by Merritt Ruhlen. Description on back cover: "This is the first of three pathbreaking volumes that will constitute a wide-ranging analytical guide to the world's approximately 5,000 languages. The volumes are written for both linguists and general readers, and this first volume in particular assumes no background in linguistics. A postscript prepared for this paperback edition takes research data to 1990. The book is illustrated with 21 maps."
Little white lines in photo are just wrinkling in plastic on cover. Clean, crisp, flat pages. Probably best for someone interested in typology or language genealogy.