This is one of the books that started up my love for languages when I was younger.

The sections are categorized by geographic area. In each section a language is given its native script(s) then a translation in English. Following the two is a brief history and/or description of the language with information on how many people speak it and where.

I only have a couple minor complaints. One is that some scripts don't reflect the way they're used now or not written as they should be, such as Greek (they eliminated many diacritics) and Hawaiian (missing macrons). The other is the chart of language families. Some headings are incorrect, like refering to the languages of the Philippines as part of the Indonesian branch!

Despite those errors, I think this a good reference.. Especially if you come across a script you're unfamiliar with, you can compare it with those in the book. But don't expect to learn anything about the grammar or how to write the script.

This is a well-written handbook to find out what language is spoken where and the history of its speakers. There are snippets of approximately 200 carefully chosen passages of representative literature shown both in their native alphabets and in English translation. A fun read, great reference, and very relevant to current events.

The book is divided into three parts: an introduction to language families of the world, a listing of the individual languages themselves grouped in geographic order, and an alphabetically-arranged country-by-country survey of the languages spoken in each country. The section on language families describes relationships among language groups, a bit on the history of the people who speak them, and the geographical distribution of each family. The bulk of the book is in the second section on the individual languages. Each language is (usually) given a two-page description consisting of passages in their native script, along with an English translation, followed by a brief history of the language, its speakers, and the regions where the language is spoken. Examples of words that have found their way into English usage are also provided. The country survey consists of paragraph-long descriptions of the languages spoken in each country along with the number of speakers for each language.

Katzner's book is geared for the general reader who may be more interested on how languages relate to the countries where they are spoken rather than the morphology and syntax of a particular language. Those who prefer a more linguistic-oriented approach should try Concise Compendium of the Worlds Languages by George L. Campbell. It is as well written as Katzner's book but contains more detail on phonology and grammar. Both have excellent depictions of native alphabets with Katzner using examples from classic literature (e.g. Flaubert in French, Iqbal in Urdu, and Tagore in Bengali) whereas Campbell uses a passage from the Gospel of St John to illustrate the written form of the language. If your interest includes knowing what consonants are affricates, fricatives, or semi-vowels then look into Campbell's book. But if you want to know a little something about who speaks Pashto or about what are the dominant languages in India or other similar sorts of information then Katzner's book is for you.

Kenneth Katzner provides a well written and concisely presented book for those interested in the world's languages, their origins, growth and transformations, and linguistic relatives. The languages are listed by familial grouping, then individual languages, and then nation by nation. Easy-to-read charts elucidating families, sub-groups, branches, and major and minor languages are listed in the front of the book. Individually, the languages are listed in the index in the back of the book in alphabetical order making them easy to find and cross-reference. One can quickly find which languages are related via sub-families. You can bounce around from page to page with this.

Each language listed is presented with a sample such as a poem or proverb followed by an English transliteration. Also included is the number of people who speak it, and in what different parts of the world. The languages' family, idiocyncracies, major grammar points, alphabet, and stresses are noted. As an example, here's a paraphrase of the Finnish language presented in the book:

Spoken by 5 million speakers in Finland, 70,000 in the U.S., 200,000 in Sweden and 50,000 in Russia. Finnish is one of the few languages in Europe that is not of the Indo-European languages family. Like Estonian, it belongs to the Finno-Ugric languages which are a branch derived from the Uralic family. Finnish is difficult language to learn for Western native speakers because of it's non Indo-European origins and the the fact that it has 15 noun cases.

Also in the beginning is a biography of the families of languages and explanations of the migrations of people, many thousands of years ago, that has created the current multi-varied linguistic make up of our world today.

The Katzner dictionary is most helpful for students who want to know the difference between different Russian words which correspond to one English word. Associated with each Russian translation is a brief English explanation of the meaning. This helps avoid misusing a word which is a proper translation for one meaning of a word, but not for another. Look at any entry of an English preposition or common verb and there are often ten or more corresponding Russian words whose differences are carefully explained. Many entries in both the Russian-English and English-Russian sections of the dictionary contain Russian phrases or sentences which are fully accented to aid the beginner or intermediate student to learn proper pronunciation. You can learn more about the dictionary at the wordfind site and even see a sample page there. Even if you are not just beginning your study of Russian, you will find this book to be well-organized and carefully constructed to show iregular forms of verbs and nouns. One of the more interesting sections of the dictionary is its Glossary of Proper Nouns which includes the Russian names of countries, U.S. states, Canadian provinces and cities and geographical features of the world as well as a list of famous names.

As an ESL instructor, I find it important for my students to learn to use a dictionary. I have always recommended the Random House R-E/E-R Dictionary because of its price....it was a good deal. The Katzner dictionary is much better however, and Amazon's price is exceptional. The dictionary has easy to read references starting from either language ... which my Russian speaking students find indispensible. Non-Russian speakers, like myself, can even use the English section to look up Russian words.

Katzner's dictionary is the best single source of Russian language available to American-English speakers. It is better for grammar references than most Russian grammar books. It is an elegant solution to English- and Russian-speakers attempting to make the transition between the languages which has been unavailable until this time. It is, in a word, revolutionary