Here are some classic books on linguistics which you can probably pick up at used books stores (or find in a good-sized library):

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language.

Jespersen, Otto. 1921. Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin.

--. 1924. The Philosophy of Grammar.

Sapir, Edward. 1921. Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech.

de Saussure, Ferdinand. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General Linguistics) .

And some newish books:

Aitchison, Jean. 1981. Language Change: Progress or Decay?, 3rd ed.

Crystal, David. 2003. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed.

McWhorter, John. 2001. The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language.

Pinker, Steven. 1994. The Language Instinct

--. 1999. Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language.

Modern linguistics has been around for a couple of centuries. The study of language goes back a couple of millennia to the Greeks in the West and the Indian Sanskrit grammarians in the East. A good history of linguistics book might be a good read, too.

Pedersen, Holgar. 1931. Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century: Methods and Results.

Robins, R H. 1997. A Short History of Linguistics.

[Correct some typos and some downright mistakes.]

Last edited by zmjezhd; 06/29/2007 8:27 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.