In his introduction to the first edition of the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (IEL), in 1992, the then editor‐in‐chief, William Bright, stated that it was designed “to provide a comprehensive source of up‐to‐date information on all branches of linguistics, aimed primarily at an audience of students and professional scholars in linguistics and adjacent fields”. This introduction is reprinted (Vol. 1, pp. xvii‐xx) in the new edition, as an essential guide to the structure, motivation and methodology of the work as originally conceived and as substantially maintained by Bright’s successor William J. Frawley a decade later. Frawley, in his own introduction (pp. xi‐xv), charts at length the divergences between IEL’s first and second editions. Briefly, the second edition contains 957 articles and about half as many more headwords and subheadwords. All the articles from the first edition are updated in some way, with most ranging from 40 per cent revision to complete rewriting. About 15 per cent of the articles are new and about 3 per cent of the first‐edition entries have been eliminated.
The first edition was especially strong on languages of the world and social and anthropological approaches to language. These strengths have been maintained, while attention has been given to new directions in the field, such as Optimality theory, the Minimalist program, functional and typological linguistics, the impact of discourse analysis on subfields outside discourse proper, formal linguistics, changes in applied linguistics, and advances in computational and mathematical linguistics. The new edition reflects the steady move in linguistics closer to psychological and neurobiological inquiry, to cognitive and evolutionary approaches to language. There is coverage of neurolinguistics and brain imaging, cognitive science, critical periods of acquisition, linguistic relativity, learnability and language disorders. Many subfields and concepts have been “unpacked”, with their constituent ideas given explicit treatment: for example, there is a separate composite entry on phonological processes, with full discussion of assimilation, dissimilation, and so on. There are also major additions to the coverage of languages, with new articles on American sign language, artificial languages, Khoisan, Wolof, world Englishes, Zulu.
The guiding idea for IEL’s second edition is stated as “to maximize information (less is bore!) while preserving readability”. The new edition is more complex in organization than the first, with many changes in entry names, headword choice, symbols and abbreviations, blind entries, format, illustrative material and polity boundaries. Frawley’s introduction is essential preliminary reading! Particularly welcome are the many more short biographies of figures in the history of linguistics. Most of these are adapted from Matthews (1997). The glossary that appeared in the first edition has been replaced by a more detailed index (Vol. 4, pp. 449‐547), supplemented by careful attention to definition of key terms at points where these initially appear in articles. Back matter also includes a new “Systematic outline of contents” (Vol. 4, pp. 419‐34), arranged in three parts: topic areas, an alphabetic list of languages of the world, and a list of language families. “The directory of contributors” (Vol. 4, pp. 435‐47) is stunning in its range and authority. Leading linguists of the whole world are there. Some, sadly, are no longer with us, including two professional colleagues of mine: Robert A. Hall Jr and R.H. Robins. Bibliographies of books and articles accompany main entries. These vary in length and adequacy. Some are frustratingly “recent” in coverage; some startlingly skimpy, e.g. Celtic languages and Polynesian languages. Micronesian languages has no bibliography at all! Maps, diagrams and illustrations are excellent.
Inevitably, lacunae remain, despite the million and more words marshalled in the 2,190 pages of these four weighty, attractive, impressive volumes. More articles on individual languages, such as Breton, Kiribati (Gilbertese), Tok Pisin and Welsh would be welcome, for instance. That said, one can only marvel at the vast scale and signal competence of this truly scholarly achievement. It will serve professional linguists, students and lay readers alike very well indeed for at least another decade to come.
Essential stock for all academic, reference and school libraries.
