The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey. It is now a cliché that the world is a smaller place. We think nothing of jumping on a plane to travel to another country or continent. The most exotic locations are now destinations for mass tourism. Small business people are dealing across frontiers and language barriers like never before. The Internet brings different languages and cultures to our finger-tips. English, the hybrid language of an island at the western extremity of Europe seems to have an unrivalled position as an international medium of communication. But historically periods of cultural and economic domination have never lasted forever. Do we not lose something by relying on the wide spread use of English rather than discovering other languages and cultures? As citizens of this shrunken world, would we not be better off if we were able to speak a few languages other than our own? The answer is obviously yes. Certainly Steve Kaufmann thinks so, and in his busy life as a diplomat and businessman he managed to learn to speak nine languages fluently and observe first hand some of the dominant cultures of Europe and Asia. Why do not more people do the same? In his book The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey, Steve offers some answers. Steve feels anyone can learn a language if they want to. He points out some of the obstacles that hold people back. Drawing on his adventures in Europe and Asia, as a student and businessman, he describes the rewards that come from knowing languages. He relates his evolution as a language learner, abroad and back in his native Canada and explains the kind of attitude that will enable others to achieve second language fluency. Many people have taken on the challenge of language learning but have been frustrated by their lack of success. This book offers detailed advice on the kind of study practices that will achieve language breakthroughs. Steve has developed a language learning system available online at: www.thelinguist.com.

KAT LOMB (1909-2003) was one of the great polyglots of the 20th century. A translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world, Lomb worked in 16 languages for state and business concerns in her native Hungary. She achieved further fame by writing books on languages, interpreting, and polyglots. Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, first published in 1970, is a collection of anecdotes and reflections on language learning. Because Dr. Lomb learned her languages as an adult, after getting a PhD in chemistry, the methods she used will be of particular interest to adult learners who want to master a foreign language.

A Polyglot Pocket Dictionary of Lingala, English, French and Italian represents a glossary that allows the reader to appreciate positive diversity and interculturalism through multilingualism. Building on, and referring to, the author’s experiences of studying and living abroad as a series of transits, transitions, and translations, it urges the reader to enhance their global competency and brain power, and to seek cosmocitizenship through the study of world languages and cultures. To this end, it shares enlightening reflections on the benefits of multilingualism, and allows the reader to develop basic language skills in Lingala, English, French, and Italian. As such, in addition to the glossary, this work also contains key facts about the languages at hand, as well as useful phrases, weekdays, numbers, and elements of grammar.

This monograph aims to shed light on the linguistic endeavors and educational practices employed by 17th century Spanish Dominicans in their efforts to understand and disseminate knowledge of the Chinese language during this historical period. Ample attention is dedicated to the evolution of Chinese grammars and dictionaries by these authors. Central to the monograph is the manuscript “Marsh 696”, which comprises a Chinese-Spanish dictionary and a fragmentary Spanish grammar of Mandarin Chinese, a hitherto unknown and unpublished anonymous and undated text entitled Arte de lengua mandarina. This text is probably a fragment of the earliest grammar written by a Westerner of Mandarin Chinese (completed in Manila in c.1641), previously presumed lost. It is presented here as a facsimile, a transcription of the Spanish text and an English translation alongside a detailed linguistic analysis. The historical framework outlined in this monograph spans from the predecessors of Francisco Díaz (1606–1646) around 1620, including the Jesuit linguistic production in mainland China and Early Manila Hokkien sources, to the era wherein Antonio Díaz (1667–1715) finalized his revised version of Francisco Díaz’s dictionary. The monograph scrutinizes these texts in relation to the linguistic contributions of Francisco Varo (1627–1687). Additionally, the monograph incorporates other unpublished texts that are significant for reconstructing the educational curriculum for teaching and learning Chinese by Dominican friars during this period.

Small Dictionaries and Curiosity tells a story which has not been told before, that of the first European wordlists of minority and unofficial languages and dialects, from the end of the Middle Ages to the early nineteenth century. These wordlists were collected by people who were curious about the unrecorded or little-known languages they heard around them. Between them, they document more than 40 language varieties, from a Basque-Icelandic pidgin of the North Atlantic to the Kalmyk language of the lower Volga. The book gives an account of about 90 of these dictionaries and wordlists, some of them single-page jottings and some of them full-sized printed books, paying attention to their content and their physical form alike. It explores the kinds of curiosity and imagination by which their makers were moved: the lover of all languages hearing new voices in an inn; the speaker of a dying language recording his linguistic memories; the patriot deploying his lexicographical findings in the service of an emerging nation. It offers an encounter with the diverse voices of the entirety of post-medieval Europe, turning away from the people of the courts and universities whose language was documented in big dictionaries to listen to people who did not speak the languages of power: the people of remote places and dying communities; the illiterate poor, settled or homeless; migrants from the edges of Europe and beyond.