagogicalimplications. What I liked about this book is that it develops a taxonomyof language learning strategies that any teacher will find very useful tobe aware of. What I was not so sure of, however, was in being able to passon this new knowledge to my students by referring to this text alone. Ifyou are looking for ways in which to teach strategies either directly, orby embedding them in the materials that you use or create, then I muchprefer Rebecca Oxford's Language Learning Strategies. ... Read more

Product Description
The language of Ancient Egypt has been the object of careful investigation since its decipherment in the nineteenth century, but this is the first accessible account that uses the insight of modern linguistics. Antonio Loprieno discusses the hieroglyphic system and its cursive varieties, and the phonology, morphology and syntax of Ancient Egyptian, as well as looking at its genetic ties with other languages of the Near East. This book will be indispensable for both linguists and Egyptologists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A Rhetorical Erudite Euro-centric Fantasy about "Ancient Egyptian
The author stumbles and falls early.....he uses the flawed, out dated classification of African languages by the late J. H. Greenberg. Hebrew mythology supplied the "Hamitic" and the "Semitic" "language groups" for the Greenberg approach to the classification of African languages.This was all based on the so-called "sons of Noah"!! As incredible as it sounds, Hebrew biblical fantasies supplied much of the early Euro-centric intellectual conceptual frame work. The untutored has been led astray. Any linguistics that rest on religious mythology is certainly not science. "Afro-Asiatic" is just as flawed as "Hamitic-Semitic".
This was essentially formulated to support the Hegelian theories of ancient history. For Hegel,Black Africa and negro Africans played no part in human civilization. Any cultural advance in Africa came from "waves of immigrants " fromAsia or even Europe. Yet no one knew exactly where these "invaders from the East" came from. Exactly who were these people,where was the center of the civilization of this mysterious civilization? What language did they speak? These questions faded away under the heavy weight of religious dogma, European nationalism and the neurotic need to prove that the Hebrew and Christian scriptures were true. Out of this human mixture rose the flawed classification of African languages that this author chose to base this book.
We now know that no competent linguist can demonstrate that the language spoken by the "ancient Egyptians" is GENETICALLY related to ANY SEMITIC language or to Berber(Siwa or Rif). Nor to any Indo-European language.
It has been consistently demonstrated over and over again that language spoken by the ancient Egyptian people and the later Coptic versions, is genetically related to various modern black African languages. For example, Wolof, spoken mainly in Senegal, West Africa is genetically related to ancient Egyptian on all levels of the grammatical structure!!!!! For a start, see UNESCO General History of Africa Vol ll.p44-49. Or the linguistic works of Theophile Obenga orC. A. Diop.
This author has produced a typical euro-centricwork that is deeply and fatally marred by racialism, ideology and dogma.
Euro-centric scholars labor under a vicious intellectual tyranny. Few of them have the courage to risk careers, tenure, peer review, money publication, etc,etc... Thus they stick to the "PARTY Line"! If the PARTY LINE states that the language of the "Ancient Egyptians"(Negro-Africans)was a "Semitic" language, then that's what it was. Forget all ofthe indisputable evidence of modern comparative and historical linguistics thatdemonstrates that ancient Egyptian is genetically related to many modern day black African languages......you know what will happen to you if you don't!!
This author has led the untutored astray by basing his work on the racist assumptions, dogmas and ideologies of the distant past.........THUMBS DOWN!!

This book is a must for every egyptologist
According to my knowldege this book is the first comprehensive and comparative grammar of the old Egyptian language from its roots down to the Coptic language. It gives an excellent insight of how men and languages develop over a period of nearly 4000 years,unique in history.

Excellent book but should be expanded for clarity
Somehow it looks like the Loprieno had a hard time with the publisher or not much time because it looks like the book should be much larger.

Namely, although he praises interlinear translations he admits that the translations have "enough information" (pp. xii-xiii) as they are presented, but it could be much easier to follow the narrative if all the translations could be grammatically parsed or at least italicized in main points.

Indeed, Loprieno sometimes uses parsing (pp147,159), or true interlinear (pp160ex.(75), (84)), or italicization of key points addressed in texts (pp 198 (ex.(66)) and underline (pp.116) and is very easy to follow on that spots, and it shows a true language professional.

On other places you must break the thoughts and delve into translation and grammar parsing and also there are sometimes long chunks of texts where you could get lost and need to reread. This becomes impediment at times.

Loprieno also admits that he has no room for elaboration of Negation patterns (ch. 5.7) in detail. But if you want to understand it you must get his articles on the subject on Negation (in reference) - those are excellent explanatory material left out which should be included in the introductory book.

On the other side, the grammatical tables are invaluable as they summarize whole chapters and are easy to follow.

Indexes at the end of the book are excellent cross-information, especially index of topics, morphemes and lexemes.

Minding space shortcomings the book is very well organized (considering space allotted), extremely thorough and above all very modern.

For specifics on "tech talk" in linguistics, the most useful book to have with you when reading Loprieno is David Crystal: Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (The Language Library). Without good dictionary like this it is much more difficult to follow the discourse.

Regarding contents:

Ch.1,2 and 3 are nice introductory material and is a summary of all the work done in the phonetics field published in books and periodicals of relevance to Ancient Egyptian.

Ch.4 Is a true morphological summary of Ancient Egyptian and it looks like half the Gardiner ( Egyptian Grammar (Egyptology: Griffith Institute) ) compressed. The verbal morphology ch. 4.6 is a very modern and unexplored field not touched much by classics and very interesting (it also need some time and heavy use of Crystal).

Ch 5,6, and 7 are true anatomical atlas of Ancient Egyptian language and Ch.7 is slightly theoretical as the verbal approach is only recently taking ground.

I suggest NOT to read chapters on Later Egyptian (i.e. 5.11, 6.7, and 7.9)at a first few rereads until you are completely familiar with Middle Egyptian because it is just too much information on a small space.

Such a wide scope of the book on such a small volume is sometimes nauseating even after numerous re-readings. But after some time, resisting the plateau of learning everything would fit and you can even sometimes enjoy such minimalistic writing. After completely familiarizing with contents it can be an excellent study reference and prime source on Ancient Egyptian.

Excellent introduction to the Egyptian language
This work is probably the best exposition on the Egyptian language available to the general public currently. The chapter on phonology is highly commendable for the presentation of believable reconstructions of original pronunciations of Egyptian words, including inflections, which one sorely misses in most other works. However, without sound grounding in linguistics, the contents are often difficult to comprehend, especially the sections on grammar. Nevertheless, the book is certainly an indispensable and authoritative reference on this subject matter for every serious student of Egyptology and/or Egyptian language.

*not* to learn hieroglyphs - a serious linguistic book
This is the first time that the insight of modern linguistics has been applied to the long and careful investigations into the decipherment ofAncient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphic system and its differentvarieties (with its phonology, morphology and syntax) are explained. It isan excellent book but hard to follow if a person has little or no knowledgeof linguistics. Otherwise, it is perfect for learning about the language -not for translating hieroglyphs. Lots of examples have been taken fromactual Egyptian texts (ie, The Tale of Sinuhe, The Tale of the EloquentPeasant, etc.). As the back cover says, it is "essential reading forlinguists and Egyptologists alike." ... Read more

Product Description
This revised and expanded edition provides a comprehensive overview of comparative Indo-European linguistics and the branches of the Indo-European language family, covering both linguistic and cultural material. Now offering even greater coverage than the first edition, it is the definitive introduction to the field.

• Updated, corrected, and expanded edition, containing new illustrations of selected texts and inscriptions, and text samples with translations and etymological commentary
  
• Extensively covers individual histories of both ancient and modern languages of the Indo-European family
  
• Provides an overview of Proto-Indo-European culture, society, and language
  
• Designed for use in courses, with exercises and suggestions for further reading included in each chapter
  
• Includes maps, a glossary, a bibliography, and comprehensive word and subject indexes

Customer Reviews (10)

The Best Book About Indo-European
There is simply not another book currently available that is a more comprehensive or better introduction to Indo-European linguistics.It is the book I wish I had when I was studying Indo-European comparative grammar at Hunter College many years ago.I am currently using it as the main text in a special studies program I am teaching.

Valuable Introduction for the Curious
This book comes in two parts, an overview of Proto-Indo-European (including cultural as well as linguistic considerations), and a survey of each branch of the family. The first part serves its purpose fairly well as an introduction, although I'm not sure how much sense the discussion of (say) the verbal system makes without experience in at least one old IE language. Still, the discussions of IE grammar are relatively clear and accessible. If you want a more elegant view of this material, I recommend James Clackson's Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics), which covers much the same material in a crystal clear style, and navigates the controversies of reconstruction a bit more masterfully (unsurprising, since Clackson's book is explicitly designed to cover the controversial aspects of the field for a relative beginner). I highly recommend using these two books together (especially since Clackson has no survey of the branches as Fortson does).

The second half is where Fortson really shines. Each chapter covers one particular branch, and they can easily be read independently of each other in any order. If some reviewers aren't interested in all the branches, or in some of the more recent languages which Fortson discusses, then they can just skip those sections; Fortson makes it easy. Each chapter contains sections on history and culture, outlines the main characteristics of each branch, and then discusses the grammatical features each sub-family within the branch. These are hardly complete grammars, of course, but Fortson generally does an excellent job of capturing some of the most striking features of each family, and whetting your appetite for more. The text samples for you to work through are very nice features.

Fortson ends each chapter with a Further Reading section, which often contains some important reference grammars, dictionaries, and articles for the family. The main lack is that Fortson generally does not suggest pedagogical grammars, which is a shame since the book introduces languages so well that I (at least) often want to follow up study with a good, reliable teaching resource. It would save a great deal of uncertainty and searching if Fortson had offered some recommendations to begin with (though I can appreciate the difficulty this would have created for the author, since recommending pedagogical grammars is so often a matter of explaining the pros and cons of a number of imperfect resources).

I'm giving this book five stars since I feel that it's intended audience--interested students or dilettantes--will find this an amazingly valuable introduction which really does contain a wealth of information. Read this in conjunction with Clackson, and you will get an excellent overview of Proto-Indo-European, as well as nice introductions to each of the sub-families (which are usually fascinating even internally, regardless of their value for PIE reconstruction). There's a lot more to IE linguistics than can possibly be covered in these two books, but they provide very solid foundations for further language study or reading about the field.

Useful introduction to linguistic elements, but cultural elements are underdeveloped
This is a useful introduction to Indo-European linguistics, and it provides the barest of introductions to the cutural aspects.These are hardly on the same level:the linguistic introduction is solid and well-developed, while the cutural aspects are barely outlined and largely undeveloped.

The book provides a reasonably comprehensive but introductory survey to each of the Indo-European language branches, as well as brief surveys within the branches.Each of these surveys looks at phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes.

This book is designed to take an absolute beginner from no knowledge in comparative linguistics to a point of having a good foundation of the comparative and historical linguistics of the Indo-European language family.While I am not entirely sure this book hits the mark there (it starts out assuming no knowledge but moves forward EXTREMELY FAST), it certainly is close.

I would recommend this work subject to the caveat that the promise of an introduction to Indo-European cultural studies is entirely unfulfilled.

The very foundation of Indo European linguistics has evaporated
"Therefore, something must be wrong with the Germanic Consonant Shift. That wrong thing cannot possibly be sought at the Germanic end because the phonetic equation (Lat `pater'= Goth. Fadar, Lat tria=Goth prija, Lat. Card=Goth hairt etc. etc.) that led to the conception of Grimm's Law in the first place are unimpeachable. We have to conduct our investigation at the Proto-Aryan (P-A) end (Gessman 1990, p. 6)."

"It can be safely assumed that these migrating tribes did not represent large armies who overwhelmed the original inhabitants by the sheer force of their numbers but were smallish bands who conquered their new homes by their superiority in battle. Those original inhabitants--undoubtedly greatly superior in numbers--saw themselves forced to learn the respective languages (or still dialects of the Aryan conquerors. It is difficult to see how one can doubt that these substrata modified the newly acquired languages, and it stands to reason to assume that influences from vastly different substrata were one of the main causes for the conspicuous differentiation of the Aryan languages in even their most ancient known forms (Gessman 1990, p. 10)."

"Whichever the development may have been, we can see one thing clearly. Grimm's Law, the `Germanic Consonant Shift," has evaporated. The Proto-Aryan basis on which it had been predicated has vanished (Gessman 1990, p.12)."

Gessman, A. M. (1990). Grimm's law: fact of myth. Language Quarterly, 28:3-4, pp. 2-16.

"We (Caflisch) can agree with G (Gessman 1990) that the aspirated segments cannot be found in other branches, but that Dravidian languages even today in central and southern India have them; and some of these, e.g. Kannada, have retroflexed T-series [t, d, n], etc. After all, perhaps the vaunted romanticism of the Leipzig linguists should have included retroflex ion in their scheme for the I.E. segment inventory, but they did not. Connected with G's eight point (6) is the discussion relevant to possible vs. impossible phonological paradigmata.
The ninth point suggests a * P. I.E. (= G's "Proto-Aryan") pharyngeal series in the segment matrix; however I (Caflisch) claim a glottal zed series proposed also by other scholars such as A. R. Bomhard (1977), P. Hopper (1977), T. V. Gamkreldize (1975), and L. Hammerich (1967). One reason for glottalization is rather simple: it can apply only to voiceless segments which will mean that we can conveniently ||p|| on both physiological and typological grounds.
Also assumed under the rubric of this ninth point is G's long-held opinion that the substratum contamination (I prefer to call it cross-contamination or bilateral contamination) between *P. I.E. and *P. S. (Proto-Semitic) was most assuredly in force. In this connection Levin (1971) ought to be consulted and taken seriously. Could Hittite have been a quasi "buffer" culture between *I.E. (Hittite, despite G's claims about its amalgam status, continues to be recognized as *I.E. in structure.) and Semitic? After, all, Slavs were used by the Roman empire as a buffer culture (a "shock strip") between the latter and the threatening eastern nomadic tribes (Caflisch 1990, p. 19)."
"I (Caflisch) agree with G that, most assuredly. Languages are very easily contaminated through contacts, and even half-hearted acculturation (a kind of "passive acculturation" where speakers lack full motivation to assimilate within a cultural base) within G's substratum and superstratum complexes allows for it to lesser degree (Caflisch 1990, p.21)."
"In summarizing Gessman's article, I (Caflisch) point to several ideas which are indeed crucial to his arguments. Fist G, makes the bold claim against the interpretation of any cycle in Grimm's Law, without dismissing the actual linear changes that have occurred. G's longstanding theory of superstrata, adstrata, and substrata in language contacts and their subsequent tendencies toward contamination phenomena is indeed well taken here (Caflisch 1990, p. 24)."

Caflisch, J., Sr. (1990). Grimm's law revisited: a case for natural, typological phonology. Language Quarterly, 28 (3-4), pp. 17-28).

Indo-European language & culture
I have been studying both linguistics and languages for years. I am particularly interested in historical linguistics. I would consider Forston's book to be a good, updated primer on the subject,especially for those interested and intrigued by Indo-European studies. ... Read more

Product Description
Seven essays, collected here for the first time, define some of the central concerns of linguistic anthropology through the close study of Western Apache, a language of astonishing complexity.All of the essays have been revised for this anthology. Basso, a major authority in the field of linguistic anthropology, has drawn on fieldwork at the village of Cibecue, whose residents speak a dialect of Western Apache that is spoken nowhere else.He shows how intricacies of language—place names, metaphor, uses of silence—help a people define their very existence, so that, in the words of one Apache woman, "If we lose our language, we will lose our breath; then we will die and blow away like leaves."His essays amply demonstrate that, while Apache language and culture are changing in response to modernization, they remain intricate, vital and unique. These essays illustrate not only the complexity of a particular cultural world as it has emerged to one observer over a protracted period of intensive fieldwork, but also the natural movement from the study of grammatical categories to that of language use and on to the study of the conceptual system underlying it.Each essay addresses a significant theoretical problem; taken together they constitute a microcosm of the anthropological understanding of language.CONTENTS
The Western Apache Classificatory Verb System: A Semantic Analysis
Semantic Aspects of Linguistic Acculturation
A Western Apache Writing System: The Symbols of Silas John
"Wise Words" of the Western Apache: Metaphor and Semantic Theory
"To Give Up on Words": Silence in Western Apache Culture
"Stalking With Stories": Names, Places, and Moral Narratives among the Western Apache
"Speaking with Names": Language and Landscapes among the Western Apache ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent Buy
I bought this book for an Anthropology class.The syntax is complex and sometimes difficult to understand, but for the subject matter, it's a great buy.

Interpretive Analysis of Western Apache Language and Culture
Author Keith Basso has compiled seven essays over a span of twenty-five years to create a thourough and interpretive look at importance of symbol in Western Apache language and culture. Through his study of NativeAmerican language, he adresses several topics including the influencialnature of metaphor and placenames, and the use of silence for the WesternApache. ... Read more

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A description of the syntax of the comparative constructions of Spanish and French, which attempts to show that the differences in syntactic realizations can be accounted for by general constraints on the expressions of comparison. ... Read more

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This book explores the nature of knowledge, language and pedagogy from the perspective of two complementary theories: systemic functional linguistics, and Bernstein-inspired sociology. Bernstein's sociology of knowledge makes a distinction between horizontal and vertical discourses as ways in which knowledge is transmitted in institutional settings, with teachers as agents of symbolic control. Systemic functional linguists have explored educational discourse according to similar hierarchies, and by bringing the two perspectives together this book shows the impact of language on knowledge and pedagogy. The contributors examine the different structures of knowledge and the flow of information within the school context, but also according to language in early childhood, literacy, English, the social sciences, science and mathematics. The result is a progressive and dynamic analysis of knowledge structures at work in educational institutions. ... Read more

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This book covers the basic elements of linguistics in a lucid style, taking a subject that is generally considered quite complicated, and making it accessible to virtually anyone who requires a basic understanding of it. Specialists in language related fields, including Speech-Language Pathology, Experimental Phonetics, Communication, Education, and English as a Second Language will find Linguisticsfor Non-Linguists a must-have reference. The book's self-teaching approach provides students and specialists in fields neighboring linguistics with a basic introduction to the principles and methods of linguistic theory. Concepts are defined and illustrated simply. Non-linguistics majors will find this book comprehensive and clear. For anyone with an interest in phonetics and language. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first account of the transformation of the Turkish language in the years following 1930--probably the most extensive piece of language engineering ever attempted. The book is important both for the study of linguistic change and for the light it throws on twentieth-century Turkish politics and society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Readable but occasionally over-detailed look at Turkish language reform
I just finished the book -- reading 1-2 hours daily for 3 days -- and a very brief summary of what I learned might be:

*** Ataturk's insistence on converting from the Arabic script to Latin letters was a huge success in pushing Turkish citizens towards literacy (1924=9%, 1995=82.3%), no doubt among the highest literacy rates in the Muslim world;

*** For some hyper-nationalistic intellectuals, the reform became a grand excuse for ridding Turkish of Arabic vocabulary and Persian phrases/grammar, regardless of whether a) These "foreign" words had already been well integrated into Turkish anyway; b) Feasible, "truly" Turkish synonyms actually existed. The result: A 21st-century Turkish language greatly impoverished -- and not noticeably clearer -- than the one inherited from the centuries-old Ottoman empire when the republic was founded in 1923.

*** The language "engineers" who peopled the official "Language Society" during and after Ataturk's death were big on intervention and nationalist thinking but sadly lacking in professional qualifications, to put it mildly. The role of the Language Society is documented in (painstaking) detail, and this case study confirms that language is too dynamic to be shaped by committee!

I found the book well written, well researched and even witty at times. The author knows his subject inside and out, and insists on translating almost all the Turkish words and short texts into English, which made it readable even for me, a beginning student of Turkish.

However, I found the book did not address certain questions of great interest to me personally! These are:

*** One of the strongest motivations for the language reform was to rid it of unnecessary foreign vocabulary in favor of so-called "Turkish" words. Frustratingly, at no point does the author detail the history of Turkish prior to the 20th century: Where do the roots of "Turkish" lie, geographically and ethnically speaking? What is the relation of Turkish spoken in Anatolia with other Turkic languages/dialects, and when synonyms (or inspiration for neologisms) were sought in languages/dialects outside Turkey, which languages did scholars look to? And why were these languages/dialects considered "valid" when others were not?

*** Access to pre-1920 Turkish culture and history: The author mentions in passing that only a very small amount of Turkish writing from Ottoman times (in Arabic script) has been transcribed and published in modern Turkish using Latin letters. He also implies that most 21st-century Turks cannot read Turkish written in the former Arabic script. Which piqued my interest: How many of Ottoman Turkish works have been reprinted in the modern script? Are students regularly taught "classical" Turkish (script and texts) in the way that some Westerners study Latin, or Chinese in the PRC might study their own classics in traditional characters? If not, hasn't language reform effectively cut 21st-century Turkey off from an understanding of their society's role as one of the largest and ethnically diverse empires in the history of mankind?

*** Turkish as spoken by the man-in-the-street: Geoffrey Lewis focuses almost entirely on how patriotic, but often blindly nationalistic or ideologically driven intellectuals have made modern written Turkish a bit of a mish-mash. But what about "spoken" Turkish: What impact, if any, has the official language reform movement had on it?

Bruce Humes
Shenzhen, China

Making Sense of Mishmash
Absolutely first rate explication of the mishmash modern Turkish has become because of the misguided, so-called language reform.For an elderly Turkish speaker such as I am, I have to keep a dictionary at hand just to read newspapers and books even.Ugly, ugly words, though they are not, of course, for the younger generations to whom they come quite naturally. I would be foolish to be deadset against neologisms, neologisms that arise naturally to meet a need. I suppose that's something that annoys me most:how terribly ugly so many of the artificially contrived neologisms are.But the worse thing is that I can see the range of concise, precise expression in the language has steadily narrowed.The author Geoffrey Lewis is quite correct when he states that the vocabulary of Turkish once rivalled that of English. If the country had stressed education without dumbed-down nationalism,it might still. One longs for writers of the caliber of Resat Nuri Guntekin, for instance.The modern novelist Sulhi Dolek does approach that standard as does the journalist Ebru Capa who fearlessly for precision's sake often uses words that I'm sure cause her younger readers to reach for the dictionary (if they have any sense of language at all). Orhan Pamuk, who I don't consider a particularly inspiring writer in his use of language per se, at least has the good sense not to overload his work with obscure and often laughable neologisms.Language is all about change, of course, but heaven help it when the ignorant, nationalistic, government-sanctioned get their hands on it.Modern Turkish is a perfect example.

Did not explore the realities of the language reform
I found this book some what lacking in describing the process used to select the new set of Latin letters; I thought the public outcry against this reform was not explored and that the reasons cited for switching over to the Latin letters were poor at best as it merely reiterated the anti-Arab propaganda of the time;

The increase in literacy rates being attributed to the language reform is surely misleading and would undoubtedly be due to the emphasis placed on education by the government and the access to remote-areas with the advent of telecommunications and transportation by motor cars and the like. I am personally not even sure if the literacy rate was really as poor as indicated, because firstly the population was never really surveyed until after 1930s, post the language reform, and it is also well known that the Quran, the religious book of the Turkish people, emphasises reading/learning/researching/reflecting which can all be summed up in the very first word revealed to Prophet Muhammad (s.a.v), "Iqra" which literary means "Read!", an imperative word at that. The word "Quran" literary means "to read continuously". This is one of the reasons why Muslim countries have for hundreds of centuries enjoyed a very high level of literacy rates.

The language reform was not scientific it was political in nature. Based on the research I have done, the reform was introduced in an effort to cut-off the Turkish nation from the cultural and spiritual ties imbued in the Ottoman generation, otherwise there was absolutely no justifiable reason to turn an entire nation into illiterates over night. Israel, whose language is Hebrew (also a Semitic language) has a higher literacy rate than Turkey even today, so what does this say about the Turkish language reform and its so called success ??

The examples quoted from certain individuals in this book in an attempt to discredit the Ottoman script is certainly not based on scientific merit but alas praised by the author nonetheless.

For instance, the following sentence is used to demonstrate the supposed perplexity offered by the Ottoman script: "Mehmed pasa oldu" written in the ottoman script can be understood either as "Mehmet became a Pasha" or "Pasha Mehmet has died", however this does not even register as a problem if the additional diacritical marks are used to spell out this sentence (but these marks are often not used because Ottoman is cursive and thus can be written rapidly using only consonants and long vowels, which generally does not hinder continuity or coherence. This in itself is a big advantage over other forms of writing where each vowel is spelt out) but even if these additional case markings are not used, the sentence can easily be understood from its context, otherwise as is the case in Ottoman style of writing which is indicative of their culture, polite, respectful and sometimes elaborate language is used to communicate the message.

The equivalent of the cited example in the English language could be like in the case of the sentence; "John read already"; does this sentence mean, John has completed reading already or is this an invitation for John to start reading already. This can only be understood from its context, even the word "read" in this case can only be pronounced correctly (reed or red) once the context is understood.

One aspect of the book which does stand out is in reference to the eloquence of the Ottoman language, especially in comparison with the modern day Turkish which is peppered with "made-up" words and bland expressions, that have been rather rudely injected into the diction of the Turkish populace through the press.

Disappointingly the adaptability of the Ottoman script in accommodating varying pronunciations of Ottoman letters within different regions of Anatolia has not been mentioned in this book, for sake of brevity I won't elaborate further, however this advantage the Turks once possessed has been lost with the transition to Latin letters. In fact, Latin letters are so inept in capturing the vocalisation of the Turkish letters, that many words have been "lost in pronunciation" after the adoption of these letters; even today authors don't know how to spell certain words using the limited Latin letters available to them, and as such they resort to using not letters but characters like the apostrophe (for `ayn or hamze) and the hyphen to try and mimic the Ottoman script. They also introduce various other letters which are not found in the new Turkish alphabet like â or î etc...

Despite the national movement of the time, which acted as a catalyst in promoting these reforms, the Turks of Turkiye have ironically been further separated from their counterparts in Turkic countries because of this new language barrier created after the language reform. These Turkic countries have adopted different Latin letters than the ones used in Turkiye and a minority in remote areas kept the Ottoman script altogether .

It must've been a trying time for the generation which were subjected to this kind of a radical change.

Overall the book does have historical value, however as I have indicated above it is lacking in some respects and moreover I don't agree with the conclusions that have been drawn, which I believe to be politically motivated.

A scholarly approach to a highly politicized issue
Turkish Language Reform, from its beginnings in the thirties to this day, has been a highly politicized issue in Turkey. Professor Lewis, a lover of "Beautiful Turkish", gives an excellent account of the historical development of this language engineering while successfully keeping his views out of the realm of language politics of Turkey. Any criticisms he has to make about the Turkish Language Association (Turk Dil Kurumu) come subtly and delicately through the carefully selected quotations from others.

This book is a must for lovers of Turkish language, linguists, historians of language (and surely for the Turkish Language Association), and it can be a fun to read for a non-Turkish taxpayer whose tax money could not be reached to finance the whole project.

For a better grasp of the book, some knowledge of Turkish language helps; the more the better to really get the beautiful "taste" of this excellent book.

excellent although more interesting if you know some Turkish
The changes in the Turkish language over the past century are fascinating, and this book does a great job of explaining some of the political and social background.The author is an expert and extremely knowledgeable on this topic.To me the most telling summary was seeing a paragraph of one of Ataturk's most famous speeches presented in the original, then in a retranslation done later, then a re-retranslation done yet later! The first retranslation was necessary because the original could hardly be understood any more, with all the Arabic-derived words etc.The second retranslation was necessary because even the first retranslation could hardly be understood today!This book will be mostly interesting to those who know at least some Turkish already (and the more the better) or to those interested in linguistic change and social engineering. As the other reviews mention, the changes in Turkish are the result of deliberate re-engineering of the language, not of the more usual processes of linguistic evolution.Imagine taking English and trying to get rid of all the words derived from Latin or French and use only Anglo-Saxon words or words newly derived from other Germanic languages, and you will get a partial picture of what happened with Turkish. The author's views are probably summed up by the subtitle: a catastrophic success.The language reform was effective and some of it was valuable but it may have gone too far in destroying some useful distinctions and making Turkish a somewhat less effective and graceful means of expression. ... Read more

Product Description
Drawing on both original texts and critical literature, Linguistics in a Colonial World surveys the methods, meanings, and uses of early linguistic projects around the world.

• Explores how early endeavours in linguistics were used to aid in overcoming practical and ideological difficulties of colonial rule
  
• Traces the uses and effects of colonial linguistic projects in the shaping of identities and communities that were under, or in opposition to, imperial regimes
  
• Examines enduring influences of colonial linguistics in contemporary thinking about language and cultural difference
  
• Brings new insight into post-colonial controversies including endangered languages and language rights in the globalized twenty-first century

Product Description
The Indo-European language family consists of many of the modern and ancient languages of Europe, India and Central Asia, including Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Russian, German, French, Spanish and English. Spoken by an estimated three billion people, it has the largest number of native speakers in the world today. This textbook provides an accessible introduction to the study of the Indo-European languages. It clearly sets out the methods for relating the languages to one another, presents an engaging discussion of the current debates and controversies concerning their classification, and offers sample problems and suggestions for how to solve them. Complete with a comprehensive glossary, almost 100 tables in which language data and examples are clearly laid out, suggestions for further reading, discussion points, and a range of exercises, this text will be an essential toolkit for all those studying historical linguistics, language typology and the Indo-European languages for the first time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Readable and Engaging
In his introduction, Clackson says that he set out to write a book focusing on argumentation and theory rather than presenting masses of data- and he does just that. He focuses on ideas and processes, making this a very clear and easy to read book. The high point is surely the explanation of accent-ablaut variation in nouns, although his treatments of phonology and general morphology are solid. Other parts of the book, namely verbal morphology and syntax, were also very informative although they might have benefited with a couple more sections in each (a clear discussion of analogy for verbs, and generative approaches to syntax). But throughout, the emphasis on focused argumentation makes the book quite followable: Clackson is always talking to you, not writing on the board, so to speak.

The best part about this book is perhaps the exercises. The book at first sight seems not only to avoid masses of data, but perhaps to be data-deficient, with incomplete paradigms and key forms missing. But Clackson usually gives precisely enough information to round out reconstructions in the exercises, and as a student I appreciated the chance to work through things myself (although he's of course done the hard part by selecting and presenting the forms and guiding you through the tricky parts). Obviously this 'hidden data' that you have to work for makes the book less useful as a reference (something it's not claiming to be), but it increases its value as an introduction vastly by allowing the reader to actively engage with the material.

Very Solid Introduction
IE linguistics is a growing and changing field.At any given moment, several theories compete to explain the data.Many authors would simplify the complexity by only presenting "consensus opinions."Clackson presents the data and the guides the reader through the varying theoretical models that interpret it.The text is at once an introduction to IE linguistics and to the intellectual practices of the field.If you are someone fascinated by language, the pages of this book will often present a thrilling read.

Finally, an introduction that is a gentle textbook (complete with exercises) but which includes the very latest research
The past several years have seen the publication of a number of new works summarizing the current state of Indo-European linguistics for those outside the field's inner circles. Benjamin Fortson's 2004 work Indo-European Language and Culture was the field modern textbook (as opposed to handbook) of the methods and the traditional reconstruction. Donald Ringe's A History of English: Volume I: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic gave a cutting-edge reconstruction based on the very latest research, much of which is yet unpublished and passed around the experts in e-mail correspondence.

With James Clackson's INDO-EUROPEAN LINGUISTICS: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press has finally added a book on the subject to its fine Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics series. And this textbook really combines the best of Fortson's and Ringe's recent efforts. On one hand, it includes the latest findings that have necessitated (limited) rethinking of the traditional model. On the other hand, it is a textbook with a gentle tone and abundant exercises, assuming some training in basic linguistics but no proficiency in ancient languages.

The view of Proto-Indo-European is the Cowgill model, which has gone from being highly controversial to now perhaps ascendant. According to this conception, Hittite and the rest of Anatolian split off first from the main body of speakers of the proto-language, followed eventually by Tocharian. This view helps explain while Anatolian and Tocharian seem so different from the bulk of the early Indo-European languages in verbal morphology and other features. Also keeping up with contemporary practice, Clackson gives syntax just as much coverage as phonology and morphology. He even briefly touches on comparative Indo-European poetics, launched by Watkins in his '90s monograph How to Kill a Dragon.

My only complaints about the book are that it does not have the usual fascinating description of each ancient language (like Sihler in his NEW COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR), and that it insufficiently covers the work of Lehmann et al. in Pre-Indo-European. Nonetheless, this is a fine introduction to Indo-European linguistics, suitable for classroom assignment. Still, for the individaual (perhaps well-educated amateur) trying to learn about the field, I'd have to say that my favourite introduction remains Lehmann's Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics, where you learn not only about methodology and the modern reconstruction, but also about the major personalities of the field and even some of the missteps. ... Read more

Product Description
The German Language Today shows the linguistic variety that exists within the German speech community as well as describing the main systematic linguistic features of the language. Covering the factors which produce competing forms in German, Charles Russ describes the sounds, inflectional processes, syntactic structures and different layers of words in language.

The text is detailed in its coverage of both sociolinguistic and linguistic topics, use of illustrative texts and examples, and the application of modern linguistic concepts to German. Giving recognition to the fact that languages are constantly changing, always accumulating new words and meanings, Russ provides the first analysis of the implications of German unification upon the German language and its speaking community--East and West alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good resource, impossible read
This book was a required textbook for a Germanic linguistics class I had just recently. Forget about any sort of enjoyable reading, like some textbooks. No, this one does not qualify as "engrossing." Rather, though chock-full of linguistical information including an interesting chapter on German spelling reforms, the book is written in a scientific, flat, shall I say "boring?" and distincly British fashion. It has the feeling it was written in the 1940s or 1950s, and I was surprised to find it was written in 1994.

If you have a short, or even medium-length, attention span, I'd recommend finding backup tutoring, because you will have trouble reading this one cover-to-cover. Its unfortunate, because the information contained therein has potential to fascinate, but written about in such style has little potential to motivate one to puruse further into the world of linguistics. In a word: awful! ... Read more

Product Description
Updated to reflect advances in the field, Black's guideexplains how linguistics helps in New Testament studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

good place to start
for those who have had little trianing in linguistics as regards to greek nt it is a good place to start

A couple quibbles
I'm a student of both modern and koine Greek, and approached this book with hope for some new insights into the language.

I still have hope.But I was brought up short by chapter 2, where Black discusses phonology.Something strange happens here.He begins giving descriptions, charts and diagrams for `the' sound of each Greek letter, all without offering any clue that their pronunciation has evolved during the history of this language. An unwary reader might conclude that there is, and has been, only one way to pronounce Greek.

Since the book is intended `for students of New Testament Greek', one could assume he is talking about the pronunciation of that period.But he is not, as we learn fifteen pages later.He has described the assumed classical Attic sounds, and now offers changes for the koine.

He also dismisses modern Greek pronunciation (which some, including Machen, consider closer to the koine than classical Attic), saying that it is "much more difficult for English-speaking students", a statement I consider highly debatable.

Black's sources for this chapter include nothing more recent than 1975; he does not mention Allen's Vox Graeca, for example, with its revised 1987 edition.

I have another quibble with Black's later discussion of modern Greek.He greatly exaggerates the current importance of katharevousa, stating that it is `standard for virtually all written communication' in Greece (p. 154).This was not true even at the time this book was first published (1988).Katharevousa has certainly left its mark on the language, but its use by the hated military junta (1967-1974) left it discredited, and dimotiki has been the official language of Greece since 1976.

On a positive note, I did appreciate Black's plug (see pp. 154-155) for the contribution that modern Greek can make in an understanding of the koine.Greek is a living language.I'm always amazed that so much study of koine is undertaken without a thought to the millions of people who still speak its close relative.

Fascinating
If you have any interest in understanding how language develops you should read this book.It's been fun to apply what I learned here as I listen to my four year-old daughter struggle with how to pronounce certain words and come up with the proper conjugations of irregular English verbs.Dr. Black makes an otherwise dry subject interesting.

Not bad (litotes--understatement)
Black invites the reader to apply the techniques of modern linguistics to the analysis of New Testament Greek. This excellent general introduction covers the phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and historical linguistics of koine Greek. It assumes no Greek or linguistics background.

I give the chapter headings and some subheadings:

1. Introducing Linguistics: The Landscape and the Quest
2. Phonology: The Sound of Greek (Phonetics and Phonemics)
3. Morphology: The Anatomy of Greek Words
4. Syntax: The Architecture of the Greek Sentence
5. Semantics: Determining Meaning (The real jewel in this work--Word and Concept, Semantic Classes, Ambiguity, Denotation/Connotation, Idioms, Rhetorical Language, Semantic Change, Discourse Analysis)
6. Historial and Comparative Linguistics: The Biography of Greek

In a Greek course I taught 2004/2005 based upon the Gospel of John (Beginning Greek: A Functional Approach) the class at one point wrestled with the disambiguation of a problematic participial phrase in John 1:9. ["He (Christ) was the true light that enlightens every man 'coming into the world.'"]. Should the phrase "coming into the word" go with "man" or "light"? Both are grammatically possible: the participle could be (1) accusative masculine singular or (2) nominative neuter singular. Do we use the proximity of "man" and "coming" to resolve the issue? Black explains (discourse analysis) that the larger context with its emphasis upon the incarnation of Christ (see 1:14) settles the issue (2). (However, this explanation is not altogether convincing. A comparison of similar statements by the same author (John) shows that he prefers the aorist, not [en] + participle. But such discussions would be beyond the scope of this work.)

Highly recommended. Although it covers a lot of ground, the explanations are short and to the point and examples abound. A delightful 172 pages that would lay a great foundation for someone contemplating linguistics as a major or who wants to conscientously apply a knowledge of koine to NT interpretation.

Greek Linguistics
For any serious NT Greek student, this book is very insightful to the many phonemic changes in the language. It is not a definitive book on lingustics, which the author himself claims, but, it does get you started in the area of linguistics that might give you some insight into the English language. Black writes in a way that doesn't overwhelm the student with his scholarship, which he definitely has, but he writes in a way that even someone who is a beginner in the study of the language can understand. I recommend it for any beginner or intermedeate student who would like to get a better handle on why some things change in the Greek language that may have confused you before. ... Read more