Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0521562562, Hardcover)

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of 2006 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages is the first comprehensive reference work treating all of the languages of antiquity. Clear and systematic in its approach, the Encyclopedia combines full linguistic coverage of all the well-documented ancient languages, representing numerous language families from around the globe. Each chapter focuses on an individual language or, in some instances, a set of closely related varieties of a language. Providing a full descriptive presentation, each of these chapters examines the writing system(s), phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of that language, and places the language within its proper linguistic and historical context. The Encyclopedia brings together an international array of scholars, each a leading specialist in ancient language study. While designed primarily for linguistic professionals and students, this work is invaluable to all whose studies take them into the realm of ancient language. Roger D. Woodard is the Andrew V.V. Raymond Professor of Classics at the State University of New York, Buffalo. He previously served on the faculties of Classics and/or Linguistics at the University of Southern California, Johns Hopkins University and Swarthmore College. Among his other books are Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer: A Linguistic Interpretation of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (Oxford, 1997) and co-author of Ovid's Fasti ( Penguin, 2000). He is a member of the Linguistic Society of America and the American Philological Association.