The Languages of the World
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The most enchanting book around for young people interested in languages, though professionals may grumble
The discovery deuna sure older edition Of the LANGUAGES Of the WORLD
in High School was a life-changing experience. This job Kenneth
Katzner is, for how much knows, the only book for the medium man who
montra the immense diversity of the linguette human. It is not sure a
serious job of reference (in order which I prefer "the series of
surveyings della family of language" del Routledge, for example the
Slavic languages), but anyone with an interest passing in language
will take delight in. The book is divided in three parts. The first
one describes the main families of language of the world. Katzner
introduces the concept of a language family showing as the
Indo-European languages can be grouped with from such words of the
communal land like "the month", "the mother", "new", "night", "nose"
and "three", while as an example the Basque, Finnish, Hungarians and
Turk clearly are not relati to you. Katzner admirably denies a
connection between those families that some crackpots have connected,
explaining that that arguments is finchè common dictionary and that
one is lacking the vague likenesses could be pure coincidence. The
third part of the book is a directory of the countries with the
information on the main languages speeches in everyone. The meat of
the book, however, is the part centers them. Here Katzner gives the
witnesses and the translations of the champion in order nearly 200
languages, with the observations over where they are speaks to you,
how many loudspeakers have and that written they are written. The
witnesses of the champion usually come from the cream of literature in
the described language -- I was so as to wowed from the passage from
the country of the snow of Yasunari Kawabata in the description of the
Japanese who immediately I have tried that novel and the inclusion of
ELNET of Sergei Chavain in the description of Seas eventually door
this pearl of literature in order to improve the attention in the
west. Much critic has been capacity On the LANGUAGES Of the WORLD for
the lean amount of information supplied approximately every language.
Katzner very rarely discusses the grammar or the lessico about a
language, but rather it is a lot interested with the written one that
it is written within. However, task that this is a strategy adapted
for the adressees of the book, in order often between interest of the
young people particularly in the alphabets ("like I write my name in
Arabic/cinese/Russian") coniugazione or sintassi comes before interest
in. At least the book does not abound in the effective, common errors
in popular books on the language and the only matter that true
debatable I find is the inclusion of esperanto, like if real language
has been one. If you have one acquaintance, particularly a young
person, interested to the languages, the LANGUAGES of the Katzner Of
the WORLD makes a gift large
Very good for basic knowledge despite a few errors.
Possessing to me is the second ones that third editions this book and
can attest that the improvements in the third edition before make this
much more important of the volume. Katzner hour supplies the name and
address a lot on the language families that would have to satisfy the
curiosity of someone not in this field. Moreover, the various
entrances of language were modernized. I estimate particularly the
language program. Mine two gripes main with the book has place: 1) it
is not enough information here on the various languages, particularly
those with the series of characters Non-Romane; and 2) it is some
errors here that must be corrected. One of the more dazzling errors
that I have noticed in 3 minuteren of opening of the new edition is
observation of the Katzner that the character of the ss (eszet)
completely has been eliminated from the German language in ortografia
reform 1998. That is undeniably false.
Could have been so much better
The book is in 3 main parts.
Part 1 consists of a 32 page review of the Language Families of the world and packs quite a lot into this space.
Part III is again a c30 page review of the languages in use in "all" the countries of the world with indications of numbers of speakers and geographical location - again it is quite a good summary.
Part II on the other hand is the heart of the book and reviews around 200 languages giving each 1 or 2 pages (occasionally up to 4 eg for English and Chinese) - around 300 of the c 380 pages. Each language is represented by a passage of literature printed in the alphabet currently used for the language followed by an English translation. This is then followed by a review of the language setting out, inter alia,
a. Where spoken/numbers of people
b. Development history
c. Peculiarities of the alphabet, grammar and pronunciation
d. Comparisons with "near neighbours"
e. Words taken into English
f. Great writers and literature in the language
My main gripes concern
a. the balance of space given to the literature and that given to the review
b. The usefulness of the literature sample especially where it is written in an alphabet unintelligable to "western" readers
c. the comprehensiveness and consistency of the reviews themselves.
My conclusions are that far too much space is given to the literature sample and that the review is often incredibly thin with no consistency regarding coverage of aspects a-f. Also since the book makes no attmept to explore and explain alphabets all the examples of different alphabets are little better than useless!
Thus Afrikaans is given 1.3 pages of which 1 consists of a 4 stanza poem and its translation. This leaves just 13 lines for the language review, most of which is taken up with the "where spoken" information - which is largely a repeat of what is under S Africa and Namibia in section III together with a 4 line "history" and a mention of 1 "divergence" from Dutch. Two thirds of the page is left empty! This is just not good enough even for a non specialist book as this is. What are we supposed to gain from the poem and its translation? I can draw little from the translation other than some idea that a few words bear some similarity to English. Whether Afrikaans is a good means of expressing poetic ideas is not indicated and may or may not be derived from the translation. Nothing is said of "loan words" in English, nothing about the process of Afrikaans becoming a separate language or the nature of the divergence of grammar, pronunciation or vocabulary from Dutch (apart from 1 word).
A look at the "Bushman" language has half a page taken up with a story about a leopard whose "alphabet" utilises a number of strange "characters" whose function is not clear and which gives no indication of the capabilities of the language. Whilst only 5 lines are given to a review of the language itself, again much of which repeats section III. The conventions/alphabet used are not described at all, there is no assessment of grammar, word order, cases, tenses, size of vocabulary etc etc
And so it goes on - 1 whole page of Kashmiri script, half a page of translation (much of which consists of proper nouns -Gods etc!) and 10 lines again mainly on who/where spoken. Of the language itself one learns little or nothing
So much more could have been done even within the size of the book as printed
Fun book, but not the "last word" on world languages
Kenneth Katzner has regulated a difficult operation -- it see again
the languages of the world in a reasonable-graded volume. That means
that, particular the important a lot is unavoidablly going to be
omitted. The greater part, but not all, nations has they national
languages recognized here. Some smaller languages are included are for
totality that for of the examples of interesting the linguistiche
variations. , Naxi, spoken in Yunnan, China, still is written with the
small images; a figure to jump of the stick represents to dance, as an
example. Some other critics have protested us that there is a lack of
particular approximately the writing systems, of way that to see the
language originates them and the relative translation is not that
profit. That does not represent the complexity of some of these
alphabets, like the birmano or tailandese or Devenagari (Hindi and
some other Indian languages); which a lot and modifications of letters
have letters. Once that begun down that road, the book could be
doubled easy in the format! However, it explains a small approximately
as some alphabets work, like as Korean (alphabet of Hangul) ago the
relative ones to group letters in little three-letter regroups, not
written in one straight line. A main improvement that would help a
future edition of the book: It composes the foreign languages!
Clearly, some champions are photoreproduced from the old sources and
the letters are little clear and hard to see and/or of poor general
quality (and to vary in the format from the language to the language,
even to the languages using the same alphabet). That is particularly
remarkable with some of the written ones asiati more odd number to us.
The Unicode plan is trying to allow that the computers recognize
nearly all the written one (even dark ones); the following edition of
this book would have to be useful for such advances and to compose
those languages that are not in this edition. An other useful article,
but to carry out harder, would be the transcriptions detailed of every
passage of foreign language (at least those in written Non-Romani).
Then the reader could see at least approximately () as the several
words and letters are written and speeches in the language in issue.
That opens a new one with entire of the problems, naturally; Chinese
of the Mandarin and cantonese are the same ones in the writing but
remarkablly the different in the speech, so as to both would have to
be represent to you? That the question of dialetto would prune in on
mólto. Some languages are written in more than writing, also, or have
recently transitioned from one to an other. Showing such languages in
both the written ones are divertimento, but made very rarely in this
book, also when the book points out that the language has written
multiple. But general, the book is an introduction of divertimento to
many languages and will render relative the reader "to the look" of
many of they.
Should be called alphabets of the world
This book is nearly useless less that you appreciate to watch the
foreign alphabets without to understand the smallest thing
approximately the languages that they use to them. Katzner gives to a
passage of the champion of one written language to you in relative
been born them with one translation in English, but not ago nothing to
communicate a sense of that what of language the means really or like
sound. Therefore, less that you can really read the cirillico, the
written ones of Hanggul or Arab, or they know the witings used in
order to represent Buginese, the birmano, the tamil, Sanskrit or
dozens of others, sapete close to nothing approximately the language
in if. It is not given grammaticali data, neither all the sense to us
of like every language is expressed. An error that ago is confusing
repeatedly letters and the sounds - the two is not the same ones, but
Katzner does not seem to realize it. Therefore if wished to watch the
tibetano and to say she, "Gee, that it is one heads observing pleasant
of writing", this is a good book for you. If you have de linguistico
training, this will be a curiousity pleasant on your console. If
wished to know more approximately tibetano (or is some of the other
enclosed languages), will be a disappointment.
Pretty good, but wanted much more...
This book was good for the purpose it was written. It's basically a litsing of the major language and language families of the world. Personally I had expected it to have some history on the development of these languages, but no luck. So if you want a basic listing it's good. But overall it's very dry.
Can Tell You A Lot About Languages--And The World
Kenneth Katzner supplies a written sink and book shortly introduced
for those interested to the languages of the world, their linguistici
origins, development and transformations and relatives. The languages
are listed from the grouping familial, then from the various languages
and then from the nation from the nation. Facile-$$$-LEGGA the tables
that they explain the families, the subgroups, the important and
secondary coppers and languages are listed in the front part of the
book. Individually, the languages are listed in the index in the
bottom of the book in the alphabetical order that renders easy to find
and to report them. It can be found which languages quickly are
relative via the sub-families. You can bounce around from the page to
the page with this. Every listed language is introduced with a
champion which poem or a proverbio followed from one English
transcription. Moreover the people number is included who speaks it
and in that leaves different of the world. The family of the
languages, idiocyncracies, the main grammar indicates, alphabet and
the efforts are notice to you. Like example, paraphrase of the
introduced Finnish language in the book is one here: Spoken from 5
million loudspeakers in Finland, 70.000 in the UNITED STATES, 200.000
in Sweden and 50.000 in Russia. Finn is one of the little languages in
Europe that is not of the Indo-European family of languages. Like
estone, he belongs to the languages of Finno-Ugric that are a branch
derived from the family of Uralic. Finn is the language difficult to
learn for the western aborigines because of it is not Indo-European
origins and the fact that has 15 cases of name. Moreover in the
beginning it is a biography of the families of the languages and the
explanations of the expansions of people, many migliaia of the years
ago, that current has generated the fine-varied linguistico composes
today of our world.
Expected more...
[ [ [ - - IT PUBLISHES -- my review does not refer to the edition
current of the book, as it has been written before that it has exited!
The running edition is the much better one and all my problems with
the book from then have been repair to you! This review refers to the
second edition, which you can find in Z-Acquistate. You would give 4/5
of stars (to the third) edition current of the book ] ] ] that I was
not not to invite to enter in great depth for every language, like
some were, so as to my appraisal is not based on that one. Really,
this book has mólto lack. Many examples are hard to read because too
much ink is used, or many marks diacritic lack. Great part of the
information is obsolete. From when the book last "it was dawned", the
languages are changed a lot. The author draft all the Chinese
languages like only "dialetti" (and moreover draft of Galicia like
dialetto of the Portuguese!) Many of the witnesses from the languages
of the previous Soviet-union are obsolete (as they are the supplied
geographic information here), like it is the Japanese passage and some
others. Moreover he uses the obsolete names of language. There are
many useless facts (often wrong) inserted from Katzner for who knows
why, which the English words that come from a language, that they were
one waste of my time. It is obvious that the languages in this book
are not selected in one logical species of the sense, for sure do not
give the number of loudspeakers, like it should' ve be. Country
surveying is moreover obsolete, as an example that English is the main
language of Hong Kong but that the Chinese is earning land, therefore
like others.
Seven years is too much...
Seven years is enough to make the language panorama completely different. Enough to make this book lack exactitude, not only regarding the number of speakers but also regarding the status of languages itself. There are languages given officiality which the author considers dialects (Galician), some others ceased to exist as languages on their own (Moldovan); and some others have reappeared as a result of a political shift (Scots Gaelic, Timorese). There have been adjustments in spelling (Malay, Indonesian) and alphabets (Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tartar, Uighur)...
There are also some entries which need to be reconsidered (Flemish as a separate entry from Dutch, Malay and Indonesian as different languages).
The 1995 update was in fact a bunch of little changes, mostly in the Soviet Union chapter, but most of the book remains unchanged since 1986. Considering the fact that languages are extremely dinamic, I think that outdated matherial within this book takes many stars from the overall result. A real pity...
killer handbook
This is a well-written handbook to find out what language is spoken where and the history of its speakers. There are snippets of approximately 200 carefully chosen passages of representative literature shown both in their native alphabets and in English translation. A fun read, great reference, and very relevant to current events.The book is divided into three parts: an introduction to language families of the world, a listing of the individual languages themselves grouped in geographic order, and an alphabetically-arranged country-by-country survey of the languages spoken in each country. The section on language families describes relationships among language groups, a bit on the history of the people who speak them, and the geographical distribution of each family. The bulk of the book is in the second section on the individual languages. Each language is (usually) given a two-page description consisting of passages in their native script, along with an English translation, followed by a brief history of the language, its speakers, and the regions where the language is spoken. Examples of words that have found their way into English usage are also provided. The country survey consists of paragraph-long descriptions of the languages spoken in each country along with the number of speakers for each language.
Katzner's book is geared for the general reader who may be more interested on how languages relate to the countries where they are spoken rather than the morphology and syntax of a particular language. Those who prefer a more linguistic-oriented approach should try Concise Compendium of the Worlds Languages by George L. Campbell. It is as well written as Katzner's book but contains more detail on phonology and grammar. Both have excellent depictions of native alphabets with Katzner using examples from classic literature (e.g. Flaubert in French, Iqbal in Urdu, and Tagore in Bengali) whereas Campbell uses a passage from the Gospel of St John to illustrate the written form of the language. If your interest includes knowing what consonants are affricates, fricatives, or semi-vowels then look into Campbell's book. But if you want to know a little something about who speaks Pashto or about what are the dominant languages in India or other similar sorts of information then Katzner's book is for you.
Excellent overview of the 200 major languages!
Shows more than 200 passages from well known literature (of that language/country) in the original language with an English translation. Also mentions well and not well known facts of that language and also the countries where it is spoken in plus the relationship between them. Plus much more!
Good Reference Book
This is one of the books that started up my love for languages when I was younger.
The sections are categorized by geographic area. In each section a language is given its native script(s) then a translation in English. Following the two is a brief history and/or description of the language with information on how many people speak it and where.
I only have a couple minor complaints. One is that some scripts don't reflect the way they're used now or not written as they should be, such as Greek (they eliminated many diacritics) and Hawaiian (missing macrons). The other is the chart of language families. Some headings are incorrect, like refering to the languages of the Philippines as part of the Indonesian branch!
Despite those errors, I think this a good reference.. Especially if you come across a script you're unfamiliar with, you can compare it with those in the book. But don't expect to learn anything about the grammar or how to write the script.
really fun to read
this is such an enjoyable book. i know it is not a poetry book, but i also wanted to thank the author of including a great korean poem "the azalea"
An interesting approach to many world languages
I was trying a book with the trees of family of the languages and have
found this interesting book that extension a short text in more than
200 languages with the relative translation in English. Amusing but
not for the erudites who try the information wide series and.
A fun, diverse little introduction
In spite of the relative claim and the claims of the previous critics
of amazon.com, offered of the book of the Katzner only the more much
small to us of the visions of the wide warehouse of the languages
covered. Nearly no entrance goes simply beyond phonetics and there is
little or no suggestion of grammer -- irritateed lacking. Many
entrances do not even succeed to indicate if or a particular language
does not have one writing history and written. However the book is
divertimento a lot, thanks to the relative subject and offers one
perspective pleasant. The linguisti, however, trying the solid
information on the languages would have to observe elsewhere.
Very good book for the amateur linguist.
Absolutely fascinating. Most (all?) of the entries give a brief history of the language, and a description of the grammar and phonology. I loved it.
An enormously useful book!
Here on the job (a translation company), we use this book for
reference constantly. The location has been inestimabile in order
quickly the information and of the concise low priority on the
specific languages and finds the examples written particularly useful.
A large book for the least moneies!
A really cool book
That is a large book in order to become aware of the languages spoken
on our planet. You can observe in on one given language
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