Re: Books for conlangers

For those with no knowledge of a language outside their native
language's family, I would recommend "Languages and their
Speakers" and "Languages and their Status." The first has
chapters on Jacaltec (Guatemala), Maninka (West Africa),
Malagasy, Guugu Yimidhirr (Australia), and Japanese. The
second has chapters on Mohawk, Hua (Papua New Guinea),
Russian, Cape York Creole, Swahili, and Chinese. Both are
edited by Timothy Shopen and published by the University of
Pennsylvania Press.

These chapters are not textbooks of the languages and do
not give a complete grammar, but they are designed to give
non-linguists a taste of those languages.

For writing systems, I'd recommend "Writing Systems of the
World" by Akira Nakanishi. It doesn't cover the history of
writing systems or scripts that are no longer in use as "The
World's Writing Systems" does, but it's a lot cheaper. It covers
all the writing systems currently in use in printing the world's
daily newspapers.

--Ph. D.

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