The new edition of this popular introductory text on historical linguistics covers all areas of language change, with a focus on Australia and the Pacific. Topics include sound change, the comparative method, cultural reconstruction and morphological and syntactic change. Because of the diversity of the data presented and the completeness displayed in these chapters, this book constitutes an essential tool for linguistics students, and for all readers with a smattering in phonetics ... this updated edition shows that the classic work of T. Crowley remains an essential tool both for its completeness and its simplicity, especially thanks to C. Bowern's addition to this new edition.