Overview Of The Languages Of Eastern Europe

Based on Comrie's much-praised The World's Major Languages , this is the first comprehensive guide in paperback to descibe in detail the language families of Eastern Europe, and includes an introduction which surveys the field.

One of the most rewarding things about traveling through Eastern Europe is the rich variety of cuisine, customs, architecture, and history. The flipside of course is that you'll encounter some very different languages. Most languages spoken in Eastern Europe belong to what's known as the Indo-European language family, believed to have originally developed from one language spoken thousands of years ago. This book is a simple travel tool to provide you with a gentle entry into the languages of the area and to help you get by and make some friends along the way. Chapters include: 1. Basic Phrases & Greetings 2. Language & Communication 3. Shopping & Money 4. Transportation 5. Eating & Drinking 6. Directions 7. Sightseeing 8. Accommodation 9. Health & Emergencies 10. Basic Numbers

Open publicationThe Languages and Linguistics of Europe: A Comprehensive Guide is part of the multi-volume reference work on the languages and linguistics of the continents of the world. The book supplies profiles of the language families of Europe, including the sign languages. It also discusses the areal typology, paying attention to the Standard Average European, Balkan, Baltic and Mediterranean convergence areas. Separate chapters deal with the old and new minority languages and with non-standard varieties. A major focus is language politics and policies, including discussions of the special status of English, the relation between language and the church, language and the school, and standardization. The history of European linguistics is another focus as is the history of multilingual European 'empires' and their dissolution. The volume is especially geared towards a graduate and advanced undergraduate readership. It has been designed such that it can be used, as a whole or in parts, as a textbook, the first of its kind, for graduate programmes with a focus on the linguistic (and linguistics) landscape of Europe.

"This study provides an overview of the signed languages in Eastern Europe, including both the western republics of the former Soviet Union and the satellite nations that were under its control, bringing together in one place information in widely-scattered published materials as well as adding new information based on a field survey of these languages. ... This report presents the results of an initial survey of some of the signed languages of Easter Europe. The primary goal ... was to help identify what distinct signed languages exist in this part of the world and how their lexicons may have been influenced by each other, either because of genetic relatedness or borrowing."--Leaf 3.

Eastern Europe! is a brief and concise (but informative) introduction to Eastern Europe and its myriad customs and history. When the legendary Romulus killed his brother Remus and founded the city of Rome in 753 BCE, Plovdiv -- today the second-largest city in Bulgaria -- was already thousands of years old. Indeed, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Brussels, Amsterdam are all are mere infants compared to Plovdiv. This is just one of the paradoxes that haunts and defines the New Europe, that part of Europe that was freed from Soviet bondage in 1989 which is at once both much older than the modern Atlantic-facing power centers of Western Europe while also being in some ways much younger than them. Even those knowledgeable about Western Europe often see Eastern Europe as terra incognita, with a sign on the border declaring "Here be monsters." This book is a gateway to understanding both what unites and separates Eastern Europeans from their Western brethren, and how this vital region has been shaped by, but has also left its mark on, Western Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Ideal for students, businesspeople, and those who simply want to know more about where Grandma or Grandpa came from, Eastern Europe! is a user-friendly guide to a region that is all too often mischaracterized as remote, insular, and superstitious. Illustrations throughout include: 40 photos, 40 maps and 40 figures (tables, charts, etc.) From the Trade Paperback edition.

Based on Comrie's much-praised The World's Major Languages , this is the first comprehensive guide in paperback to descibe in detail the language families of Eastern Europe, and includes an introduction which surveys the field.

The book deals in detail with previously understudied language contact settings in the Balkans (South East Europe) that present a continuum between ethnic and linguistic separation and symbiosis among groups of people. The studies in this volume achieve several aims: they critically assess the Balkan Sprachbund theory; they analyse general contact theories against the background of new, original, representative field and historical Greek, Albanian, Romance, Slavic and Judesmo data; they employ and contribute to recent methods of research on linguistic convergence in bilingual societies; they propose new general assessments of extra- and intralinguistic factors of Balkanization over the centuries; and they outline prospects for future research. The factors relevant to contact scenarios and linguistic change in the Balkans are identified and typologized through models such as those related to a balanced or unbalanced (socio)linguistic situation.

This book analyzes the creation of languages across the Slavophone areas of the world and their deployment for political projects and identity building, mainly after 1989. It offers perspectives from a number of disciplines such as sociolinguistics, socio-political history and language policy. Languages are artefacts of culture, meaning they are created by people. They are often used for identity building and maintenance, but in Central and Eastern Europe they became the basis of nation building and national statehood maintenance. The recent split of the Serbo-Croatian language in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia amply illustrates the highly politicized role of languages in this region, which is also home to most of the world’s Slavic-speakers. This volume presents and analyzes the creation of languages across the Slavophone areas of the world and their deployment for political projects and identity building, mainly after 1989. The overview concludes with a reflection on the recent rise of Slavophone speech communities in Western Europe and Israel. The book brings together renowned international scholars who offer a variety of perspectives from a number of disciplines and sub-fields such as sociolinguistics, socio-political history and language policy, making this book of great interest to historians, sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists interested in Central and Eastern Europe and Slavic Studies.

The political and social upheavals following 1989 have had a significant impact on the minority languages of Eastern Europe. There have been attempts at enlightened treatment of minority linguistic groups in some of the new states but in others such groups have been openly oppressed. This volume draws on sociologically and ethnographically oriented work from a number of disciplines to allow the reader to compare developments in the different states, and to examine the interplay of language issues, ethnic nationalism, and processes of state formation and restructuring in the various political and historical contexts of Central and Eastern Europe. A companion volume (0-333-92925-X) examines the status of minority languages in the European Union.