Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual

Rating:
Summary: Useful, but not the best
Review: There is absolutely no doubt that this book is extremely useful for the beginning comparative Semitic linguist. It provides a brief, perhaps too brief, introduction to comparative linguistics, and about three pages on the Semitic languages, mentioning only a few. Three pages on the very subject matter of the book? Come on. The author could have gone into much greater detail, really describing the various Semitic languages and their relation to proto-Semitic and Afroasiatic.
This book states in the introduction that it is not trying to make the reader a competent Semitist. Although obviously someone reading a book of this kind is not going to become a professor overnight, I think that this work could be made much more useful by expanding it--really trying to give the reader a feel for Semitic linguistics on a high level.
Also shockingly absent was a thorough (appendix, chapter, etc.) reference of the Semitic scripts. Some charts were thrown in at the end, but that is about it.
I thought the designation of the book as a "manual" was misleading. I thought that it was going to be essentially a reference for grammatical (morphological) and phonological details of the Semitic languages and their relation to one another. Instead, it was somewhat like a textbook for learning the basics of comparative Semitics, with things that the author would have been better off including in the book given as exercises for the student to reconstruct.
There are also a few little mistakes in the exact notation of the phonetics. In addition, the system for transcription of Hebrew vowels follows the old hypothesis of length contrasts. Although this may be useful for comparison with other languages, it is outdated and, quite simply, wrong.
If you are anything but a true, absolute, beginner, you might be better off with a different book. It might still be somewhat useful if you have a background in Semitic languages, but why spend the money if there are better books out there?

Rating:
Summary: good introduction for the non-linguist
Review: This book is for people who have studied at least one semitic language but have a limited background in linguistics. It will help you to understand some of the linguistic-oriented articles and reconstructions that you may come across. The many exercises are useful for self study and to get a feel for the possibilities and limitations of comparative methods. If you have a strong background in linguistics, you may find this book too simple.

Rating:
Summary: A misleading title
Review: This book provides a good introduction to the methods of comparative linguistics. Alas, three quarters of the book are devoted to various appendices, which leaves about sixty pages for the course itself (composed of an overview of comparative linguistics AND a comparison of Semitic languages). Of course, this is far too short to get anything else than a general view of the subject. For example, you will find only a half-page on the subject "beyond the triconsonantal root", nothing about the ergativity of Proto-Semitic, and so on.
The book is made of exercises intended to make you discover by yourself the various methods of comparative linguistics applied to Semitic. Those who read "The Origin of Language" by Ruhlen will find it familiar. This is quite entertaining; some exercises relate to subjects more rarely tackled, such as glottochronology.
However, the title should have been something like : "An Introduction to Comparative Linguistics. Application to Semitic Languages". Those looking for a comparative grammar of Semitic languages won't be satisfied by this book (buy instead "Semitic Languages" by Lipinski). Actually, I don't really see whom this book is intended for, except maybe people who want to see by themselves how comparative linguistics works. I would have enjoyed this book when I was a teenager...