An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages by David Crystal

An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages by David Crystal

The aim of this book is to provide a succinct, accessible, and comprehensive guide to everyday language use around the world. The terminology of linguistic concepts and names are drawn from the various areas of language study, such as language teaching, speech pathology, stylistics, typography and lexicography, as well as from core topics such as grammar, figures of speech, and basic phonetics. Several hundred entries cover individual languages. The "Dictionary" sets out to answer the kinds of questions people are likely to ask about language, such as "Which language(s) do they speak in such-a-country?" (all the countries of the world are included) and "How many people speak X?". A historical background is given to the language profiles (eg early literary history). Pronunciations of language names are given. A small number of entries deal with linguistics, in particular the main schools of thought and basic concepts, such as competence and morphology. But only a small number of technical concepts are found here. Abbreviations are included. In all, there are almost 2750 entries, and there are c. 5000 cross-references, to give readers a wide range of access points to the information. Carefulley chosen illustrations show things that cannot easily be expressed in text, such as alphabets. A selection of cartoons reinforces the author's conviction that language study can be fun.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780631176527
ISBN 10	0631176527
Title	An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages
Author	David Crystal
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Year published	1992-12-17
Number of pages	250
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.