books on ling for non-specialists?

[Scott Sadowsky]

On 7/12/2003 05:20 AM, Frank Abate wrote the following:

>And the textbook originally done by Thomas Pyles, re-edited later by John
>Algeo, "The Origins and Development of the English Language", is excellent
>for English, and though a textbook is pretty readable.

Pyles and Algeo rock!  I read this book for the first time in high school,
having picked it up used somewhere.  Except for the phonetic symbols and a
few other things, it was quite readable, though of course very challenging
at that age.

Whatever textbooks you finally go with, I'd strongly recommend a good
dictionary of linguistics to go with them, preferably something ecumenical.

Cheers,
Scott