Languages of the World: Introductory Overviews

I have embarked upon a series of videos to provide introductory overviews of the languages of the world. In this series, I will work diachronically through various language families in turn, demonstrate how to identify each language, translate a text sample to show how it works, and discuss its genetic affiliation and cultural context.

The whole point of making these videos is to show you the pages of the texts, and in filming, I have focused upon them with magnification so they should be clear and legible when viewed on a full screen. If the "HD," "HQ," or "higher resolution" options are not available on YouTube, you can try adding "&fmt=18" directly to the end of the URL to view a better quality film.

If you find the information that I provide on these videos helpful, I recommend that you pause often to look at the text, availing yourself of the "zoom" feature to examine the pages.

In order to explain the texts, I must perforce read them aloud, thus offering my own imperfect accent as a rough sample of what the languages sound like, but I want to stress most emphatically that I am not offering the current series as any kind of claim to have mastered any of these languages in any way.  I have not.  I have studied them for many years, nothing more.  Now, for the benefit of those who have never seen or heard them before, and in the general hope of stimulating interest in Polyglottery, I am simply seeking to share information about them and their interconnections.

Ultimately I hope and expect to make upwards of 60 different videos of languages systematically grouped according to genetics and compared and contrasted according to culture.

Thus far the series comprises: