The concern for the fast-disappearing language stocks of the world has arisen particularly in the past decade, as a result of the impact of globalization. This book appears as an answer to a felt need: to catalogue and describe those languages, making up the vast majority of the world's six thousand or more distinct tongues, which are in danger of disappearing within the next few decades. Endangerment is a complex issue, and the reasons why so many of the world's smaller, less empowered languages are not being passed on to future generations today are discussed in the book's introduction. The introduction is followed by regional sections, each authored by a notable specialist, combining to provide a comprehensive listing of every language which, by the criteria of endangerment set out in the introduction, is likely to disappear within the next few decades. These languages make up ninety per cent of the world's remaining language stocks. Each regional section comprises an introduction that deals with problems of language preservation peculiar to the area, surveys of known extinct languages, and problems of classification. The introduction is followed by a list of all known languages within the region, endangered or not, arranged by genetic affiliation, with endangered and extinct languages marked. This listing is followed by entries in alphabetical order covering each language listed as endangered. Useful maps are provided to pinpoint the more complex clusters of smaller languages in every region of the world. The Encyclopedia therefore provides in a single resource: expert analysis of the current language policy situation in every multilingual country and on every continent, detailed descriptions of little-known languages from all over the world, and clear alphabetical entries, region by region, of all the world's languages currently thought to be in danger of extinction. The Encyclopedia of the World’s Endangered Languages will be a necessary addition to all academic linguistics collections and will be a useful resource for a range of readers with an interest in development studies, cultural heritage and international affairs.

Before the first appearance of the Atlas of the World's Languages in 1993, all the world's languages had never been accurately and completely mapped. The Atlas depicts the location of every known living language, including languages on the point of extinction. This fully revised edition of the Atlas offers: up-to-date research, some from fieldwork in early 2006 a general linguistic history of each section an overview of the genetic relations of the languages in each section statistical and sociolinguistic information a large number of new or completely updated maps further reading and a bibliography for each section a cross-referenced language index of over 6,000 languages. Presenting contributions from international scholars, covering over 6,000 languages and containing over 150 full-colour maps, the Atlas of the World's Languages is the definitive reference resource for every linguistic and reference library.

This new edition of Colloquial Estonian is easy to use and completely up-to-date. Specially written by an experienced teacher for self-study or class use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Estonian. No prior knowledge of the language is required. What makes Colloquial Estonian your best choice in personal language learning? interactive – lots of dialogues and exercises for regular practice clear – concise grammar notes practical – useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide complete – including answer key and special reference section. By the end of this rewarding course you will be able to communicate confidently and effectively in Estonian in a broad range of everyday situations. Accompanying audio material is available to purchase separately on CD/MP3 format, or comes included in the great value Colloquials Pack. For the eBook and MP3 pack, please find instructions on how to access the supplementary content for this title in the Prelims section.

The opinions advanced in this essay and the arguments with which they are supported will be more readily appreciated if the fundamental nature of Religion is set forth in a few introductory pages. The students of Religion have usually been content to describe it either in intellectual or in affective terms. ‘This particular idea or belief,’ or ‘this particular feeling or emotion,’ is, they have said, ‘the essence’ or the ‘vital element’ of Religion. So that most of the hundreds of definitions which have been proposed fall into two classes. We have, on the one hand, the definitions of Spencer, Max Müller, Romanes, Goblet d’Alviella, and others, for whom Religion is ‘the recognition of a mystery pressing for interpretation,’ or ‘a department of thought,’ or ‘a belief in superhuman beings’; and, on the other, the formulas of Schleiermacher, the Ritschlian theologians, Tiele, etc., who hold that Religion is ‘a feeling of absolute dependence upon God,’ or ‘that pure and reverential disposition or frame of mind we call piety.’ According to Tiele, ‘the essence of piety, and, therefore, the essence of Religion, is adoration.’ The recent advance of psychological science and the increasingly careful and minute work of ethnographists have tended to discredit these one-sided conceptions. To-day it has become customary to admit that ‘in Religion all sides of the personality participate. Will, feeling, and intelligence are necessary and inseparable constituents of Religion.’ But statements such as this one do not necessarily imply a correct understanding of the functional relation of the three aspects of psychic life. One may be acquainted with the three branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—and nevertheless grossly misunderstand their respective functions. Pfleiderer, for instance, hastens to add to the sentences last quoted, ‘Of course we must recognise that knowing and willing are here [in religion] not ends in themselves, as in science and in morality, but rather subordinate to feeling as the real centre of religious consciousness.’ Thus feeling reappears as the real centre of religious consciousness. What the author may well have meant here by ‘centre,’ I do not know. A similar criticism is applicable to Max Müller and to Guyau. The latter begins promisingly with a criticism of the one-sided formulas of Schleiermacher and of Feuerbach, and declares that they should be combined. ‘The religious sentiment,’ says he, is ‘primarily no doubt a feeling of dependence. But this feeling of dependence really to give birth to Religion must provoke in one a reaction—a desire for deliverance.’ Very good, indeed! But, on proceeding, the reader discovers that the opinion the book defends is that ‘Religion is the outcome of an effort to explain all things—physical, metaphysical, and moral—by analogies drawn from human society, imaginatively and symbolically considered. In short, it is a universal, sociological hypothesis, mythical in form.’ What is this but once more the intellectualistic position? Religion arising from an effort to explain; Religion anhypothesis! It is Herbert Spencer over again with an additional statement concerning the way in which man attempts to explain ‘the mystery pressing for interpretation.’

In Spoken Here, journalist Mark Abley takes us on a world tour -- from the Arctic Circle to the outback of Australia -- to track obscure languages and reveal their beauty and the devotion of those who work to save them. --from publisher description.

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