Research Guides: Linguistics Resources: Reference Works

Reference Books for Linguistics

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics
New, continuously updated encyclopedia covering all aspects of the field of linguistics. Articles are short and intended to be read in 30 minutes or less.
Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics
Second edition of ELL, the most comprehensive encyclopedia of linguistics. Electronic & paper. Paper: Grad Reference P 29 .E481 2006 (14 vols). Electronic access for U-M community only
Cambridge Handbooks of Linguistics
Handbooks on sub-fields such as typology, morphology, semantics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics.

Oxford Handbooks Online
Database of research review articles in the Oxford Handbooks series. Includes handbooks to linguistics, literature, philosophy and psychology. Includes all titles published in electronic format 2012-present, all subjects except for law.

Routledge Handbooks Online
Includes Routledge Handbooks, Companions and International Handbooks, including over 60 on linguistics and language topics.
Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics
2013 encyclopedia from Wiley, edited by Carol Chapelle. Originally in 10 volumes.
Handbook of Phonological Theory
Recent developments in phonology, and the implications of these within linguistic theory and related disciplines. 2nd edition. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies
One of the Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics. Edited by Kouwenberg & Singler, published 2008.
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences
Comprehensive encyclopedia for the social sciences in 26 volumes.
Electronic & paper. Paper: Grad Ref Room & Shapiro H 41 .I581 2001

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Electronic for University of Michigan affiliates only

DARE: Dictionary of American Regional English
DARE documents regional aspects of English language usage in the U.S., including variations in words, phrases, and pronunciation. You to browse by region using the interactive map. You can also create your own maps based on the extensive survey data and hear audio clips from over 4,000 interview recordings.
MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences
Covers the methodological and theoretical diversity of the cognitive sciences

Ethnologue: Languages of the World
Encyclopedia of the world's 7,000 living languages. Entries include an estimate of the number of speakers, alternate names, dialects, classification and language maps. Links to OLAC Open Language Archives for further description.
Brill Online Reference Works
Encyclopedias and handbooks of Ancient Greek, Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Slavic Languages, Turkic Languages, Cognitive Semantics and Formosan (Indigenous languages of Waiwan)

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For U-M community only
Indo-European Etymological Dictionaries Online
Cross-searchable collection of 11 dictionaries on IE with 20,000 entries in 150 languages.
Treasury of Linguistic Maps Online
Over 5,000 high-resolution maps of linguistic distribution, selected from atlases and monographs. From De Gruyter.

Last Updated: Sep 30, 2025 1:34 PM

Subjects: Humanities

Tags: languages