Books in the Cambridge Language Surveys series

Pidgins and Creoles is a major linguistic survey which lays new foundations for research in the field. This volume presents an overview of the socio-historical development of each of some one hundred pidgins, creoles and semi-creoles, providing texts and highlinghting the salient linguistics features of each.

Afroasiatic languages are spoken by some 300 million people in Northern, Central and Eastern Africa and the Middle East. This book is the first typological study of these languages and will be welcomed by linguists interested in linguistic theory, typology, historical linguistics and endangered languages.

This thematic and geographic overview examines more than forty sign languages from around the world. Written in a clear, readable style, it is the essential reference for students and scholars working in sign language studies and deaf studies.

This general introduction to the study of the Chinese language traces its history from its beginings in the second millennium BC to the present day and provides a clear picture of the contemporary language and its sociolinguistic status.

The only modern account to describe all surviving Celtic languages in detail.

Germanic - one of the largest sub-groups of the Indo-European language family - comprises 37 languages with an estimated 470 million speakers worldwide. This book presents a comparative linguistic survey of the full range of Germanic languages, both ancient and modern, including major world languages such as English and German (West Germanic), the Scandinavian (North Germanic) languages, and the extinct East Germanic languages. Unlike previous studies, it does not take a chronological or a language-by-language approach, organized instead around linguistic constructions and subsystems. Considering dialects alongside standard varieties, it provides a detailed account of topics such as case, word formation, sound systems, vowel length, syllable structure, the noun phrase, the verb phrase, the expression of tense and mood, and the syntax of the clause. Authoritative and comprehensive, this much-needed survey will be welcomed by scholars and students of the Germanic languages, as well as linguists across the many branches of the field.

The Amazon Basin is one of the least-known and most complex linguistic regions in the world. Its 300-plus languages show properties that challenge received ideas about linguistic universals. This book provides an accessible overview of this rich and exciting linguistic area.

The Dravidian languages are spoken by nearly 200 million people in South Asia and in Diaspora communities around the world; they include Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. This book provides a linguistic overview of the Dravidian language family, including its history and writing systems, language structures, typology and lexicon.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the linguistics of Korean. It presents essential facts about its speakers, its relation to other languages of the world, historical development, dialects (including the differences between South and North Korean), writing systems, the composition and structure of words, and sound patterns and syntax.

This book is a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the North American Indian languages. It includes an overview of their special characteristics, descriptions of special styles, and a catalogue of the languages detailing their locations, genetic affiliations, number of speakers, and major structural features, and listing published material on them.

The Amazon Basin is one of the least-known and most complex linguistic regions in the world. Its 300-plus languages show properties that challenge received ideas about linguistic universals. This book provides an accessible overview of this rich and exciting linguistic area.

Aboriginal people have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years, speaking about 250 languages. Through examination of published and unpublished materials on each of the individual languages, Professor Dixon surveys the ways in which the languages vary typologically and presents a profile of this long-established linguistic area.

At least a hundred indigenous Indian languages are known to have been spoken in Mesoamerica, but it is only in the past fifty years that many of them have been adequately described. Professor Suarez draws together this considerable mass of scholarship in a general survey that will provide an invaluable source of reference.

This book is a detailed survey of the two main indigenous languages of Japan, Japanese and Ainu. The first part of this study is a most comprehensive study of the polysynthetic Ainu language. The second part deals extensively with Japanese. It discusses topics from the evolution of the writing system to issues of greater theoretical complexity.

The Papuan languages number over 700 (or 20 per cent of the world's total) in more than 60 language families. This introduction to the descriptive and historical linguistics of the Papuan languages of New Guinea provides an accessible account of one of the richest and most diverse linguistic situations in the world.

This comprehensive survey examines the Romance languages from a wide variety of perspectives. Rebecca Posner's analysis combines philological expertise with insights drawn from modern theoretical linguistics, and relates linguistic features to historical and sociological factors. Her discussion is extensively illustrated with new and original data.

The Andean and Pacific regions of South America are home to a remarkable variety of languages and language families, with a range of typological differences. This book documents the region's indigenous languages in a single volume, providing both historical and contemporary information and detailed grammatical sketches.

The only modern account to describe all surviving Celtic languages in detail.

The Slavic group of languages - the fourth largest Indo-European sub-group - is one of the major language families of the modern world. With 297 million speakers, Slavic comprises 13 languages split into three groups: South Slavic, which includes Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian; East Slavic, which includes Russian and Ukrainian; and West Slavic, which includes Polish, Czech and Slovak. This 2006 book, written by two leading scholars in Slavic linguistics, presents a survey of all aspects of the linguistic structure of the Slavic languages, considering in particular those languages that enjoy official status. As well as covering the central issues of phonology, morphology, syntax, word-formation, lexicology and typology, the authors discuss Slavic dialects, sociolinguistic issues, and the socio-historical evolution of the Slavic languages. Accessibly written and comprehensive in its coverage, this book will be welcomed by scholars and students of Slavic languages, as well as linguists across the many branches of the discipline.

Afroasiatic languages are spoken by some 300 million people in Northern, Central and Eastern Africa and the Middle East. This book is the first typological study of these languages and will be welcomed by linguists interested in linguistic theory, typology, historical linguistics and endangered languages.

A general account of the languages of the Soviet Union, one of the most diverse multinational and multilingual states in the world.

Holm's major survey of pidgins and creales is written for both students and general readers with a basic knowledge of linguistics. The core of this first volume is a comparative study of creoles based on European languages in Africa and the Caribbean in terms of their lexical semantics, phonology and syntax.

Comprehensive survey of Indo-Aryan languages for theoretical linguists and students of the relevant languages.