Catalog Search Results
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 14
Language
English
Description
The "Big Four" languages (and many others) of southern India are not part of the Indo-European family but rather the Dravidian. Look at what the distribution of Dravidian languages says about where they come from and how they got where they are now (including some languages on the brink of extinction) and explore some of their unique features.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 17
Language
English
Description
Explore the Asian languages beyond Japanese and Korean, looking into several families along the way. See why Mandarin and Cantonese, though both considered Chinese, are a classic example of two different languages being mistaken for dialects, thanks in part to a shared writing system and cultural proximity.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 21
Language
English
Description
The languages of Polynesia are estimated to be some of the newest languages in the world, emerging only in the last millennium. Look back to the earliest cultures of the Polynesian islands to see how the languages likely originated and were disseminated, branching into separate sub-groups like Oceanic and the three that are all spoken on the small island of Formosa.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 7
Language
English
Description
Look closer at some of the unique aspects of the Niger-Congo family, including the use of tone, and see how different languages can spring from the same original materials. Since the work of classifying languages is ongoing, you may be surprised to see how many can develop in proximity and share words but be part of different groups altogether.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 6
Language
English
Description
The Niger-Congo family consists of anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 different languages. While they are part of the same family, they do not adhere to an identified pattern like Indo-European. What links this immense family together? What is the essence of the Niger-Congo? What can these languages tell us about migration patterns? Explore these questions and more.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 4
Language
English
Description
One-fifth to one-sixth of the world speaks one of the Indo-European languages of India. Trace back to the branching of the Indo-European tree, when the European languages split from the Indo-Aryan varieties like Sanskrit that would become Hindi and others. Explore many variations that evolved and see why it can be so difficult to differentiate between a language and a dialect.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 5
Language
English
Description
Shift from Indo-European to some of the most endangered languages in the world: the "click" languages, formally known as Khoisan. Spoken in southern Africa, these endangered languages share a distinctive profile, and yet likely did not all come from a single family. Explore where they may have begun and how they work.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 24
Language
English
Description
Turn your attention to one of the most linguistically rich places on Earth: the island of New Guinea, and discover why, thanks to its history and isolating terrain, it is home to hundreds of languages in a relatively small area. See how pronouns allow linguists to find connections between these languages, and explore some of their unusual traits.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 34
Language
English
Description
What do writing systems tell us about language? Better understand why writing actually tells us more about human ingenuity in communication than it tells us about spoken language. Close with a consideration of the cultural importance of language, its preservation and loss, and the realities of a more linguistically homogeneous future.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 25
Language
English
Description
Once the home of over 250 languages, Australia now only has about a dozen languages that will be passed to sizable generations of children. Take a look at some of the over two dozen language families in Australia and better understand how both separation from a common ancestor and proximity to a different language will cause a language to change in different ways.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 11
Language
English
Description
Meet the other family of languages in Europe: Uralic, which includes Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian. Eccentric and tidy at the same time, this family stretches across the north of Europe and into Russia and parts of Asia. See why Turkish was once thought to be part of this family and how Uralic languages differ from Indo-European and others.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 26
Language
English
Description
Continue your examination of the languages of Australia, including the first Australian language to be documented by Europeans. Many of these languages present a case study in language obsolescence (as English dominates the continent) and language mixture (the emergence of creole languages due to European contact).
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 30
Language
English
Description
Follow Native American migrations to encounter the language families that moved south to take root in Central and South America. From a language variety that incorporates whistling to some with object-subject-verb word order (and even one that resulted from a mass kidnapping), you'll experience a range of fascinating linguistic developments.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 22
Language
English
Description
How do some languages end up isolated amidst other unrelated families? Look at pockets of language in Siberia, Spain, and Japan that are not related to those that surround them and better understand what the nature of language (and human migration and settlement patterns) can tell us about these unique places.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 32
Language
English
Description
Embark on a quest that some believe may be impossible: tracing the relationships between the macro language families. See how the pursuit of evidence connecting the language families is complicated by time, accidental similarities, lost languages, and more, as you also look at several plausible theories that could offer solutions.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 12
Language
English
Description
How do linguists establish connections between languages and determine their common roots when it is nearly impossible to see a language change in real time? Take a look at the languages of Polynesia to see how changes can be followed backwards to reveal connections between different languages, then turn to the Indo-European and Uralic families.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 8
Language
English
Description
Follow the migration of peoples from Africa to the Middle East by looking at the language family that developed in the Fertile Crescent: Afro-Asiatic. This first look at this family focuses on the widely known Semitic branch, which includes Arabic and Hebrew. Examine what defines this group of languages and uncover the roots of the first alphabets.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 13
Language
English
Description
Named for the Caucasus mountains where they originate, the Caucasian languages are actually three different families: Northwestern, Northeastern, and a Southern one that includes Georgian. Explore these grammatically complex languages to better understand how they work and how so many different varieties can spring from a relatively small area.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 18
Language
English
Description
Chinese is one branch of the Sino-Tibetan family and the other branch, Tibeto-Burman, consists of around 400 languages spoken in southern China, northeastern India, and Burma. Look at features of languages from both branches and see what linguists can assume about the proto-language from which they may have sprung.
Author
Series
Language Families of the World volume 28
Language
English
Description
Zoom in on some of the larger families of North America and gain valuable insight into what they can tell us about language in general. You'll get the chance to examine languages that are on the brink of extinction today, see which languages have contributed words currently used in American English, and more.
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