Languages of the World | Kenneth Katzner

Languages of the World | Kenneth Katzner | Very good for basic knowledge despite a few errors.

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Languages of the W...

	Languages of the World Kenneth Katzner Routledge, 1977 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Lay linguistics

This book is interesting to the language hobbyist. It has samples of many languages and the corresponding translations, plus a description of the place of the language in the area where it is spoken. A very enjoyable reference book to peak into from time to time.

Very good for basic knowledge despite a few errors.

I own both the second and third editions of this book, and I can attest that the improvements in the third edition make this volume far more valuable than before. Katzner now provides far more general information about language families that should satisfy the curiosity of someone not in this field. Also, the individual language entries were updated. I especially value the language map.

My two main gripes with the book are: 1) there isn't enough information about individual languages, especially those with non-Roman character sets; and 2) there are some errors that need to be corrected. One of the most glaring errors that I noticed within 3 minutes of opening the new edition is Katzner's remark that the ß (eszet) character was totally eliminated from the German language in the 1998 spelling reform. This is undeniably false.

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The most enchanting book around for young people interested in languages, though professionals may grumble

Discovering some older edition of THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD in high school was a life-changing experience. This work Kenneth Katzner is, as far as I know, the only book for the average man that showcases the immense diversity of human tongues. It's certainly not a serious work of reference (for which I prefer Routledge's "Language Family Surveys" series, e.g. The Slavonic Languages), but will delight anyone with a passing interest in language.

The book is divided into three parts. The first describes the major language families of the world. Katzner presents the concept of a language family by showing how the Indo-European languages can be grouped together by such common words as "month", "mother", "new", "night", "nose", and "three", while e.g. Basque, Finnish, Hungarian, and Turkish plainly aren't related. Katzner admirably denies a link between those families some crackpots have connected, explaining that what matters is common vocabulary, and as long as that's missing vague similarities could be mere coincidence. The third part of the book is a listing of countries with information on the major languages spoken in each.

The meat of the book, however, is the middle part. Here Katzner gives sample texts and translations for nearly 200 languages, along with remarks on where they are spoken, how many speakers they have, and what scripts they are written from. The sample texts are usually from the cream of literature in the language described--I was so wowed by the passage from Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country in the description of Japanese that I immediately sought out that novel, and the inclusion of Sergei Chavain's ELNET in the description of Mari hopefully brings this pearl of literature to better attention in the West.

Much criticism has been brought upon THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD for the meagre amount of information given about each language. Katzner rarely discusses the grammar or lexicon of a language, but rather is very much concerned with the script it's written in. However, I think this is an appropriate strategy for the book's target audience, for often among young people especially interest in alphabets ("How do I write my name in Arabic/Chinese/Russian?") comes before interest in conjugation or syntax. At least the book doesn't abound in factual errors, common in popular books on language, and the only truly objectionable matter I find is the inclusion of Esperanto, as if it were a real language.

If you have an acquaintance, especially a young person, interested in languages, Katzner's THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD makes a great gift

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Great Summary for the Non-Specialist

As a person who has long been fascinated by languages and the way they work, I ask myself why I waited so long to buy this book. (Maybe because it's fairly costly for the page count?)

It's a very fun (if you like that sort of thing) summary of around 200 langauges from around the world, ranging from the well known [French, English, Spanish] to the obscure [Avar, Faroese]. I will admit that until I picked this up, I had NO idea how many languages were spoken in the former Soviet Union.

While the book is generally VERY well done, I would have liked to see a few things handled differently.
1. Actual translations (rather than adapted translations) of the poetry, to give the reader a better sense of the structure and flow of the language and the sorts of words used.
2. Transliterations of non-Roman alphabet languages -- again, to give the reader a better sense of how the language actually sounds.
3. (Especially for the more obscure languages ...) some discussion of printing and publishing in these languages. How many books/newspapers are published each year in, say, Maltese or Nenets, as compared to English or French.

Despite these minor flaws, highly recommended.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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