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This series offers general accounts of the major language families of the world. Volumes are organized on either a genetic or a geographical basis, whichever yields the most convenient and intelligible grouping in each case. Each volume compares and contrasts the typological features of the languages it deals with. It also treats the relevant genetic relationships, historic development, and sociolinguistic issues arising from their role and use in the world today. The main readership is the student of linguistics or the general linguist, but some volumes have a wider appeal, especially where the future of the languages and their speakers raises important social and political issues.

  • General Editors: P. Austin, University of Melbourne, J. Bresnan, Stanford University, B. Comrie, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, S. Crain, University of Maryland, W. Dressler, University of Vienna, C. J. Ewen, University of Leiden, R. Lass, University of Cape Town, D. Lightfoot, University of Maryland, K. Rice, University of Toronto, I. Roberts, University of Cambridge, S. Romaine, University of Oxford, N. V. Smith, University College, London

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10 results in Cambridge Language Surveys

The Balkan Languages
  • Victor A. Friedman, Brian D. Joseph
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    March 2025
    Print publication:
    31 March 2025
  • Southeast Europe's Balkan peninsula is home to numerous languages that have come to converge structurally and lexically, due to complex social factors involving contact among speakers of these languages, constituting a 'sprachbund'. This volume provides the first comprehensive, book-length survey of the Balkan languages in English. It covers the full range of languages involved in the Balkan convergence zone, including Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Greek, Judezmo, Macedonian, Meglenoromanian, Romani, Romanian, Torlak, and West Rumelian Turkish. Balkan convergences - 'Balkanisms' - are presented, considering the grammatical domains of phonetics, phonology, morphology, morphosyntax, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and lexicon. It gives attention to relevant notions of contact linguistics and to the history of the field, while also introducing key conceptual innovations. Providing fresh data and perspectives on the most studied intense contact situation, this work is essential reading for anyone interested in Balkan languages. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Turkic
  • Lars Johanson
  • Published online:
    13 August 2021
    Print publication:
    26 August 2021
  • Turkic is one of the world's major language families, comprising a high number of distinct languages and varieties that display remarkable similarities and notable differences. Written by a leading expert in the field, this landmark work provides an unrivalled overview of multiple features of Turkic, covering structural, functional, historical, sociolinguistic and literary aspects. It presents the history and cultures of the speakers, structures, and use of the whole set of languages within the family, including Turkish, Azeri, Turkmen, Tatar, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Uyghur, and gives a comprehensive overview of published works on Turkic languages, large and small. It also provides an innovative theoretical framework, employing a unified terminology and transcription, to give new insights into the Turkic linguistic type. Requiring no previous knowledge of the Turkic languages, it will be welcomed by both general readers, as well as academic researchers and students of linguistic typology, comparative linguistics, and Turkic studies.

The Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia
  • N. J. Enfield
  • Published online:
    22 March 2021
    Print publication:
    01 April 2021
  • Mainland Southeast Asia is one of the most fascinating and complex cultural and linguistic areas in the world. This book provides a rich and comprehensive survey of the history and core systems and subsystems of the languages of this fascinating region. Drawing on his depth of expertise in mainland Southeast Asia, Enfield includes more than a thousand data examples from over a hundred languages from Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, bringing together a wealth of data and analysis that has not previously been available in one place. Chapters cover the many ways in which these languages both resemble each other, and differ from each other, and the diversity of the area's languages is highlighted, with a special emphasis on minority languages, which outnumber the national languages by nearly a hundred to one. The result is an authoritative treatment of a fascinating and important linguistic area.

Sign Languages
  • Edited by Diane Brentari
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    27 May 2010
  • What are the unique characteristics of sign languages that make them so fascinating? What have recent researchers discovered about them, and what do these findings tell us about human language more generally? This thematic and geographic overview examines more than forty sign languages from around the world. It begins by investigating how sign languages have survived and been transmitted for generations, and then goes on to analyse the common characteristics shared by most sign languages: for example, how the use of the visual system affects grammatical structures. The final section describes the phenomena of language variation and change. Drawing on a wide range of examples, the book explores sign languages both old and young, from British, Italian, Asian and American to Israeli, Al-Sayyid Bedouin, African and Nicaraguan. Written in a clear, readable style, it is the essential reference for students and scholars working in sign language studies and deaf studies.

The Germanic Languages
  • Wayne Harbert
  • Published online:
    06 July 2010
    Print publication:
    21 December 2006
  • 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 Mesoamerican Indian Languages
  • Jorge A. Suarez
  • Published online:
    05 November 2009
    Print publication:
    14 April 1983
  • At least a hundred indigenous Indian languages are known to have been spoken in Mesoamerica, the cultural area that includes most of Mexico and part of South America, but it is only in the past fifty years that many of them have been adequately described. For some we still have no more than a partial description, often in an obscure source. Professor Suárez draws together this considerable mass of scholarship in a general survey that will provide an invaluable source of reference. The approach is primarily descriptive, and a major part of the volume is concerned with synchronic descriptions of phonology, morphology and syntax. The volume will be of interest and importance both to general linguists and to others with a serious interest in Mesoamerican culture and society.

The Languages of the Andes
  • Willem F. H. Adelaar
  • With Pieter C. Muysken
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    10 June 2004
  • 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 linguistic diversity results from a complex historical background, comprising periods of greater communication between different peoples and languages, and periods of fragmentation and individual development. The Languages of the Andes documents in a single volume the indigenous languages spoken and formerly spoken in this linguistically rich region, as well as in adjacent areas. Grouping the languages into different cultural spheres, it describes their characteristics in terms of language typology, language contact, and the social perspectives of present-day languages. The authors provide both historical and contemporary information, and illustrate the languages with detailed grammatical sketches. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be a valuable source for students and scholars of linguistics and anthropology alike.

The Dravidian Languages
  • Bhadriraju Krishnamurti
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    16 January 2003
  • The Dravidian languages are spoken by over 200 million people in South Asia and in Diaspora communities around the world, and constitute the world's fifth largest language family. It consists of about 26 languages in total including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, as well as over 20 non-literary languages. In this book, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, one of the most eminent Dravidianists of our time, provides a comprehensive study of the phonological and grammatical structure of the whole Dravidian family from different aspects. He describes its history and writing systems, discusses its structure and typology, and considers its lexicon. Distant and more recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups are also discussed. With its comprehensive coverage this book will be welcomed by all students of Dravidian languages and will be of interest to linguists in various branches of the discipline as well as Indologists.

Australian Languages
  • Their Nature and Development
  • R. M. W. Dixon
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    14 November 2002
  • 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. The areal distribution of most features is illustrated with more than 30 maps, showing that the languages tend to move in cyclic fashion with respect to many of the parameters. There is also an index of languages and language groups. Professor Dixon, a pioneering scholar in the field, brings an interesting perspective to this diverse and complex material.

The Slavic Languages
  • Roland Sussex, Paul Cubberley
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    21 September 2006
  • 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.