Of Languages and Numbers

Books

• Vanishing Voices: the Extinction of the World’s Languages, by Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine, Oxford University Press (2002)

  The authors show us the problematics of languages extinction that goes faster nowadays. They analyze this process from the point of view of language history and language spreading. They also explain the concept of linguistic biodiversity, as linguistic diversity occupies the same geographic, economic and social territories as biodiversity. Each language dying makes disappear a specific vision of the world as it gathers in its vocabulary all the field experience of the people who speak it. Where western technical vocabulary is only a nomenclature which is always behind species extinction to create new names, oceanian languages name fishes according to the type of hook used to catch them. With such living examples, they show us the true value of the ecology of languages.

Natural languages

• Albanian
  • Standard Albanian: A Reference Grammar for Students, Leonard Newmark, Philip Hubbard, Peter Prifti, Stanford University Press (1982)

• Azerbaijani
  • Azerbaijani-English, English-Azerbaijani dictionary and phrasebook, Nicholas Awde, Famil Ismailov, Hippocrene Books (1999)

• Bulgarian
  • Intensive Bulgarian: A Textbook & Reference Grammar (Vol 1), Ronelle Alexander, Olga M. Mladenova, University of Wisconsin Press (2000)

• Catalan
  • Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar, Nicolau Dols, Routledge (1999)

• German
  • Schaum’s Outline of German Grammar, 4ed, Elke Gschossmann-Hendershot, Lois Feuerle, McGraw-Hill (2009)

• Italian
  • Italian Grammar, Marcel Danesi, Barron’s Educational Series (2002)

• Pennsylvania German
  • A Pennsylvania German Reader and Grammar, Earl C. Haag, Pennsylvania State University Press (1978)

• Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Pois não: Brazilian Portuguese Course for Spanish Speakers, with Basic Reference Grammar, Antônio Roberto Monteiro Simões, University of Texas Press (2008)
  • Portuguese grammar: a complete, concise and practical reference, Sonia Celegatti Althoff (2008)

• Portuguese (Portugal)
  • Portuguese grammar: a complete, concise and practical reference, Sonia Celegatti Althoff (2008)

• Serbian
  • Simplified Grammar of the Serbian Language, Morfill, William Richard, BiblioBazaar (2009)

• Slovene
  • Slovene: A Comprehensive Grammar, Peter Herrity, Routledge (2000)

• Somali
  • Colloquial Somali: a complete language course, Martin Orwin, Routledge (1995)
  • Practical Grammar of the Somali Language, with a Manual of Sentences, Évangéliste de Larajasse, BiblioLife (2009)

• Spanish
  • Spanish Grammar, Christopher Kendris, Barron’s Educational Series (2001)

• Spanish (Puerto Rico)
  • Spanish Grammar, Christopher Kendris, Barron’s Educational Series (2001)

• Turkish
  • Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, Aslı Göksel, Celia Kerslake, Routledge (2005)

• Yup’ik
  • Yup’ik (Central Eskimo) Language Guide (and more!), Terryl Miller, World Friendship Publishing (2006)

Artificial language

• Quenya
  • Arda philology (book I and II), proceedings of the 2005 and 2007 Omentielva conferences