NSF REU Linguistics Field School: Intros. to Linguistics

An important starting point for both new linguists and more experienced students. An extensive A-Z guide, this handbook provides short (approximately paragraph-length) discussions of key topics and suggestions for further readings.

A short narrative account of linguistics with thematic chapters covering "such areas as the prehistory of languages and their common origins, language and evolution, language in time and space (the nature of change inherent in language), grammars and dictionaries (how systematic is language?), and phonetics."

Provides very brief definitions of key terms in linguistics; covers: "syntax, morphology, phonology, phonetics, semantics and pragmatics but also contains terms from discourse analysis, stylistics, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics and corpus linguistics."

"A dip-in resource that offers readers easy access to the jargon and specialist terms of phonology and phonetics. The book provides cross-referenced definitions of 136 key concepts that underpin these two disciplines." [publisher's description]

The introduction is followed by a list of all known languages within the region, endangered or not, arranged by genetic affiliation, with endangered and extinct languages marked. This listing is followed by entries in alphabetical order covering each language listed as endangered. Useful maps are provided to pinpoint the more complex clusters of smaller languages in every region of the world.

The Atlas "depicts the location of every known living language, including languages on the point of extinction." Covers recent research (as of 2006) for each language and provides suggestions for further reading. Includes more than "6,000 languages and contain[s] over 150 full-colour maps."