Resources

The Linguist List - Links to the Linguist Lists' (an e-mail discussion forum) searchable archives, to university programs, information on specific languages, etc. It also links to...

Ask-a-Linguist - Lets you ask linguistics professors anything that's on your mind about language and linguistics.

Ethnologue - online database of information about 6,500 languages. Includes alternate names, number of speakers, location, dialects, linguistic affiliation, and other sociolinguistic and demographic data.

"I can eat glass, it does not hurt me" - Just as the name implies! Learn how to say this in many languages.

Sounds of the World's Animals - Want to hear a Turkish cat meow?

American Name Society- founded to promote onomastics, the study of names and naming practices.

Center for Applied Linguistics- nonprofit, private institution applying knowledge about language to issues of concern to educators, policy makers, and immigrant and refugee service providers.

Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL)

Logic of Etymology- basic info regarding etymology, the study of the origin of words.

Human-Languages Page- concise index of human-language resources

Ancient Scripts - examples of writing systems from around the world, including Mesoamerica, Europe, and Middle East.

College Slang Page: Da Bomb - the 411 on the hip talk in the hallowed halls.

English-to-American Dictionary - Ever wondered how to snog? What sort of blokes pull birds? For Americans learning Scottish English.

Yamada WWW Language Guides - Comprehensive guides to (human) language resources on the WWW. Fonts, newsgroups, mailing lists, and WWW links.

Index of On-line Dictionaries - a collection of dictionaries of slang, standard and foreign languages, thesauri, language grammars and other language resources.

Baylor's Language Acquisition Center - This site lists additional online resources for Language Acquisition, Linguistics, Etymology, and multiple Foreign Languages.

The Language Hub

Oxford English Dictionary On-line

More Links

Click here for more specialized sites in Linguistics, language humor, dialects and World Englishes, and language variation.

Click here for links to information on general historical linguistics and historical stages of English and the Germanic languages. Also find links to early Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Germanic history and culture.

Recommended Reading

Pinker, Stephen. 1994. The Language Instinct: How the mind creates language.

HarperPerennial. An entertaining introduction to the mind through language, introducing the central problems in linguistics.

Crystal, David. 1997. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 2nd edition. Cambridge

University Press. A nice browsing book, which demonstrates lots of different ways in which language can be studied--everything from literary detective work to handwriting to language disorders to how languages are born and die. Pictures and charts!

Jackendoff, Ray. 1995. Patterns in the Mind: Language and Human Nature. Basic Books. Less 'chatty' than Pinker's book, but similarly offering an introduction to linguistics from a cognitive perspective.

Parker, Frank and Kathryn Riley. 1994. Linguistics for Non-Linguists. Allyn and Bacon. A textbook that assumes no prior knowledge. Includes exercises.