This is the second volume of a subseries within the publisher's "Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science" series. The subseries is titled "Language and Space: An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation." The first volume, Theories and Methods and this second volume, Language Mapping are the two foundation works of the subseries, in which particular languages or language areas will be explored in detail--grounded in linguists' current interests in the complexity of the relationship between language and physical space. The current work consists of two books (or parts), concerned with, as stated in the introduction, "the cartographic representation of linguistic facts"--a subject that encompasses a multitude of subtle themes connected with visualization and data interpretation. The first book contains contributed chapters on the principles of language mapping (beginning with the conceptualization of space); existing traditions; current developments (computerization); and applications ("how linguistic phenomena can be combined with non-linguistic facts"). The second book contains maps, exclusively. The contents were organized this way for convenience, because multiple references to various maps are made throughout the text and because there are advantages to the reader in being able to flip through this wide-ranging selection. These include maps of the following types: phonetic/phonological (also based on historical writings); morphological; syntactic; lexical; language/dialect areas; pluridimensional; geostatistical; subjective data; and historical language maps (before 1900). Editors Roland Kehrein and Alfred Lameli are based in Marburg, Germany; Stefan Rabanus, in Verona, Italy. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)