Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More than 400 Languages (revised paperback edition)

“These are the major languages of the 21st century – their history, their geography and the way they interact. Astonishingly, no other book in English brings them together in this way”. That might seem a presumptuous, over‐ambitious claim, but if anybody is going to perform this task for the English‐speaking general reader it will probably be Andrew Dalby. Linguist and historian, his name will be known to many reference librarians for other reference and language works. Put simply, his aims are well achieved in this comprehensive but accessible dictionary.

More than 400 languages are arranged A‐Z: the whole globe is...