This book considers how far social factors explain why human societies produce different kinds of language at different times and places and why some languages

Serbs write their language in Cyrillic or Latin letters in seemingly random distribution. Hindi-Urdu is written in Nagari by Hindus and in the Arabic script by

Linguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and method

The significant advances witnessed over the last years in the broad field of linguistic variation testify to a growing convergence between sociolinguistic appro