Languages of the World

Asya Pereltsvaig is an independent scholar, and was most recently a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University, California.

Acknowledgements; Abbreviations used in the glosses; 1. Introduction: 1.1. Languages, dialects, and accents; 1.2. Language families; 1.3. Linguistic diversity; 1.4. Focus on: how do languages diversify?; 2. Languages of Europe: 2.1. Indo-European Languages; 2.2. Discovery of the Indo-European family and comparative reconstruction; 2.3. The Indo-European controversy; 2.4. Non- Indo-European languages of Europe: 2.4.1. Basque; 2.5. Focus on: endangered languages of Europe; 3. Languages of Iran and South Asia: 3.1. Indo-European languages of Iran and South Asia: 3.1.1. Iranian languages; 3.1.2. Indo-Aryan languages; 3.2. Dravidian languages; 3.3. Other languages of India; 3.4. Focus on: universals and the Parametric theory of language; 4. Languages of Northern Eurasia: 4.1. Finno-Ugric languages; 4.2. Other Uralic languages; 4.3. Other languages of Siberia; 4.4. Russian-based pidgins of Siberia; 4.5. Focus on: evidential markers in Yukaghir languages; 5. Languages of the Caucasus: 5.1. Northwest Caucasian languages; 5.2. Northeast Caucasian languages; 5.3. Kartvelian languages; 5.4. Indo-European languages in the Caucasus; 5.5. Focus on: field Linguistics; 6. Languages of the Greater Middle East: 6.1. Turkic languages; 6.2. Afroasiatic languages: 6.2.1. Semitic languages; 6.3. Focus on: language contact; 7. Languages of Sub-Saharan Africa: 7.1. Nilo-Saharan languages; 7.2. Niger-Congo languages; 7.3. Khoisan languages; 7.4. Focus on: official languages, trade languages, and creole languages in sub-Saharan Africa; 8. Languages of Eastern Asia: 8.1. Sino-Tibetan languages; 8.2. Austro-Asiatic languages; 8.3. Tai-Kadai languages; 8.4. Japanese and Korean; 8.5. Focus on: isolating morphology and language change; 9. Languages of the South Sea Islands: 9.1. Discovery of the Austronesian family and the Austronesian Homeland; 9.2. The Austronesian realm; 9.3. The Austronesian prototype; 9.4. Focus on: the mystery of Malagasy; 10. Aboriginal Languages of Papua New Guinea and Australia: 10.1. Languages of Papua New Guinea; 10.2. Languages of Australia; 10.3. Focus on: is Dyirbal a primitive language?; 11. Native Languages of the Americas: 11.1. Languages of North America; 11.2. Languages of Meso-America; 11.3. Languages of South America; 11.4. Focus on: the Pirahã Controversy; 12. Macro Families: 12.1. Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis; 12.2. Altaic and Ural-Altaic macro-families; 12.3. The Nostratic and Eurasiatic hypotheses; 12.4. Other hypothesized macro language families; 13. Pidgins, Creoles, and Other Mixed Languages: 13.1. Pidgins; 13.2. Creoles; Glossary; Index of languages; Bibliography.