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.

Originally published in 1937, this book is a practical manual of Kanuri which will be of use to both the layman and the linguist. This analysis makes it clear that kanuri is a tone-language and the author urges the reader to observe the tone-system of the language so that the accidence can be fully understood, as grammatical tone sometimes forms an integral part of it. As this is a practical study, a practical orthography has been chosen - i. e one that uses only letters that are absolutely necessary. This system improved Kanuri orthography, as it was based on scientific principles.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.