The Penguin Dictionary of Language

What precisely are structuralism, semiotics and sociolinguistics? What distinguishes pidgins from creoles, gerunds from gerundines and the hard palate from the soft palate? How many people speak Macedonian, Malay or Makua? Now in its second edition, David Crystal's superbly authoritative dicionary provides answers to all these questions and to many hundreds of others concerned with language and linguistics. • Major new edition, with fully updated and data and statistics new entries on the critical issues of ecolinguistics, endangered languages and human linguistic rights • Succinct descriptions of many hundreds of languages • Clear definitions of grammatical and literary concepts • Full coverage of the terminology used in such disciplines as language teaching and learning, speech disorders, desk top publishing and stylistics • Over 60 diagrams and cartoons