Books like Language and the Internet by David Crystal

David Crystal explores the powerful, everyday tool of language, from its origins and child acquisition to social status and politeness, with engaging clarity and wit.

This new edition of his classic book includes material on the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation of New Englishes, footnotes and full bibliography.

This is a lucid and up-to-date overview of language change. It discusses where our evidence about language change comes from, how and why changes happen, and how languages begin and end. It considers both changes which occurred long ago, and those currently in progress. It does this within the framework of one central question - is language change a symptom of progress or decay? It concludes that language is neither progressing nor decaying, but that an understanding of the factors surrounding change is essential for anyone concerned about language alteration. For this substantially revised third edition, Jean Aitchison has included two new chapters on change of meaning and grammaticalization. Sections on new methods of reconstruction and ongoing chain shifts in Britain and America have also been added as well as over 150 new references. The work remains non-technical in style and accessible to readers with no previous knowledge of linguistics.

An excellent overview of how all the world's main languages interconnect where they do. It also gives samples of the language with translation for a large number of languages.