Now in its third edition, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language provides the most comprehensive coverage of the history, structure and worldwide use of English. Fully updated and expanded, with a fresh redesigned layout, and over sixty audio resources to bring language extracts to life, it covers all aspects of the English language including the history of English, with new pages on Shakespeare's vocabulary and pronunciation, updated statistics on global English use that now cover all countries and the future of English in a post-Brexit Europe, regional and social variations, with fresh insights into the growing cultural identities of 'new Englishes', English in everyday use with new sections on gender identities, forensic studies, and 'big data' in corpus linguistics, and digital developments, including the emergence of new online varieties in social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. Packed with brand new colour illustrations, photographs, maps, tables and graphs, this new edition is an essential tool for a new generation of twenty-first-century English language enthusiasts.

Examines the writing systems, morphology, phonology, syntax, and lexicon of ancient languages.

An up-to-date reference source offers more than forty thousand entries and a quick reference section of facts and figures.

This new, thoroughly revised edition of the acclaimed Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language incorporates the major developments in language study which have taken place since the mid 1990s. Two main new areas have been added: the rise of electronic communication in all its current forms from email to texting, and the crisis affecting the world's languages, of which half are thought to be so seriously endangered that they will die out this century. • All language statistics have been updated, and additional information provided about their linguistic affiliation • All topics involving technology have been revised to take account of recent developments, notably in phonetics, language disability, and computing • Maps have been revised to include new countries or country names • Special attention has been paid to fast-moving areas such as language teaching and learning • The text design has been completely updated with many new illustrations throughout

Rarely has a book so packed with accurate and well researched factual information been so widely read and popularly acclaimed. This Second Edition of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language has been fully revised for a new generation of language-lovers. The book is longer and includes extensive new material on world English and Internet English, in addition to completely updated statistics, further reading suggestions and other references. First Edition Hb (1995): 0-521-40179-8 First Edition Pb (1997): 0-521-59655-6 David Crystal is a leading authority on language, and author of many books, including most recently Shakespeare's Words (Penguin, 2002), Language and the Internet (Cambridge, 2001) and Language Death (Cambridge, 2000). An internationally renowned writer, journal editor, lecturer and broadcaster, he received an Order of the British Empire in 1995 for his services to the English language.

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