Linguistics and Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL): Language Descriptions
Ethnologue
Updated regularly, Ethnologue has profiles for every language and country on earth and maps of where each language is spoken.
- Click here to access the Ethnologue database (log in with okstate email and okey password)
- Use the languages tab to find a specific language.
- After clicking on a language, look for "Language Resources" (if available) and then click on "OLAC resources in and about" [name of langauge].
- Once you've found the title of a specific book, look it up in WorldCat:
- WorldCatOver 36 million records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Includes citations of manuscripts written as early as the 11th century. Updated daily.
World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS)
A large database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials (such as reference grammars) by a team of 55 authors.
- Go to World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS)
- Use the languages tab to find a specific language.
- Use the source column or references tab to get the title of a specific book, and look it up in WorldCat:
- WorldCatOver 36 million records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Includes citations of manuscripts written as early as the 11th century. Updated daily.
Language Descriptions in the Library Catalog
Try these Advanced Searches:
- Any field contains "descriptive grammar" OR "reference grammar" - include the quotes in your search. On another line, select Subject contains and add the name of the language.
- Subject is (exact) Japanese language--Grammar. Another example: Subject is (exact) Hindi language--Grammar.
- If you're not getting many results, try removing grammar and searching only for Subject is (exact) Cherokee language, for example.
Other advanced searches to try:
Include the quotes and, under Material Type, select Books.
- Title contains "Oxford handbooks in linguistics"
- Title contains "Mouton Grammar Library"
- Title contains "Routledge language family series"
- Any field contains "Linguistic atlas"
Selected Books
The Atlas of North American English by
The Atlas of North American English provides the first overall view of the pronunciation and vowel systems of the dialects of the U.S. and Canada. The Atlas re-defines the regional dialects of American English on the basis of sound changes active in the 1990s and draws new boundaries reflecting those changes. It is based on a telephone survey of 762 local speakers, representing all the urbanized areas of North America. It has been developed by Bill Labov, one of the leading sociolinguists of the world, together with his colleagues Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg. The Atlas consists of a printed volume accompanied by an interactive CD-ROM. The print and multimedia content is alsoavailable online. Combined Edition: Book and Multimedia CD-ROM The printed volume contains 23 chapters that re-define the geographic boundaries of North American dialects and trace the influence of gender, age, education, and city size on the progress of sound change; findings that show a dramatic and increasing divergence of English in North America; 139 four color maps that illustrate the regional distribution of phonological and phonetic variables across the North American continent; 120 four color vowel charts of individual speakers. The interactive multimedia CD-ROM supplements the printed articles and maps by providing a data base with measurements of more than 100,000 vowels and mean values for 439 speakers; the Plotnik program for mapping each of the individual vowel systems; extended sound samples of all North American dialects; interactive applications to enhance classroom presentations. Online only Version: Print and Multimedia Content The online only version offers simultaneous access to the print and multimedia content to all users in the university/library network; presents a wider selection of interactive data, maps, and audio samples that will be recurrently updated; provides students with concurrent access to research material for classroom assignments. Key Features: a multimedia reference tool, overthrows previously heldhypothesesin North American dialectology, sound samples on CD-ROM easily accessible through clearly designedinteractive maps. System Requirements for CD-ROM and Online only version: Windows PC: Pentium PC, Windows 9x, NT, or XP, at least 16MB RAM, CD-ROM Drive, 16 Bit Soundcard, SVGA (600 x 800 resolution). Apple MAC: OS 6 or higher, 16 Bit Soundcard, at least 16MB RAM. Supported Browsers: Internet Explorer, 5.5 or 6 (Mac OS: Internet Explorer 5.1)/Netscape 7.x or higher/Mozilla 1.0 or higher/Mozilla Firefox 1.0 or higher. PlugIns: Macromedia Flash Player 6/Acrobat Reader.
Call Number: FOLIO 427.97 L125a OR ebookPublication Date: 2005
The Celtic Languages by
The Celtic Languages describes in depth all the Celtic languages from historical, structural and sociolinguistic perspectives with individual chapters on Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Breton and Cornish. This second edition has been thoroughly revised to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the modern Celtic languages and their current sociolinguistic status along with complete descriptions of the historical languages. This comprehensive volume is arranged in four parts. The first part offers a description of the typological aspects of the Celtic languages followed by a scene setting historical account of the emergence of these languages. Chapters devoted to Continental Celtic, Old and Middle Irish, and Old and Middle Welsh follow. Parts two and three are devoted to linguistic descriptions of the contemporary languages. Part two has chapters on Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx, while Part three covers Welsh, Breton and Cornish. Part four is devoted to the sociolinguistic situation of the four contemporary Celtic languages and a final chapter describes the status of the two revived languages Cornish and Manx. With contributions from a variety of scholars of the highest reputation, The Celtic Languages continues to be an invaluable tool for both students and teachers of linguistics, especially those with an interest in typology, language universals and the unique sociolinguistic position which the Celtic languages occupy. Dr Martin J. Ball is Hawthorne-BoRSF Endowed Professor, and Director of the Hawthorne Research Center, at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dr Ball has over 120 academic publications. Among his books are The Use of Welsh, Mutation in Welsh, and Welsh Phonetics. Dr Nicole Müller is Hawthorne-BoRSF Endowed Professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Among her books are Mutation in Welsh, and Agents in Early Irish and Early Welsh.
Call Number: 491.6 C3935 2010Publication Date: 2009
The Germanic Languages by Call Number: ebookPublication Date: 2013Provides a unique, up-to-date survey of twelve Germanic languages from English and German to Faroese and Yiddish.
The Languages of Japan and Korea by
The Languages of Japan and Korea provides detailed descriptions of the major varieties of languages in the region, both modern and pre-modern, within a common format, producing a long-needed introductory reference source. Korean, Japanese, Ainu, and representative members of the main groupings of the Ryukyuan chain are discussed for the first time in great detail in a single work. The volume is divided into language sketches, the majority of which are broken down into sections on phonology, orthography, morphology, syntax and lexicon. Specific emphasis is placed on aspects of syntactic interest, including speech levels, honorifics and classifiers. Each language variety is represented in Roman-based transcription, although its own script (where there is such orthography) and IPA transcriptions are used sparingly where appropriate. The dialects of both the modern and oldest forms of the languages are given extensive treatment, with a primary focus on the differences from the standard language. These synchronic snapshots are complemented by a discussion of both the genetic and areal relationships between languages in the region. With contributions from a variety of scholars of the highest reputation, The Language of Japan and Korea is a much needed and highly useful tool for professionals and students in linguistics, as well as area studies specialists.
Call Number: 495.67 L287 or ebookPublication Date: 2012-05-17
The Mouton World Atlas of Variation in English by
The Mouton World Atlas of Variation in English (WAVE) presents grammatical variation in spontaneous spoken English, mapping 235 features in 48 varieties of English (traditional dialects, high-contact mother tongue Englishes, and indiginized second-language Englishes) and 26 English-based Pidgins and Creoles in eight Anglophone world regions (Africa, Asia, Australia, British Isles, the Caribbean, North America, the Pacific, and the South Atlantic). The analyses of the 74 varieties are based on descriptive materials, naturalistic corpus data, and native speaker knowledge.
Call Number: 427.9 M934Publication Date: 2012
The Romance Languages by
Available again, this book discusses nine Romance languages in context of their common Latin origins and then in individual studies. The final chapter is devoted to Romance-based Creole languages; a genuine innovation in a work of this kind.
Call Number: ebookPublication Date: 2003- The Semitic Languages by
The Semitic Languages presents a comprehensive survey of the individual languages and language clusters within this language family, from their origins in antiquity to their present-day forms. This second edition has been fully revised, with new chapters and a wealth of additional material. New features include the following: * new introductory chapters on Proto-Semitic grammar and Semitic linguistic typology * an additional chapter on the place of Semitic as a subgroup of Afro-Asiatic, and several chapters on modern forms of Arabic, Aramaic and Ethiopian Semitic * text samples of each individual language, transcribed into the International Phonetic Alphabet, with standard linguistic word-by-word glossing as well as translation * new maps and tables present information visually for easy reference. This unique resource is the ideal reference for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics and language. It will be of interest to researchers and anyone with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, linguistic anthropology and language development.
Call Number: ebookPublication Date: 2019
- The Sino-Tibetan Languages by
There are more native speakers of Sino-Tibetan languages than of any other language family in the world. Our records of these languages are among the oldest for any human language, and the amount of active research on them has multiplied in the last few decades. Now in its second edition and fully updated to include new research, The Sino-Tibetan Languages includes overview articles on individual languages, with an emphasis on the less commonly described languages, as well as descriptions and comments on the subgroups in which they occur. There are overviews of the whole family on genetic classification and language contact, syntax and morphology, and also on word order typology. There are also more detailed overview articles on the phonology, morphosyntax, and writing system of just the Sinitic side of the family. Supplementing these overviews are articles on Shanghainese, Cantonese and Mandarin dialects. Tibeto-Burman is reviewed by genetic or geographical sub-group, with overview articles on some of the major groups and areas, and there are also detailed descriptions of 41 individual Tibeto-Burman languages, written by world experts in the field. Designed for students and researchers of Asian languages, The Sino-Tibetan Languages is a detailed overview of the field. This book is invaluable to language students, experts requiring concise, but thorough, information on related languages, and researchers working in historical, typological and comparative linguistics.
Call Number: ebookISBN: 9781315399508Publication Date: 2016
