Product Description

This comprehensive volume provides in-depth descriptions of all the Celtic languages from historical, structural and sociolinguistic perspectives--with individual chapters on Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Breton and Cornish. Organized for ease of reference, The Celtic Languages is arranged in four parts. The first,Historical Aspects covers the origin and history of the Celtic languages, their spread and retreat, present-day distribution and a sketch of the extant and recently extinct languages. Parts II and III describe the structural detail of each language, including phonology, mutation, morphology, syntax, dialectology and lexis. The final section provides wide-ranging sociolinguistic detail, such as areas of usage (in government, church, media, education, business), maintenance (institutional support offered), and prospects for survival.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #491005 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 682 pages

Review
... provides a very useful and convenient overview of the linguistic features of the whole range of the Celtic languages. The book is very well produced. Each chapter is accompanied by a substantial bibliography and there is a good index of names and subjects. - Reference Reviews

A very substantial work indeed ... produced to a high standard of scholarship.

This is an excellent book. Detailed but lucid, it is exactly the book to recommend to enquirers on anything from inscriptions in Gaulish to videos in Manx. In short, the authors of [The Celtic Languages] deserve congratulations for a job well done. The work of the team [Martin Ball] has directed will be of value for years to come. - Notes and Queries

About the Author
Martin J. Ball is Hawthorne-BoRSF Distinguished Professor, in the Department of Communicative Disorders at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.