LibGuides: Linguistics: Languages

Best Bet

Ethnologue - Languages of the World This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive reference work cataloging all of the world’s known living languages. Includes alternate names, dialects, number of speakers, multilingualism, demographic and sociolinguistic information when known. Includes country index with maps, language names index, language codes and language families index.

The World Atlas of Linguistic Structures
Online atlas that includes articles and interactive maps showing the cross-linguistic distribution of structural features in various domains (phoneme inventories, morphological structure, word order, case systems, etc.) in over 2600 languages. Also available in print (Ref Map P143 .W67 2005).

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language by David Crystal
Call Number: Ref P29 .C64 2010
Publication Date: 2010
The 3rd edition is in the reference room, the 2nd edition is in the stacks.
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages by R. Blair Woodard (Editor); Roger D. Woodard (Editor)
Call Number: Ref P140 .C36 2004
ISBN: 052156256
Publication Date: 2004
Essentially a collection of linguistic descriptions of "all known ancient languages", this is a convenient starting place for research on the grammars of ancient languages.
Classification and Index of the World's Languages by Charles F. Voegelin; Florence M. Voegelin
Call Number: Ref P203 .V6
Publication Date: 1976
A detailed arrangement of the genetic interrelationships and classification of the world's languages.
An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages by David Crystal
Call Number: P29 .C68 1992
Publication Date: 1993
Succinct, accessible and comprehensive guide to langauge concepts and names.
The World's Major Languages by Bernard Comrie (Editor)
Call Number: Ref P371 .W6 2009
Publication Date: 2009
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems by Florian Coulmas
Call Number: Ref Z40 .C67 1996
Publication Date: 1996