College and Research Libraries


Classification System for Linguistics and Languages 
Bibliographical Classification System for 

Linguistics and Languages. By George L. 
Trager. Washington, D.C., 1946. (Re-
printed from Studies in Linguistics 3:54-108, 
1945; 4:1-50, 1946.) 
Any work, whether intellectual or other-

vise, must be judged on the basis of its 
vowed aim. If it fulfils this aim well, the 
~ork must be adjudged excellent to the extent 
hat we are prepared to view the aim itself 
vith favor. Mr. Trager has set himself the 
ask of preparing a classification system for 
inguistics and for languages-clearly a com-
pendable undertaking. As a practlcmg 
inguist of broad interests and wide experi-
nce, he must have long felt the need for a 
~ore up-to-date and linguistically more satis-
ying organization of his field than the 
chemes provided by Dewey and the Library 

:>f Congress. It is, therefore, not surprising 
~t all that the present work goes back to 
'1930, and it is, likewise, in the best tradition 
of scholarship that the author did not see 
fit to publish it until it had been thoroughly 
~ested by years of use. 

As a classification for linguists, Trager's 
work is concerned with two main problems: 
the classification of languages and the classifi-
cation of linguistic materials. The classifica-
tion of languages presupposes not only the 
listing of all the languages known but everi 
more so their proper ii)terrelation and group-
ing within language families and classes. It 
is on this point that Trager's work shows 
the greatest departure from the prevailing 
library classifications. Linguistically consid-
ered, the English language with its tremen-
dous literature is only one of several lan-
guages in the Indo-European family, just as, 
for instance, Livonian with only about a 
score of publications is a full-fledged member 
of the Finno-Ugrian family. The amount of 
available material, the quantitative aspect, 
counts not at all in the grouping of lan-
guages within a family, and the families them-
selves within the classification follow the 
logical sequence of their historical develop-
ment. In other words, the classification takes 
full account of relationship, development, and 
origin. 

A feature of the greatest interest is 
Trager's practice of citing authority for his 

OCTOBER_, 1947 • 

classification. The over-all grouping of 
linguistic families and languages follows the 
excellent and authoritative works of Meillet 
and Cohen, Les langues du monde (Paris, 
1924) and Kieckers, Die Sprachstamme der 
Erde (Heidelberg, 1931). Nothing more 
comprehensive has ever appeared in print. 
Even more important, however, are the refer-
ences to authorities to the less-well-known 
but equally basic studies of individual lan-
guages and language families, such as End-
zelin, Lettische Grammatik (Riga, 1922) 
and Szinnyei, Finnisch-U grische Sprachwis-
senschaft (Berlin, 1922). The amount ot 
exact dialect information thus recorded in 
systematic order is a unique feature of this 
classification system. -

The point on which Trager's system has 
most profited from existing library classifica-
tions is the classification of linguistic ma-
terials in general. We might almost say 
that this is very largely a workmanlike 
amalgamation of the most useful features of 
the Dewey and the Library of Congress 
schemes. The geographical tables, excellent 
and logical as they are, are not altogether 
satisfactory because they are too closely re-
lated to political rather 'than to linguistic and 
cultural needs. Then, too, they are in need 
of considerable expansion. The notation also 
leaves something to be desired, especially as 
regards the somewhat confusing use· of the 
decimal point and the apostrophe. It may 
well be that a closer study of the form divi-
sions of the Universal Decimal Classifica-
tion may have suggested to the author ways 
and means of procedure less confusing to 
the uninitiated. 

There is no question at all as to the use-
fulness of Trager's classification to the 
linguist. It has once and for all done away 
with the oversimplified "form of speech" 
classification (isolating, agglutinating, inflec-
tive) and substituted the much less preten-
tious but at the same time more scientific 
"genealogical" system. The librarian, how-
ever, will not be in a position to derive much 
profit from it. For the very point which 
makes it excellent for the linguist-its scien-
tific impartiality-will make it hard to use 
in a library where the bulk and preponder-
ance of material is always a major factor in 

469 



classification. On one question, however, 
Trager's work is bound to exert a consider-
able and beneficial influence: it will enable the 
classifier to place a little known or even an 

unknown language in its proper relation 
others with much more certainty and d 
patch than has been possible up to this time. 
Arthur B. Berthold. 

Guide to Business Materials 
Guides to the Harvard Libraries. No. I.' 

Economics and Business. By Arthur H. 
Cole. Cambridge, Harvard University Li-
brary, 1947. x, 64p. 
The size and complexity of the modern 

university library, with its resources scat-
tered in many branch libraries and special 
collections, often embracing overlapping sub-
ject fields, has created the well-recognized 
problem of how to impart to the research 
worker knowledge essential to the location 
and use of his materials. The issuance by 
various libraries of handbooks, general de-
scriptions of their collections, lists of biblio-
graphical tools in subject fields, and instruc-
tions in methods of research have been at-
tempts to meet this problem. 

Arthur H. Cole, librarian of the Harvard 
Graduate School of Business Administra-
tion, in Guides to the Harvard Libraries, No. 
I: Economics and Business, has combined 
these four approaches to produce what should 
prove to be a most effective and useful manual 
for the graduate student in business or econ-
omics at Harvard. 

The manual has four sections: I. Library 
Facilities; II. Library Tools; III. Practical 
Applications; IV. Special Fields of Economics 
and Business. 

In Section I Cole describes briefly the 
Harvard library system and lists other li-
braries in the Cambridge and Boston area .of 
interest to students of economics and business, 
together with pertinent information concern-
ing their holdings and availability. There 
follows a description of the collections in Har-
vard libraries which contain mate~ials in 
economics, business, and related fields , with 
particular reference to the Widener Library 
and the Library of the Graduate School of 
Business Administration. The purposes of 
these libraries, their fields, the special types 
of material they contain, and their distinc-
tive characteristics are set down with enough 
detail to give the reader a good working 
knowledge of the resources of each one. The 

second portion of the section, on "The Effe 
tive Use of the Basic Libraries," takes u 
in order of use, what the author calls t 
"several depths" or "strata" which must 
penetrated to reach all the material that c 
be secured on a given subject-the card cat 
logs, the bibliographical collection, t 
stacks, the reference department, interlibra 
loan, microfilm, and book purchase. A not 
worthy feature of the descriptions of t 
public and union catalogs is the care wit 
which their limitations are pointed out, by t 
detailing of the types of material not include 
at all. Too often instruction in the use of t 
catalog leaves the impression that everythin 
is there if the student only knows how to fin 
it. 

In Section II Dr. Cole lists and character 
izes basic bibliographical tools. Include 
are guides to government documents ( th 
Library of Congress Monthly Checklist o 
State Publications is omitted), guides t 
theses, printed catalogs of large libraries 
trade bibliography and periodical indexes 
The works cited here, as well as all othe 
titles mentioned in the guide, are listed, wit 
full bibliographic.al information, at the en 
of the manual. 

Section III, on "Locating a Particula 
Work" and "Preparation of a Bibliography,' 
contains much sound, practical advice. On 
hopes, however, that the graduate studen 
will not be discouraged by the example o 
the hard-to-find item that the author take 
through all possible tools, in order to illus 
trate the use and extent of each. The re-
viewer was slightly troubled by the fact that, 
although at the beginning "the work sought 
is assumed to be a printed item of substantia] 
size, not a pamphlet or broadside or map, and 
not a part of a series, a magazine article, Oli 
a government document," we later find the 
student, having exhausted all possible tools 
for monographic literature, exploring the 
possibility that the item is a magazine article, 
a serial, or a government document. We 

470 COLLEGE A!vD RESEARCH LIBRARIES