Concise Compendium of the World's Languages

The bulk of this book is a set of 4-5 page capsule summaries of over 100 languages. It is written clearly, in language that is very accessible to the layman. Though one would not think it possible, the brief language descriptions really do capture many important aspects of the languages.A must-read for those who want to know how many different ways there are for humans to arrange their thoughts. Yet there are some problems.This book is a digest of a much larger (and frightfully expensive) hardcover original. Unfortunately, several of this book's internal references are to languages or topics that appear only in the larger original.Phonology is discussed in a variant of IPA that is nowhere described. Languages written in non-Latin alphabets are transliterated according to inconsistent and unexplained methods. In some cases, the connection between a language's phonology and its orthography is poorly documented. Since few of the reading audience are familiar with many of the languages discussed, it behooves the editor to be quite careful about errors. Unfortunately, a few minor errors have crept in -- just enough to be annoying.For instance: in the essay on Semitic languages, Arabic is erroneously classified as South Semitic; in the essay on Japanese, words are transliterated using two incompatible methods, seemingly at random; Zulu numerals greater than 5 are given in an antique form that is no longer in use.In spite of its minor problems, I recommend this book highly.