Reviewed by Joseph F. Eska, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

Manx is a member—with Irish and Scottish Gaelic—of the Goidelic branch of the Insular Celtic languages spoken on the Isle of Man. Its written records date from the 1610 translation of the Book of Common Prayer and Psalter. It was spoken by the large majority of inhabitants of the island through the eighteenth century. Its last native speaker died in 1974. The language has been revived by enthusiasts and it is now possible for children to progress through primary level education via the medium of Manx. The goal of the present work is to provide a synchronic description of the spontaneous spoken language of the last native speakers.

Phillips’s ‘Introduction’ (1–6) sets Manx in historical context, describes the corpus of the language (including its English-based orthographic system), briefly goes into changes in the language during its history, discusses the (limited) previous scholarship on the language, and sets out the objectives of his work.

The following chapters on ‘Phonology’ (7–14), ‘Morphology’ (15–51), and ‘Syntax’ (52–118) admirably set out the facts of these components of the grammar of the last generation of native speakers. In the phonology and morphology, in particular, but also the syntax, one finds numerous phenomena associated with language death. The realization of all segments, but vowels especially, can be very variable. The system of initial morphophonemic mutations that characterizes the Insular Celtic languages has broken down to the extent that no mutation is obligatory and those that exist may be variably realized. In certain specific syntactic contexts, they may occur up to half of the time that they would be expected, but otherwise their occurrence is rare. The nominal case and gender system has been eliminated. Derivational morphology is no longer productive and lexis and the variety of syntactic constructions have been reduced from earlier times.

The volume is completed by a sample text in broad phonemic transcription, which illustrates many of the variations in the language described above, a lexicon of 100 words that provides forms in Manx orthography along with a transcription into the IPA and an English gloss, a bibliography, and thorough indices of Manx words and subjects discussed.

This slim volume packs an enormous amount of information into its pages. The chapters are very usefully subcategorized so that the reader may easily locate subjects of interest. Everyone who is interested in the last natively-spoken phase of this much understudied language and/or language death phenomena, in general, would be well advised to consult this fine addition to the LINCOM Europa series of descriptive grammar.