Chinese is a highly complex language with internal variation unprecedented in most other languages. Yet, that does not mean Chinese is unique in the sense that it cannot be compared to other languages and new concepts need to be introduced for the description of it. This paper is dedicated to the question of how to apply the notion of…

This survey of the world's written languages consists of a series of historical sketches of different languages, each including a table of signforms in their standard order and their variations, but focusing primarily on how the sounds of the language are represented in writing. A brief text in the language(s) the script is used for is also…

The textbook is designed to introduce beginning students of linguistics to the variety of languages of the world. It assumes the reader has mastered the basic principles of linguistics, but seeks background information in the broad range of language phenomena found in the world's languages. Chapters address these topics: classification of…

Standard measures and techniques are needed to establish resemblances and differences among languages. A determination of the degree to which one lanquage or dialect differs from another requires the examination of language universals. To study what languages have in common, attention has to be given to the physical, psychological, and social…

This publication of proceedings, most in English and some in Chinese, of a conference on Chinese languages and linguistics include the following papers: "On Rule Effect and Dialect Classification" (Chin-Chuan Cheng); "Cross-Linguistic Typological Variation, Grammatical Relations, and the Chinese Language" (Bernard Comrie);…