The Appendix of this title is more important than the body of the book itself because for the first time the appendix translates into English from the 1498 Latin a concept not brought out again until the late 1800's and early 1900's when the cuneiform texts of some of the oldest writings are translated, about characters that should at least be studied to see if indeed they were actual historical characters. The concept was of course of one ancient and main historical character stealing something from another contemporary, in the case of the cuneiform texts the stealing of the __ME's__ of ancient Sumerian/Babylonian history, and in 1498 the writer, wherever he got his material speaks of a most ancient charater "taking his son Jupiter Belus along with the colonies, __S T O L E__ the rituals of" -another ancient and main character also of what purports to be of the most ancient and important of historical characters. Why the concept of stealing ME's or "rituals" neither of which are defined except as being critically important! Let's hope Lady Southerland who did the actual translation and her husband/author Mr.Asher and their publisher decide to give us the complete translation of the entire work along with the later but still very old Italian edition.

To give one brief instance, the so-called linguistic map of Italy placed Ladino in the wrong area, made the German of South Tyrol into a minority language in its own area (it is the majority, to the extent where in some places you would not be understood if you spoke Italian), neglected most of Italy's smaller linguistic minorities and ignored the enormous differences between Italy's so-called "dialects" (actually most of them are written and literary languages in their own right). I'm sure I forget some matters, but you get the point: this is an appallingly sloppy performance, relying on no obvious personal knowledge, and a disgrace to the supposedly scholarly (actually, merely overpriced) imprint Routledge. But even worse than its sloppiness is its evident reverence towards the official line. In Turkey, for instance, no minority except for Kurds and Kartvelians (Georgians) is shown at all; in point of fact, knowledgeable linguists estimate that as much as 50 different languages may be spoken in the country, but the government does not like such views and keeps no records of linguistic minorities. One rather imagines that the Kartvelians are included because there is a Georgian state nearby, and the Kurds because, well, they have made themselves heart with guns...

Having read The Ecomonist's glowing review of the book, I always thought that this is a book which I must have.

In general, it is an excellent book, and I trust that I will not be seen as overly critical if I concentrate here on its shortcomings.

It is divided into separate chapters, roughly by continent. These lack cohesion: the maps for Europe show the present day situation (e.g. confining Gaelic to west coast of Ireland & Scotland) but those for North America "sort of" show the time of contact situation and the current situation.

I say "sort of" because you will look in this atlas in vain, however, for information on where French is currently spoken in N. America (by way of example).

Most of these problems are editorial, and a thorough review of consistency of coverage of each chaper would be well worthwhile if economics ever permit a revised edition.

The editor would do well to look to books such as "Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual

Education" (1998: Baker, Colin & Prys Jones, Sylvia. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters)for an idea as to how to present similar information for each region.

If, however, readers are primarily interested in less well known indigenous languages of the Americas, Africa & Australasia, they will be well served. At this price, however, greater overall consistency of quality should be a given.