No ordinary dictionary, David Crystal's Dictionary of Language includes not only descriptions of hundreds of languages literally from A to Z (Abkhaz to Zyryan) and definitions of literary and grammatical concepts, but also explanations of terms used in linguistics, language teaching, and speech pathology. If you are wondering how many people speak Macedonian, Malay, or Makua, or if you're curious about various theories of the origins of language, or if you were always unsure of the difference between structuralism, semiotics, and sociolinguistics, this superbly authoritative dictionary will answer all of your questions and hundred of others.

Covering the political, social and historical background of each language, Dictionary of Languages offers a unique insight into human culture and communication. Every language with official status is included, as well as all those that have a written literature and 175 'minor' languages with special historical or anthropological interest. We see how, with the rapidly increasing uniformity of our culture as media's influence spreads, more languages have become extinct or are under threat of extinction. The text is highlighted by maps and charts of scripts, while proverbs, anecdotes and quotations reveal the features that make a language unique.

The Oxford English Dictionary is the internationally recognized authority on the evolution of the English language from 1150 to the present day. The Dictionary defines over 500,000 words, making it an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, pronunciation, and history of the English language. This new upgrade version of The Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM offers unparalleled access to the world's most important reference work for the English language. The text of this version has been augmented with the inclusion of the Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series (Volumes 1-3), published in 1993 and 1997, the Bibliography to the Second Edition, and other ancillary material. System requirements: PC with minimum 200 MHz Pentium-class processor; 32 MB RAM (64 MB recommended); 16-speed CD-ROM drive (32-speed recommended); Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 200, or XP (Local administrator rights are required to install and open the OED for the first time on a PC running Windows NT 4 and to install and run the OED on Windows 2000 and XP); 1.1 GB hard disk space to run the OED from the CD-ROM and 1.7 GB to install the CD-ROM to the hard disk: SVGA monitor: 800 x 600 pixels: 16-bit (64k, high color) setting recommended. Please note: for the upgrade, installation requires the use of the OED CD-ROM v2.0.

In this guide to linguistic concepts and names, linguistic does not mean the technical terminology of linguistic sciences, but language in a more everyday sense. Terms are drawn from the various applied areas of language study, such as language teaching, speech pathology, stylistics, typography, and lexicography, as well as from core topics such as grammar, figures of speech, and basic phonetics. Some 2,750 cross-referenced entries are concisely defined in non- technical language. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR