Re: [TIED] Books for a public library

From: Mark Odegard
Message: 2841
Date: 2000-07-11


----- Original Message -----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski


American Heritage dictionary of Indo-European roots by Calvert Watkins. 2nd ed. (NYP - 14 Sept 2000)

Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture. eds Mallory and Adams.

Comparative Indo-European linguistics : an introduction by R. Beekes.


All of the above are worth having


From the steppes to the seas : Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans (NYP -
Aug 2000)
 
 
Obviously a new edition of a rather quaint book by the late André Martinet with a dangerously epic title (Des steppes aux océans. L'indo-européen et les "Indo-Européens"). Not entirely to my taste.
 
Piotr

 
Piotr's list is excellent. Since is *is* for a public library, a few others need mentioning.
 
In addition to R.S.P Beekes' magnificant introduction, that of Oswald J.L. Szemerényi also must be mentioned: _Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics_, 4th edition, 1990, OUP.
 
A rather 'dated' but nontheless classic book by Carl Darling Buck is also available: _A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages: A Contribution to the History of Ideas_, U. Chicago Press. This is a large format paperback that has four page of the original edition reduced in size and printed on a single page (the original is over 1,000 pages long). The price is right too, under $30.00.
 
A rather expensive book is Daniels and Bright's _The World's Writing Systems_, OUP, 1996.  While not immediately pertinent to IE studies, this work is as definitive as it is magisterial and works rather well as a introduction to just about all the world's important languages, frequently with discussions of the grammatical-phonological quirks encoded in their spelling systems. Any library with any pretensions to the word should have a copy of this book, at least in their reference section.
 
If the budget is really lavish, then Julius Pokorny's _Indogermanisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch_ is also recommended. At nearly $400, this is too rich for my blood. I've never seen a copy, but this is the book everyone quotes. While dated, it is quite simply *the* Indo-European dictionary. Yeah, it's in German.
 
More generally, any and all of David Crystal's _Cambridge Encyclopedia of ..._ books are highly recommended. They are not too expensive, and represent a relatively painless way for an amateur to introduce him/herself to linguistics. Crystal, so I am told does NOT make mistakes in his books: he is as reliable as source as you could ask.