Reviewed by Josep Soler Carbonell, University of Oxford

This is a brilliant book in the field of historical sociolinguistics, a model that can be used as a reference for how to conduct research in this particular area. It contains twelve chapters and is clearly written, which makes it a useful source for pedagogical purposes as well.

The main theme of the book revolves around the concept of ‘myth’: how myths are formed by ‘conceptual metaphors’ and how they help to construct particular language ideologies. If these ideologies are powerful enough to become part of a dominant discourse, then a discourse archive, in a Foucauldian sense, is formed. The aim of the book is not to provide yet another history of the English language, as the author repeatedly states, but rather to deconstruct specific myths that, during the history of English, have formed the basis of a dominant discourse on what modern English is.

There is a series of myths that the author deals with in each chapter, quite independently from each other, but because they are interrelated to a certain extent (some more than others), they can be grouped into three main sets. First of all, there are myths that appeared in the latter half of the nineteenth century within the context of the establishment of the nation-state. Using the author’s own labels, these include the longevity of English myth, the ancient language myth, the unbroken tradition myth, the polite language myth, and the legitimate language myth. Another set of myths that has resonance in other languages throughout history, and thus appears to be universal, includes the pure language myth, the perfect language myth, the contamination through contact myth, the decay and death myth, the barbarians myth, the immutability myth, the good climate/soil myth, and the pure language of the South and the corrupted language of the North myth (the latter being specific only to England). Finally, the last set of myths derives from more modern times: the English as a creole myth and the English as a global language myth.

The beliefs driven by myths need to be taken into account carefully, in particular if they are to be part of hegemonic discourses about language. To prove that that is the case and that they may thus bring about important consequences to more practical and applied terrains, the author discusses in detail the question of English in Switzerland and the misguided language policies derived from a blind belief in English as the global language. As the author himself concludes, even if there will always be lay conceptualizations of language built on mythical beliefs, as there have always been, as sociolinguists, we need to know as much about the myths as possible. This volume provides a remarkable way to look at and analyze them.

Reviewed by Mark J. Elson, University of Virginia

Following a first chapter presenting terminology, methodology, and a survey of the phonology and morphology of Proto-Indo-European, each chapter of this useful book provides a synchronic phonology and historico-synchronic morphology of one of the ancient Indo-European languages, and includes as well an inventory of the sound changes, with attention to relative chronology, which relate the language to Proto-Indo-European. There are, in addition, exercises and a short text for each language, with each word of the latter parsed. The book is intended for students, its goal being to provide the necessary background for transition to more detailed treatments, which are often inaccessible to beginners. The languages included are Gothic (41–120), Latin (121–214), Greek (215–310), Old Irish (311–92), Old Church Slavic (393–472), Sanskrit (473–562), and Hittite (563–612). The book concludes with references (613–20) and word indices (621–47).

There are features of this book which some will criticize. Perhaps foremost among them is the theoretical structure that the authors introduce in the first chapter for the presentation of data. This structure, to the extent it qualifies as a coherent framework, is best described as early generative, including four components termed levels: deep, transformational, morphological, and phonological. The authors’ brief commentary (2–6) reveals that the deep and transformational levels are essentially syntactic. It is difficult to see their relevance because syntax plays no role in this book. The morphological and phonological levels as the authors conceive them require nothing more than a basic knowledge of the traditional morpheme, phoneme, and associated concepts (e.g. allomorph, phonological feature, allophone). There is a description of the comparative method (6–7), but no discussion of the important associated concept of sound change and its relevance to the realization of morphemes. The authors may believe they have attended to these concepts in their theoretical structure under the headings, respectively, of phonological rule and morphological rule. If so, however, there is a concomitant, albeit tacit, likening of reconstructions to synchronically motivated underlying representations, an equation that will not suit all users of this book.

Another difficulty is the impression given that a proto-language is always related more or less directly to its attested daughters, which ignores the generally accepted assumption that other proto-languages may intervene. In the case of Slavic, for example, the authors’ presentation, despite their division of the period preceding Old Church Slavic into stages (393–94) and the comment that some of the changes affected ‘the Slavic area’ (363), suggests a direct connection between sound changes like the first palatalization of velars and Old Church Slavic, obscuring the fact that such changes are best understood as having occurred within Common Slavic, a reconstructed period of common development that takes reconstructed Proto-Slavic as its point of departure. Finally, and despite the claim of the authors, there is no significant analysis in the presentation of the ancient morphologies. There is only an inventory of forms paradigmatically arranged and accompanied by their reconstructed etyma morphologically, divided according to their Indo-European constituents. Language-specific details of the evolution of the inherited nominal and verbal systems are left virtually unattended.

Instructors will nevertheless recognize the potential of this book in linguistic curricula which offer specialization in Indo-European linguistics. The difficulties are relatively superficial, and easily remedied by the use of any currently available general introduction to historical linguistics in combination with language-specific clarification and amplification provided in the classroom.

Reviewed by Elly van Gelderen, Arizona State University

This book is a reprint of the 1919 edition, printed in Baghdad at the Government Press. There is no preface or explanation for why the book was reprinted, which would have been helpful to know. The author wrote many articles and books about Kurdish and is well-known for his book To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in disguise (Cosimo Inc, 2007); he also wrote Grammar of the Kurmanji or Kurdish language (Luzac and Co., 1913).

Kurdish, an Indo-European language of the Iranian branch, forms a dialect continuum with three standardized varieties, one of which is Kurmanji. The elementary grammar was meant to be a guide for officers with duties in southern Kurdistan; the dialect is that of Sulaimaniyah. This book can still be of use as a grammar for people learning introductory Kurdish. It begins with a brief description of the sounds and then discusses characteristics of the noun (the singular, plural, and diminutive), provides a word list of about forty words and two sets of exercises. This pattern of short grammatical explanation followed by new vocabulary and exercises repeats itself. The series of grammatical points, vocabulary, and exercises are followed by an English–Kurmanji word list of seventy-four pages and two appendices.

The grammatical topics that S deals with are the five cases of the noun, derivational suffixes, independent and enclitic personal pronouns, other pronouns, adjectives, and numerals, as well as eleven pages of paradigms for the auxiliaries ‘to be’ and ‘to become’, five pages on the absence of the verb ‘to have’, eight pages on the first conjugation (the transitive verb), fourteen pages on the other four conjugations (the intransitive, causal, and passives), compound verbs with chun ‘to go’ and keshan ‘to pull’, the adverb, conjunctions, and prepositions. There are two pages on syntax and idioms and a chart on the constructions of the sentence. The intricacies of the languages look to have been viewed as residing in the morphology and not in the syntax.

Some of the grammatical points that S describes are interesting but often raise more questions; this is to be expected from a short grammar. Kurmanji is split ergative language; that is, the past tense verb (but not the present tense one) agrees with the object of the transitive verb in the same way as it does with subjects of intransitives. There are only hints of this in a description of the pronominal system. S makes an interesting point that the diminutive –aka, which he considers a number, ‘has largely lost its meaning’ and is used as a euphonic (3). In such a case, it would be beneficial to have a little more insight from texts. In short, in studying a language, it is always helpful to have the use of a multitude of grammars, written for different audiences. This book serves this purpose for learners of Kurdish.

Reviewed by Michael Cahill, SIL International

This book, self-published, is a potpourri, covering everything from language origins to all major branches of linguistics to dialects to a history of writing and current literacy, citing scholars from Piaget to Montessori to McLuhan. The larger purpose of the book is unclear, but one of its salient themes contrasts literacy and spoken language.

Fourteen chapters are grouped into four larger sections. The first (‘Communication, thought, imagery and language’) focuses on the relation of intelligence to language, explores basic subdisciplines of linguistics, and discusses first-language acquisition. The second section (‘Writing and civilization’) provides an interesting account of the history of writing, including a brief history of the English language, and also traces the development of the English alphabet.

The third section (‘The development of literacy’) makes the often-overlooked point that scripts of the world are often tied to religious systems, not language families. The author discusses educational systems throughout the centuries. Definitions of levels of literacy are useful, as well as statistics on the current state of education in the United States. The chapter on the history of American education, including the challenges of student diversity, leads naturally to discussion of the role of dialects in the classroom.

The following section (‘The oral connection’) examines African-American and Hispanic English (‘Spanglish’) speech in detail, stylistically, grammatically, and phonologically. The concluding chapter revisits social stratification and dialects, and raises the question of how electronic media (e.g. Twitter) are redefining literacy in terms of being closer to speech than previous written norms.

This book could be described as ambitious. It is difficult to find a book that covers so broad a range of topics in linguistics, theoretical and applied, but the book lacks focus. The author presents a lot of valuable information about language and literacy but does not connect this information systematically. One particularly positive point of this book is its many charts, some of them of the author’s own devising. These include pages of Greek and Latin roots and affixes which have descended into English, pages of Germanic and Latinate sources for modern English words, and charts of cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mayan logograms, runes, and symbols used in many orthographies today.

The layman or undergraduate will find this book interesting and informative. However, the book contains a significant number of errors. In the first section, we find an uncritical acceptance of ‘ape language’, saying ‘our [ape] cousins can learn to use symbols at the level of a two-year-old human’ (17), an English phoneme chart (43) with at least three errors, and a listing of both /e/ and /ei/ as English phonemes (44, 65). Later, the author claims that only five percent of the world’s languages have ever been put in writing (87), refers to cuneiform as a language rather than a script (89), and claims that /i,u,a/ are common to all human languages (100). In spite of details such as these, the book is enjoyable to read.

Reviewed by Linda A. Lanz, College of William and Mary

Misumi Sadler’s book presents an extensive corpus study of the Japanese dative subject construction in which a core argument receives non-canonical case marking. The first Japanese dative subject study to use natural spoken discourse data in addition to written data, it aims to fill gaps in our understanding left by previous studies, which relied solely on constructed examples. First and foremost is the goal to explicate the discourse properties of the so-called dative subject and determine to what extent it is influenced by genre. This goal stems from S’s observation that the dative subject construction so hotly debated by syntacticians is rare in actual speech. Ultimately, S seeks to provide a usage-based account of dative NPs in Modern Japanese discourse, drawing from both discourse-pragmatic and syntactic data.

Ch. 1 introduces the dative subject construction, presents shortfalls of previous approaches in an extensive literature review, and defines the author’s theoretical approach. The dative subject construction is one in which a core argument takes dative case. S questions assumptions about the transitivity of the dative subject construction and the subjecthood of the dative-marked NP, rejecting, for example, the subject honorification test for subjecthood. S notes that based on natural discourse data, subject honorification fails as a reliable test. Finally, because linguists often claim that speech is primary while at the same time largely relying on written or constructed data, S uses a corpus of speech and natural written narrative rather than constructed data.

Ch. 2 describes the types of spoken and written data used as well as the methodology S adopts. Her Modern Japanese data are a corpus of twenty-six natural conversations and twelve contemporary Japanese novels, and her methodology is rigorous in both selection of data and coding of tokens. Both sets of data are coded for features such as register, person, sex (of speaker/author), and age (of speaker/intended reader). In Chs. 3 and 4, S examines the dative subject in Modern Japanese spoken and written discourse, respectively. S separates her written data into two groups: written narrative and written conversation.

In Ch. 5, S presents diachronic data on the origin and development of the dative subject construction, using Old Japanese and Classical Japanese texts from the seventh to the twentieth centuries. She begins with the assumption that dative subjects arose when the dative marker ni broadened its semantic scope from stative locative NPs to include human referents via metonymy. S is as rigorous with her pre-modern texts as she is with her modern data, with one small exception: S counts all tokens of ni in pre-modern Japanese as a case marker, ignoring the multiple diachronic sources of Modern Japanese ni (such as the Old Japanese defective verb n-i ‘to be-INF’).

Ch. 6 reiterates the results of the previous chapters and works them into a coherent data-oriented theory of the dative subject construction. In this, S succeeds admirably, demonstrating that the dative subject construction is highly pragmatically oriented in Japanese discourse. Not only is it exceedingly rare in spoken Japanese, but previous researchers made many faulty assumptions about its usage, for which S presents data to address in detail.

This book is an excellent example of adopting a usage-based approach in syntax. S has demonstrated the necessity of natural data in syntactic description and, in doing so, has contributed greatly to corpus linguistics, Japanese syntax and semantics, and diachronic linguistics.

Reviewed by Irene Theodoropoulou, Qatar University

This book is about sociolinguistic variation in a corpus of casual Irish English conversations among adults. Ch. 1 discusses age as an under-researched sociolinguistic variable, relative to other identities such as gender and ethnicity, and argues for a corpus-based approach based on the following two criteria: (i) reliability of corpora, given that they contain real language used by real people in natural settings, and (ii) a combination of quantitative and qualitative treatment of data, translated into running concordance searches, identifying the frequency of use of specific items, and exploring the associations between language and social contexts.

Ch. 2 contextualizes age-related research by reviewing key studies in the fields of discourse analysis, conversation analysis, variationist sociolinguistics, and variational pragmatics. Ch. 3 focuses on how to build and use a corpus for age-related research by attending to issues, including the size of the corpus, descriptive and interpretative issues, and transcription issues. This chapter contains a thorough description of the corpus and its methodology. Chs. 4 and 5 focus on variation at the level of discourse: Ch. 4 illustrates that variation in hedging (i.e. a linguistic strategy used to mitigate assertiveness) is constrained by conversation type (e.g. sensitive issues versus neutral topics), relationship, and life stage rather than chronological age. Ch. 5 argues that vague category markers, namely assumed categories due to shared social space, are multifunctional forms with interpersonally defined roles, whose variation is constrained by life stage.

Chs. 6 and 7 delve into variation at the level of grammar. Ch. 6 shows that the sociolinguistic variation in amplifiers, such as very, really, and so, is explained on the basis of the participants’ life stage. Moreover, very is seen as a marker for older ages, while really marks younger adults, and so is used before adjectives by all groups of adults. Ch. 7 argues that boosters (i.e. lexical items that assertively express a viewpoint) are used primarily by an older female population as an index of their empowerment, stemming from worldly knowledge and life experience they have acquired throughout their lifespan.

Ch. 8, dealing with lexis, establishes that there is a qualitative difference in the use of taboo language by adults. While older groups prefer religious references whose pragmatic meaning has eclipsed their original meaning, younger groups prefer stronger expression found in expletives, and middle-aged people tend to avoid the use of taboo language. Ch. 9 summarizes the findings of this study, states its limitations, and makes a case for treating age as an important macro-sociolinguistic factor in variationist pragmatics studies.

Overall, the basic asset of this book is its robust methodology, which has yielded useful patterns for sociolinguistically interpreting different phases of one’s adult life. Nonetheless, there seems to be a mismatch between what the book claims to do and what it actually does. Despite its explicit focus on a synchronic sample of Irish English, and thus its claim to describe language variation only, the discussion especially in the otherwise well-written Ch. 8 implies that there is semantic drift in taboo language, a claim that implies language change.

Reviewed by Susanne Wagner, Chemnitz University of Technology

This book contains contributions from different research areas unified by the common aim of variation analysis and its practical application. The book is suitable for doctoral students, but it really targets researchers looking for new ideas beyond their area of expertise.

The introduction covers the central questions of the book: how to collect, analyze, store, and present data showing variation; and how to compare and validate different methods of analysis.

Erik R. Thomas’s comprehensive yet concise overview of sociophonetic methods includes such topics as traditional dialectology, modern surveys, transcription, and computer-supported acoustic analysis. He identifies discreteness and binarity as particularly problematic, stressing the importance of employing mixed models for the integrated analysis of variables. In the following chapter, Isabelle Buchstaller and Karen Corrigan look at different methods for investigating morphosyntactic variation, such as reformulation tasks, grammaticality judgement tasks, magnitude estimations, and pictorial elicitation. They identify magnitude estimation as a robust way of making intuitions succeed. An important caveat is that different settings may require very different methods.

Alexandra D’Arcy’s chapter on corpora seems geared more towards undergraduate students than researchers. It is also noteworthy that the choice of corpora is generally very eclectic; despite a general North American bias in the selection of corpora and references, the large Brigham Young University (BYU) corpora are not included. The only dynamic corpus mentioned is the Bank of English (COBUILD). In the following chapter, Hermann Moisl presents a rather advanced look at cluster analysis. The author emphasizes the advantages of the method but also discusses problems involved with using this (or any) method without knowing how it works.

Warren Maguire and April McMahon show how to quantify similarities and differences on all linguistic levels—from traditional isoglosses and feature bundles via honeycomb maps to Levenshtein distance on a phonetic level and trees of distance. Their emphasis is on interaction between types of measurement and other practical or theoretical concerns. They hope for an extension of these methods, employed mostly in lexis and phonetics, to other levels of analysis, particularly morphosyntax. In the chapter that follows, Chris Montgomery and Joan Beal use starburst charts to illustrate perceptual dialectology in England, a field so far neglected.

Part 2 establishes a link between linguistic variation and other fields. Patrick Honeybone looks at variation and linguistic theory, emphasizing the role of the individual in theory formation, and discusses such popular theories as rule-based phonology, optimality theoretical phonology and syntax, and principles and parameters syntax. Gregory R. Guy discusses traditional notions of variation and change, which were revolutionary at the time of their inception and are now commonplace in variationist studies (e.g. orderly heterogeneity, inherent variability, real and apparent time, S-curve, age-grading, incrementation and stabilization). He also stresses the link between research on variation and change and historical linguistics. Touching upon a yet underrepresented area, Frances Rock looks at the role of variation in forensic linguistics. She emphasizes factors important in both fields, such as the role of style and style shifting.

In her chapter on variation and identity, Emma Moore discusses ‘variationists’ current identity crisis’ (219) and stresses the importance of the historical context to understand the social meaning of linguistic variables, particularly emphasizing the need to combine methods. In the most exceptional chapter of the volume, Rob McMahon looks at variation and (genetic) populations. Parallels exist, for example, in terms of differentiation or dissecting variation into different subsystems. The book’s final chapter, by Graeme Trousdale, centers on the role of standard and non-standard varieties of English in national curricula, stressing the problematic status of ‘standard English’ and whether a variety other than the standard could be successfully used for instruction. He also calls for collaboration between (academic) linguists and teachers.

Reviewed by Josep Soler-Carbonell, University of Oxford

This revised translation of the original 2000 edition in French is a masterpiece in the available literature regarding the threats and consequences of language homogenization and loss. It contains a wealth of information and illustrative examples from a vast range of languages from all parts of the world and from different historical periods, an unmistakable sign of the top-notch linguist that the reader is being guided by. The writing style is clear and easy to follow, for which the translator deserves credit; the book is accessible, in general terms, for a broad audience and not only for experts on the topic.

The book is divided into three parts: ‘Languages and life’, ‘Languages and death’, and ‘Languages and resurrection’. It contains eleven chapters and a final conclusion. In the first part, comprising Chs. 1–4, the running argument is the link that exists between languages and human life, touching upon the notion of language as a living species, with regard to how they are similar and how they differ. The second part (Chs. 5–9) explores in depth the link between languages and death, analyzing what we mean by a ‘dead’ language, what constitute possible ways (‘paths’) that a language becomes extinct, and what the potential causes are. Ch. 8 provides a general overview of the language situation across the world and makes explicit the link between language and culture, as well as the loss that the extinction of a language implies for all of humanity.

From the many examples that the book provides, the following one can be highlighted. In Pomo, spoken by a few people 160 kilometers north of San Francisco, the notion of ‘running’ can be expressed in five different verbal forms that combine affixes and radicals in different ways in order to convey five different meanings: (i) if the running is performed by a single individual, (ii) if the running is performed by a group, (iii) if the runner has four feet, (iv) if there are many runners of this type, and (v) if those referred to are a group of humans in a car.

The third and final part, including Chs. 10 and 11 and the conclusion, comprises the climax of the book. Ch. 10 describes the history of Hebrew in full detail, from ancient times until the present day, with a focus on the nineteenth century and on Ben-Yehuda. The optimistic message of this chapter, and of the book in general, is that reviving a language is not easy. It is a difficult undertaking, demanding a lot of effort and a very specific and favorable context, but if a group of resolved individuals are determined to persevere and carry on that aim, it can be achieved.

Reviewed by Richard W. Hallett, Northeastern Illinois University

Noting the ‘significant paucity of research into the discourses of and within postcommunism’ (4), the editors state that the chapters in this volume focus on various levels of discourse within post-communist Poland. In their first chapter, ‘Living between history and the present: The Polish post-communist condition’ (1–20), they present a short overview of Polish history and of the chapters that follow. The remainder of the book is divided into three main sections.

Part 1 contains four chapters. The Polish in the title ‘Nie rzucim ziemi skąd nasz ród: Polish contemporary discourses about soil and nation’ (23–45) translates into English as ‘We’ll not abandon the land of our kin’. In this chapter, Michał Buchowski provides a case study of ‘blood’ and ‘soil’ metaphors used in the discussion of the possible purchase of Polish land by foreigners after Poland’s accession to the European Union. In the following chapter, ‘Collective memory in transition: Commemorating the end of the Second World War in Poland’ (47–65), Anna Horolets provides a critical discourse analysis of the discourse of Victory Day in Europe before and after 1989. In the following chapter (67–87), Imke Hansen offers a historical discourse analysis of the public debate in the Polish press concerning the ‘Cross Conflict’ near Auschwitz primarily between 1997 and 1999. Noting the dearth of literature on International Workers’ Day (May 1) festivities in Poland, Dariusz Galasiński presents a study of the narrated experiences of three different generations in the remaining chapter (89–102).

Four chapters comprise Part 2, beginning with ‘Denying the right to speak in public: Sexist and homophobic discourses in post-1989 Poland’ (105–29), in which Natalia Krzyżanowska offers a discourse historical approach to her analysis of the coverage of a sex affair/scandal in Samoobrona in late 2006 by three different Polish newspapers. Katarzyna Skowronek provides a ‘functionally-oriented discourse analysis’ (132) of pastoral letters and sermons by Polish clergy in her chapter (131–50). In ‘Fashioning a post-communist political identity: The case of Poland’s Democratic Left Alliance’ (151–66), Robert Brier analyzes how Poland’s main post-communist political party legitimized its ‘pragmatic identity’ (159). In the remaining chapter (167–87), Marta Kurkowska-Budzan studies the publications of the Institute of National Remembrance to reconstruct its objectives, values, and historical themes, inter alia.

Part 3 contains four chapters, led by a chapter (191–209) from Aleksandra Galasińska.  Beginning with a definition of ‘work’, she shows ‘how work is constructed as a dominant subject in the discussion about the post-communist transformation’ (192) in her interviews in a neighborhood in a large city in southern Poland and a rural community in southeastern Poland.  In the following chapter, ‘Transition to nowhere: Homelessness in post-communist Poland as the hand of fate’ (211–27), Maria Mendel and Tomasz Szkudlarek present seven biographical narratives from homeless people in Gdańsk. Through interviews with Polish migrants to Britain and Ireland after Poland’s accession to the European Union, Małgorzata Fabiszak discovers two conceptual metaphors in their narratives in her chapter (229–45). Lastly, based on twenty-one interviews, Dariusz Galasiński investigates men’s constructions of their masculine identities in their post-communist narratives in the final chapter, ‘Post-communist masculinities’ (247–62).

This book is a welcome addition to courses on discourse analysis, identity studies, and post-communist studies.

Reviewed by Jason Doroga, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The author, António Emiliano, motivated by a lack of consistency and clarity of terms in the bibliography on the description of the sound system of Standard European Portuguese (SEP), states that the main objectives of his book are to provide clear definitions of the main concepts of articulatory phonetics and to provide a standard transcription of the sounds of European Portuguese using the normalized guidelines of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Ch. 1 (3–84) presents an overview of critical terms relevant to the analysis and transcription of the sounds of SEP. E demonstrates the need to use a standardized formula to describe SEP consonants and vowels and provides a complete articulatory description for each phoneme. He discusses the IPA system of transcription and the various problems with previous attempts to codify SEP pronunciation using an international system. Specifically, E focuses on the inconsistency of previous attempts to transcribe SEP atonic vowel reduction, metaphony, and diphthongs, concluding with a chapter discussing the relationship between orthography and speech in which he demonstrates that the pronunciation of SEP presents peculiarities that cannot be codified in the orthography.
The bulk of the lengthy Ch. 2 (85–246) comprises an encyclopedic inventory of the sounds of SEP, accompanied by a list of lexical items with a phonetic transcription for each word. The lists also present the various possible orthographic representations for each phone. It is not explicitly stated who the intended audience is for such a comprehensive listing of transcriptions; however, for the non-native SEP speaker, access to an audio recording of the words would enhance the utility of these transcriptions.

The most interesting section of the book is found in Ch. 3 (248–90). Though not a main focus, E discusses the major phonetic differences between SEP and other varieties of Ibero-Romance, including Galician and Castilian. Also included is a cursory glance at the differences between Brazilian Portuguese and SEP. Additionally, E occasionally explains the historical development of the sound system. For example, he understands the vowel reduction in modern SEP to be a continuation of the reduction of atonic vocalic distinctions made in Vulgar Latin.

A comprehensive topographical index of geographical names (with accompanying phonetic transcriptions) comprises the last chapter (291–365). There is no introductory text or commentary for this chapter to justify its inclusion in the book, although the reader may assume that the author uses it to attempt to clarify lingering doubt on the standard pronunciation of the toponyms.

E acknowledges that his transcriptions represent the pronunciation of an educated speaker of the prestigious variety of Lisbon and, for the most part, the book overlooks the issue of allophonic variation socially or geographically. Additionally, the book does not include a subject index or a glossary of the many phonetic terms discussed in the main body of the text. Since this is not a phonetic manual of SEP, a discussion of important topics such as accentuation and syllabic divisions is not included; however, E’s contribution specifically addresses the need for monographs that provide consistent phonetic transcriptions for the sounds of SEP.