What do you think?
Rate this book
Trask's Historical Linguistics
This book is an introduction to historical linguistics - the study of language change over time. Written in an engaging style and illustrated with examples from a wide range of languages, the book covers the fundamental concepts of language change, methods for historical linguistics, linguistic reconstruction, sociolinguistic aspects of language change, language contact, the birth and death of languages, language and prehistory and the issue of very remote relations.
A minimal knowledge of linguistic concepts is needed and the book is suitable for students approaching the subject for the first time. The exercises will be particularly useful to teachers and students alike.
A minimal knowledge of linguistic concepts is needed and the book is suitable for students approaching the subject for the first time. The exercises will be particularly useful to teachers and students alike.
533 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2007
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 1, 2020
For a linguist, this book is an absolute must! The core of the book is essentially an introduction to linguistics (with less explanation as for such books, of course) along with a diachronic spectrum which is mainly focused on PIE languages, mostly English though. But what makes this book unique is a rich account of various examples for every subject. Lots of them will manifest the surprising aspect of dynamic changes in languages which you are not aware of, simply because you're looking and using the language in synchronicity.
March 15, 2023
Probably the best linguistics textbook!!
May 31, 2022
A thoroughly adequate introduction to historical and comparative linguistics. Compared to that other standard, Lyle Campbell's Historical Linguistics, Millar draws more heavily on the Indo-European languages for examples, which makes for more engaging reading to people who are more familiar with those, but is also, perhaps, more conducive to sloppiness in the exercises—if things intuitively feel right you may be less inclined to confirm them rigorously, as you would on unfamiliar ground. There's plenty of non-IE material too, though (a lot of it Basque, because Trask).
So plentiful are the examples, in fact, that Millar on a few occasions forgets to make the point in support of which he was bringing them up; inevitably, errors are fairly common as well, though most are trivial misspellings (Dutch ˣheft for heeft, Old English ˣprijoz for þrijoz), and even the more serious ones don't generally undermine the point being made (a digression on French nasalisation has [fɑ̃] for faim and [lɔ̃g] for langue; one on analogy claims that the Greek plural of syllabus is ˣsyllabontes and that English syllabi is an analogical creation—of course, syllabus was never a Greek word at all). His focus on Indo-European leads him to say some silly things specifically about that as well (Armenian as part of a "Thraco-Phrygian" language family; three genders for PIE but the Anatolian languages as Indo-European; *a), but they're well within the range of acceptability in a non-specialist text.
The other point where Millar diverges from Campbell is in being rather more prone to being impressed by mathwashing and less willing to call out (or able to recognise) bad work; while he, like Campbell, discusses e.g. glottochronology mainly to pick well-deserved holes in it, his treatment still gives it more credit than it deserves, and he seems incapable of seeing parallel issues with lexicostatistics. The chapters on sociolinguistics are only about as good as they tend to be as well, covering the ground but avoiding noticing the soft spots altogether. Campbell may be more overtly opinionated, but at least he'll effectively inoculate readers against garbage ideas that have managed to convince some otherwise intelligent linguists.
Which is not to say Trask's prominence is in any way undeserved: as an introductory textbook, it's solid and probably more readable than Campbell. It covers everything you would expect it to cover and does it well, with exercises if you want them (I didn't) and tons of background material. An undergrad could do much worse.
So plentiful are the examples, in fact, that Millar on a few occasions forgets to make the point in support of which he was bringing them up; inevitably, errors are fairly common as well, though most are trivial misspellings (Dutch ˣheft for heeft, Old English ˣprijoz for þrijoz), and even the more serious ones don't generally undermine the point being made (a digression on French nasalisation has [fɑ̃] for faim and [lɔ̃g] for langue; one on analogy claims that the Greek plural of syllabus is ˣsyllabontes and that English syllabi is an analogical creation—of course, syllabus was never a Greek word at all). His focus on Indo-European leads him to say some silly things specifically about that as well (Armenian as part of a "Thraco-Phrygian" language family; three genders for PIE but the Anatolian languages as Indo-European; *a), but they're well within the range of acceptability in a non-specialist text.
The other point where Millar diverges from Campbell is in being rather more prone to being impressed by mathwashing and less willing to call out (or able to recognise) bad work; while he, like Campbell, discusses e.g. glottochronology mainly to pick well-deserved holes in it, his treatment still gives it more credit than it deserves, and he seems incapable of seeing parallel issues with lexicostatistics. The chapters on sociolinguistics are only about as good as they tend to be as well, covering the ground but avoiding noticing the soft spots altogether. Campbell may be more overtly opinionated, but at least he'll effectively inoculate readers against garbage ideas that have managed to convince some otherwise intelligent linguists.
Which is not to say Trask's prominence is in any way undeserved: as an introductory textbook, it's solid and probably more readable than Campbell. It covers everything you would expect it to cover and does it well, with exercises if you want them (I didn't) and tons of background material. An undergrad could do much worse.
August 3, 2016
Spends too much time trying to be charming. An overcorrection of yesterday's absent & omniscient textbook author, I never needed to know that Millar was "a child of punk" with a certain Scottish dialect. Kinda felt like he'd had a couple and was on an enthusiastic uninhibited nerd rant, just needed to unbridle some of the too much information he'd gathered in his life. Very anecdotal, not terribly well-organized. Still, I appreciated that it included so much data and historical evidence (although could've benefited if it was proportionally less Basque). Good problems. WHY DOES IT USE SUCH STUPID PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION. Overall: this is a way more interesting subject than I had anticipated. What I do with all this information I'm gathering.
February 19, 2023
This was some good shit. For me this was a very interesting read and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in historical linguistics. This book will help you answer questions you might have had about how English and German could be related or how the Romance languages were created from Latin. Or even the most intriguing of all the mysterious Proto-Indoeuropean. With this book you can learn how languages can change and diverge through centuries and will also learn the methods used by linguists to reconstruct ancient languages from their descendants. This is an introductory textbook and is written very understandably and in an almost conversational way. You will learn one thing which will open up some obvious question and the next paragraph will begin something like "You might have been wondering. . ." and then answer the new question you had. This book assumes an introductory knowledge of linguistics but it's well-explained and you could read it without that just by doing a little googling.
Read
March 4, 2025this book single-handedly makes me oppose basque independance
October 22, 2015
For a 'school' book this i pretty well written. The examples given are often quite useful for remembering certain terms and usages. Millar is also pretty hilarious at times, I think its the first school book that's ever made me laugh. At times though it could get very dense and boring, especially after Millar had given the one hundredth example of a certain phenomenon. It would possibly be a book I would pick up and read in my free time though, just because it is interesting, mostly, and it doesn't read like a boring textbook. The foreign examples did get to be a little overwhelming at times though, as there are a lot of them, and I'm not really familiar or with most of the languages. But if you skip over the bits that get boring it is actually a very interesting read.
August 28, 2025
A helpful introduction to historical linguistics with examples from modern languages such as English and some examples from older European languages. the principles can be very useful to apply to both classical and ancient languages such as Latin, koine Greek, and Biblical/Classical Hebrew. There is also a helpful balanced discussion of historical reconstructions such as proto-Indo-European (PIE) based on comparative data from Indo-European languages.
I used this textbook for my summer class in historical linguistics and we read the book and used the exercises that accompany the chapters for homework.
I used this textbook for my summer class in historical linguistics and we read the book and used the exercises that accompany the chapters for homework.
May 14, 2023
v proud to now be an expert on Basque
July 11, 2016
This marvelous book takes a very balanced view of an immense field. Sure, it is biased towards European languages (well, after all, it is written in English) but it covers so much ground in such an engaging manner that it is really best read as a general interest book rather than a textbook.
If only my college books were as written as engagingly, excitingly, and with as much passion as this, it would have been hard to have not aspired to be a historical linguist.
What makes this book stand out is its reliance on examples, that is, it "shows" not "tells". So a theory of internal reconstruction is presented more through the case of Latin rather than through arcane discussions about arcane methodological debates; the same is true of how English in, for example, the American north east evolved in response to sociological pressures. The early examples of the mechanics of language change are so accessible, one has to step back to think about how judiciously the material is presented.
Something else makes Trasks' "Historical Linguistics" such a classic. In particular, its comprehensiveness reflects an open-mindedness about a rapidly evolving field. For example, and perhaps spectacularly, the authors do not shy away from controversial claims, like discussing the real merits of the Nostratic hypothesis. It is, frankly, nothing short of refreshing to see such reverence for the comparative method on its own merits in such a book meant for beginners.
To be sure, Trask's historical linguistics has its own share of faults.
There is no doubt the book is written for an anglophonic audience. There is a heavy focus on Indo-European languages, and the attention to Basque openly reflects the author's own expertise. The treatment of Eastern Asian languages is especially light, which is a bit disappointing given that this is a book that could easily be used in a university curriculum in places like South Korea and Singapore.
A second issue is the book assumes the readers have some familiarity with notational conventions, particularly the IPA. The book includes an opening section on abbreviations. I think that space would have been better used for a glossary of linguistic jargon (e.g., a table of IPA letters, or a glossary of phonetic specifications/what exactly is meant with terms like a "dipthong" or a "plosive") . These are queried easily enough on wikipedia, but if Millar was willing to include the Swadesh word list in an appendix, then it seems reasonable to include a dictionary of field-specific jargon as well? In essence, this omission is why I am giving this four stars instead of five.
If only my college books were as written as engagingly, excitingly, and with as much passion as this, it would have been hard to have not aspired to be a historical linguist.
What makes this book stand out is its reliance on examples, that is, it "shows" not "tells". So a theory of internal reconstruction is presented more through the case of Latin rather than through arcane discussions about arcane methodological debates; the same is true of how English in, for example, the American north east evolved in response to sociological pressures. The early examples of the mechanics of language change are so accessible, one has to step back to think about how judiciously the material is presented.
Something else makes Trasks' "Historical Linguistics" such a classic. In particular, its comprehensiveness reflects an open-mindedness about a rapidly evolving field. For example, and perhaps spectacularly, the authors do not shy away from controversial claims, like discussing the real merits of the Nostratic hypothesis. It is, frankly, nothing short of refreshing to see such reverence for the comparative method on its own merits in such a book meant for beginners.
To be sure, Trask's historical linguistics has its own share of faults.
There is no doubt the book is written for an anglophonic audience. There is a heavy focus on Indo-European languages, and the attention to Basque openly reflects the author's own expertise. The treatment of Eastern Asian languages is especially light, which is a bit disappointing given that this is a book that could easily be used in a university curriculum in places like South Korea and Singapore.
A second issue is the book assumes the readers have some familiarity with notational conventions, particularly the IPA. The book includes an opening section on abbreviations. I think that space would have been better used for a glossary of linguistic jargon (e.g., a table of IPA letters, or a glossary of phonetic specifications/what exactly is meant with terms like a "dipthong" or a "plosive") . These are queried easily enough on wikipedia, but if Millar was willing to include the Swadesh word list in an appendix, then it seems reasonable to include a dictionary of field-specific jargon as well? In essence, this omission is why I am giving this four stars instead of five.
February 15, 2010
linguistics
December 18, 2017
very informative with so much examples of different languages of various types.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews