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(More customer reviews)In 2008 Cambridge University Press distilled the work behind the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages into a series surveying a number of early documented languages in a fashion similar to Routledge's Language Family Surveys. In these works, ancient languages are defined as those with a written tradition before the fifth century. This particular volume covering ancient languages from Asia and the Americas therefore includes Sanskrit, Middle Indic, Old Tamil, Old Persian, Avestan, Pahlavi, Ancient Chinese, Mayan and Epi-Olmec (with an appendix on Zapotec). The editor, Roger Woodward, contributes an introduction which helps orientate the reader towards what is on offer.
As a linguist who has focused much on the Indo-European family, I found this work of especial interest for Mark Hale's description of Avestan, a language that has long been neglected in English-language scholarship. Hale also offers a description Pahlavi which is the only concise introduction to this later Iranian language that I've come across. Though I compared this series to the Routledge one, one additional element here is a description of the script of these languages, which makes the coverage of the American languages even more fun.
If you can afford it, the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, used copies of which can go for quite cheaply, may be better value than amassing the individual volumes. However, for the student who focuses entirely on these languages here, this is a worthwhile book.
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