Reviewed by Elizabeth Grace Winkler, Western Kentucky University

The chapters of this book began as segments on a radio show called Talkin’ about Talk put together by the board of directors of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) in response to the joint proclamation by the United States Senate and House of Representatives declaring 2005 the Year of Languages. The texts for the radio broadcasts were created by a group of well-known scholars who covered a broad range of key topics (sixty in all) in both theoretical and applied linguistics (although the preponderance of the topics are applied in nature given the target audience). These broadcasts can still be accessed at the ACTFL website at www.actfl.org.

Each chapter title is a question of the type that linguists are commonly asked by family and friends in social situations or by new students of linguistics. Some chapters focus on language origin, such as Barry Hilton’s ‘What was the original language?’ or Allan Bomhard’s ‘Do all languages come from the same source?’. Other contributors focus on the acquisition of language, like Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek’s ‘How do babies learn their mother tongue?’. There are also chapters on how to acquire a second language in or out of the classroom. A number of chapters explore sociolinguistic issues, such as dialects, language change, language rights, and language survival and extinction. From the theoretical perspective, Peter Ladefoged talks about how sounds are made, Joan Bybee discusses the origins of grammar, and David Savignac looks at machine translation.

Each of the contributors has done an admirable job of providing, sufficient information in a brief format (about three pages) to allow for a basic understanding of each topic. The contributors effectively address their target audience informatively and entertainingly, which may inspire readers to learn more about many of the topics.

The chapters include information not presented in the original radio broadcasts. For example, a short research biography is provided for the author at the end of each chapter. Additionally, each chapter includes an index of chapters that deal with related topics and a carefully compiled bibliography of readings that are generally target-audience accessible. Each suggested reading is accompanied by a brief description that clarifies its level of difficulty and comprehensiveness.  This book is an accessible and entertaining introduction to linguistics well suited to the general reader.