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| List of figures | |
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| List of maps | |
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| List of tables | |
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| Words, words, words… | |
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| Acknowledgements | |
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| Abbreviations used in the glosses | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Languages, dialects and accents | |
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| Language families | |
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| Linguistic diversity | |
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| Indo-European languages | |
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| Discovery of the Indo-European family and comparative reconstruction | |
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| The Indo-European controversy | |
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| The Indo-European realm | |
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| Focus on: Lesser-known Indo-European languages | |
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| Non-Indo-European languages of Europe and India | |
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| Finno-Ugric languages | |
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| Basque | |
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| Dravidian languages | |
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| Focus on: Universals and the parametric theory of language | |
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| Languages of the Caucasus | |
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| Northwest Caucasian languages | |
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| Northeast Caucasian languages | |
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| Kartvelian languages | |
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| Indo-European languages in the Caucasus | |
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| Focus on: Field linguistics | |
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| Languages of Northern Africa, Middle East and Central Asia | |
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| Turkic languages | |
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| Semitic languages | |
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| Focus on: Language contact | |
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| Languages of sub-Saharan Africa | |
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| Nilo-Saharan languages | |
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| Niger-Congo languages | |
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| Khoisan languages | |
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| Focus on: Official languages, trade languages and creole languages in sub-Saharan Africa | |
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| Languages of eastern Asia | |
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| Sino-Tibetan languages | |
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| Austro-Asiatic languages | |
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| Tai-Kadai languages | |
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| Focus on: Isolating morphology and language change | |
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| Languages of the South Sea Islands | |
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| The Austronesian realm | |
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| The Austronesian prototype | |
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| The Polynesian controversy | |
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| Focus on: The mystery of Malagasy | |
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| Aboriginal languages of Australia and Papua New Guinea | |
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| Languages of Papua New Guinea | |
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| Languages of Australia | |
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| Focus on: Is Dyirbal a primitive language? | |
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| Native languages of the Americas | |
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| Languages of North America | |
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| Languages of Meso-America | |
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| Languages of South America | |
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| Focus on: The Pirah� controversy | |
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| Macro families | |
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| Afroasiatic languages | |
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| Uralic languages | |
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| Altaic languages | |
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| The Nostratic and Eurasiatic hypotheses | |
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| Other hypothesized macro language families | |
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| Pidgins, creoles and other mixed languages | |
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| Pidgins | |
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| Creoles | |
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| Mixed Jewish languages | |
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| Glossary | |
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| References | |
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| Index of languages | |
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| Index of terms | |