The Languages and Linguistics of Africa

The Languages and Linguistics of Africa, edited by Tom Guldemann, is a major scholarly reference surveying the continent's language families, their classification, structure and history, written by specialist contributors within a well-regarded academic linguistics series. Its authority is substantial for the current state of African linguistic classification, an area where earlier twentieth century classifications have been significantly revised as more fieldwork accumulated. As a technical linguistic reference it focuses on language structure and family relationships rather than on the religious or cultural content those languages carry, so it is the right source for facts about which language family a given African religious tradition's terminology belongs to, and not the source for the religious meaning of that terminology itself.