Reviewed by Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy, University of Canterbury

This book contains chapters relevant to Europe from The Cambridge encyclopedia of the world’s ancient languages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). After a preface and introduction by Roger D. Woodard, the contributors discussed a variety of languages including Attic Greek, Greek dialects, Latin, Sabellian languages, Venetic, Etruscan, continental Celtic (that is, Hispano-Celtic, Lepontic, and Gaulish), Gothic, and ancient Nordic as recorded in runic inscriptions. An appendix contains a seventeen-page account of Proto-Indo-European languages. There are indices of languages, grammatical topics, linguistic laws, and general subjects. In the introduction Woodard discusses briefly some languages about which too little is known to warrant separate chapters: Sicel, Raetic (and Lemnian), Ligurian, Illyrian, Thracian, Macedonian, and Messapic.

The preface explains that for the purpose of this book, ancient means attested before the end of the fifth century AD (xv). This is why, for example, Gothic, ancient Nordic, and Gaulish are included, but not literary Old Norse, Old English, or Old Irish. Given its importance, one might have expected Mycenaean Greek to occupy a chapter on its own, but it is lumped in with Greek dialects. All the chapters conform to a similar pattern, with sections on the historical and cultural context of the language, its writing system, and its phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. There are extensive bibliographies.

In regards to Etruscan, some characters usually transcribed as <f> and <q> are regarded by some scholars as representing not voiceless aspirated stops (which was their value in Ancient Greek) but palatalized stops. I noticed only one curious error (carried over from the parent encyclopedia): the singular forms of the Greek perfect active and of oîda ‘know’ are given but the dual and plural forms are omitted (41).  This may be because it is only in the singular that the relevant person-number suffixes are particularly unusual, but it is not explained. The reader is left in the dark about the ablaut alternation preserved uniquely in the stem of oîda, as illustrated by e.g. ísmen (< *íd-men) ‘we know’.

The information supplied about each language in a work of this length is inevitably limited. However, this book is a good starting point for anyone wanting to explore any of these languages further. Even the most expert historical linguist is likely to find it a useful resource for the lesser known languages covered. Readers accustomed to thinking of Indo-European as having an Italic subfamily will learn here that there is no clear reason to regard Sabellian languages (principally Oscan and Umbrian) as more closely linked to Latin than to other Indo-European subgroups.