Some suggested readings for 211 writing assignments

General:

Bright, William, ed., International Encyclopedia of
     Linguistics. NY: Oxford University Press.
Comrie, Bernard, ed. 1987. The World's Major Languages. 
     London: Croom Helm.
Handbook of North American Indians.  Washington:
     Smithsonian Institution.
Heine, Bernd, and Derek Nurse, eds. 2000. African Languages: An
     Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
Sebeok, Thomas. 1963-76. Current Trends in Linguistics. 
     The Hague: Mouton.

The Oxford Encylopedia and the Smithsonian Handbook 
are in the Reference Room.  The Encyclopedia and Comrie have
articles on major languages and language families, and lists of basic
references.  Current Trends in Linguistcs (in 12 volumes) has
volumes devoted to specific geographic areas, which include review
articles on particular language families.  The Handbook of North 
American Indians is in 12 or so volumes arranged by geographic/culture
areas, and each has a survey article on the languages of that area, with
good references.


Selected readingsuseful for writing assignments:

Bellwood, Peter. 1991. The Austronesian dispersal and the origin
     of languages.  Scientific American 265.1:88-94.
Campbell, Lyle, and Marianne Mithun. 1979.  The Languages of
     Native America.  Austin: University of Texas Press.
Crawford, James. 2000. At War with Diversity: US Language
     Policy in an Age of Anxiety. Clevedon: Multilingual
     Matters.
Hale, Kenneth, et. al. 1992.  Endangered languages. 
     Language 68:1.1-42.
Lamb, Sydney, and E.D. Mitchell. 1991. Sprung From Some Common
     Source: Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages. 
     Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Renfrew, Colin. 1994. World linguistic diversity.  Scientific
     American 270.1:116-23.
Silver, Shirley, and Wick Miller. 1997.  American Indian
     Languages:  Cultural and Social Contexts.  Tucson:
     University of Arizona Press.
Valli, Clayton, and Ceil Lucas.  1995.  Linguistics of American
     Sign Language.  Washington: Gallaudet University Press.