杏吧原创

THERE are estimated to be 6900 languages spoken in the world today. By the end of this century, 90 per cent may have disappeared entirely, according to 1000 Languages, an authoritative and copiously illustrated global survey edited by , director of the Endangered Languages Academic Programme at London鈥檚 School of Oriental and African Studies, with contributions from 13 academic linguists based in Europe, the US and Australia.

If this sounds alarmist, think of the once well-established languages that are now extinct. Ancient Egyptian was spoken, and written in hieroglyphs, for three millennia. Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian were spoken, and written in cuneiform, for a similar period. Hittite, Sanskrit and Latin were once living languages of great civilisations. If history is anything to go by, English, Arabic and Chinese will eventually disappear in their turn and be replaced by other languages.

Endangered and extinct languages take up only the last two sections of the book. The previous nine are devoted to documenting the main features 鈥� linguistic, political and cultural 鈥� of the most significant of the world鈥檚 languages. 鈥淲orld languages鈥� such as Mandarin Chinese (1055 million speakers), English (760 million) or Hindi (490 million) get double-page spreads; other major languages, such as Italian or Tamil, get single pages; the rest, such as Cantonese or Ndebele, are confined to a half- or quarter-pages. For each region, there are clear and much-needed maps of language families.

The link between politics and language is present throughout. Austin quotes a joke by Max Weinrich, a specialist in Yiddish, that 鈥渁 language is a dialect with an army and navy鈥�. Thus Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are treated as three separate languages, belonging to three countries, while Chinese is counted as one language, even though speakers of the Mandarin and Cantonese 鈥渄ialects鈥� cannot understand each other. For the same reason, Serbo-Croat, the language of the former Yugoslavia, is now divided into Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian.

Often, the problem of classification lies with linguists rather than politicians or native speakers 鈥� especially in Africa, a hotspot of linguistic diversity. And when it comes to Australia, some researchers believe they can demonstrate that all the Aboriginal languages belong to a single family, while others think there are 26 different groupings.

The counting words for the numbers 1 to 10 are specified for major languages, providing an intriguing list of similarities and disparities. So are examples of loan words, such as English 鈥渟afari鈥� from the Swahili for 鈥渏ourney鈥�, or Japanese odoburu from the French hors d鈥檕euvre. The Mandarin word for 鈥渨ww鈥� is wanweiwang, a loan translation meaning literally 鈥�10,000 connections net鈥�.

With so much information packed into a relatively short book (Andrew Dalby鈥檚 equivalent Dictionary of Languages for the general reader runs to 700 pages even with no photographs), there are inevitably some slips. For instance, the Etruscans 鈥� whose script was used by the Romans 鈥� borrowed their script from the Greek alphabet, not from the Phoenician. Overall, however, 1000 Languages is an accessible and fascinating reference source, ideal for polyglot dipping.