ABSTRACT

This second edition of The Routledge Concise Compendium of the World’s Languages has been completely revised to provide up-to-date and accurate descriptions of a wide cross-section of natural-language systems. All cultural and historical notes as well as statistical data for each language have been checked, updated and in many cases expanded.

Now offering an even broader range of languages including a greater number of the lesser-known ones, such as Cree, Maltese and Haitian Creole, this new edition of The Routledge Concise Compendium covers a total of 111 languages.

Key features include:

  • complete rewriting and systematization of the phonology sections for all languages
  • provision of IPA symbol grids arranged by articulatory feature and by alphabetic resemblance to facilitate use of the new phonology sections
  • expansion of morphology descriptions for all languages
  • provision of new illustrative text samples
  • addition of a glossary of technical terms
  • comparative tables of the numerals 1-10 in all languages covered, and also grouped by family
  • classification by genetic relationship of all languages covered.

Using the wealth of recent developments and research in language typology and broadened availability of descriptive data, this new incarnation of The Routledge Concise Compendium brings a much-loved survey emphatically into the twenty-first century for a new generation of readers.

The Routledge Concise Compendium of the World’s Languages remains the ideal compact reference for all interested linguistics and professionals alike.

Gary King is Series Advisor for the Roultedge Colloquials and the author of numerous books on language and linguistics. He is also UCAS co-ordinator and a lecturer at a large sixth-form college.

George L. Campbell worked for the BBC World Service and was a polyglot linguist and translator.

chapter |6 pages

Afrikaans

chapter |7 pages

Ainu

chapter |5 pages

Akan or Twi

chapter |7 pages

Albanian

chapter |7 pages

Amharic

chapter |10 pages

Arabic

chapter |6 pages

Armenian

chapter |6 pages

Aymará

chapter |5 pages

Balinese

chapter |8 pages

Basque

chapter |6 pages

Belarusian

chapter |7 pages

Bengali

chapter |6 pages

Berber

chapter |11 pages

Breton

chapter |5 pages

Balinese

chapter |7 pages

Bulgarian

chapter |5 pages

Burmese

chapter |5 pages

Cambodian (Khmer)

chapter |6 pages

Catalan

chapter |11 pages

Chinese

chapter |6 pages

Chukchi

chapter |7 pages

Cree

chapter |10 pages

Czech

chapter |7 pages

Danish

chapter |7 pages

Dutch

chapter |12 pages

English

chapter |8 pages

Estonian

chapter |6 pages

Ewe

chapter |13 pages

Finnish

chapter |11 pages

French

chapter |6 pages

Fula

chapter |8 pages

Georgian

chapter |13 pages

German

chapter |9 pages

Greek

chapter |5 pages

Guaraní

chapter |6 pages

Gujarati

chapter |5 pages

Haitian Creole

chapter |6 pages

Hausa

chapter |7 pages

Hebrew

chapter |6 pages

Hindi

chapter |10 pages

Hungarian

chapter |9 pages

Icelandic

chapter |6 pages

Igbo

chapter |8 pages

Inuit

chapter |9 pages

Irish

chapter |8 pages

Italian

chapter |10 pages

Japanese

chapter |6 pages

Kannada

chapter |5 pages

Kazakh

chapter |6 pages

Ket

chapter |6 pages

Korean

chapter |9 pages

Lakota

chapter |12 pages

Latin

chapter |7 pages

Latvian

chapter |7 pages

Lingala

chapter |7 pages

Lithuanian

chapter |6 pages

Malagasy

chapter |6 pages

Malayalam

chapter |6 pages

Malay-Indonesian

chapter |6 pages

Maltese

chapter |5 pages

Maori

chapter |6 pages

Mapudungu

chapter |7 pages

Marathi

chapter |6 pages

Mende

chapter |6 pages

Mongolian

chapter |8 pages

Nahuatl

chapter |5 pages

Nama

chapter |6 pages

Navajo

chapter |6 pages

Nepali

chapter |4 pages

Nivkh

chapter |7 pages

Norwegian

chapter |5 pages

Oromo

chapter |6 pages

Panjabi

chapter |6 pages

Pashto

chapter |6 pages

Persian

chapter |9 pages

Polish

chapter |8 pages

Portuguese

chapter |7 pages

Quechua

chapter |7 pages

Romanian

chapter |6 pages

Romany

chapter |13 pages

Russian

chapter |6 pages

Sami

chapter |6 pages

Samoan

chapter |10 pages

Sanskrit

chapter |13 pages

Scottish Gaelic

chapter |10 pages

Serbo-Croat (Croatian and Serbian)

chapter |7 pages

Shona

chapter |5 pages

Sinhala

chapter |6 pages

Slovak

chapter |10 pages

Slovene

chapter |7 pages

Somali

chapter |9 pages

Spanish

chapter |5 pages

Sundanese

chapter |8 pages

Swahili

chapter |9 pages

Swedish

chapter |6 pages

Tagalog

chapter |10 pages

Tamil

chapter |7 pages

Telugu

chapter |5 pages

Thai

chapter |7 pages

Tibetan

chapter |8 pages

Turkish

chapter |9 pages

Ukrainian

chapter |7 pages

Urdu

chapter |5 pages

Uzbek

chapter |6 pages

Vietnamese

chapter |11 pages

Welsh

chapter |6 pages

Wolof

chapter |6 pages

Yiddish

chapter |6 pages

Yoruba

chapter |8 pages

Zulu