What is the best encyclopedia of language?

[outcast]

At some point I'd be interested in buying an actual physical volume or some software version of the a encyclopedia about language. Something where you can go to any major, mid-level language and read all about that language's features, history, figures, etc, as well as find smaller entries with more basic descriptions of as many smaller languages as possible. The reference should if possible also deal in language families, relationships, and maybe even phonetics, grammar, word origin, dead languages, etc.

Is there such a thing, or what would come the closest? If all of the above are not contained in one resource, then the most important one for me at this time is just some book where I can read about as many languages and their features as possible.

Recommendations greatly welcomed!

[aokoye]

Ethnologue's Languages of Asia/Africa and Europe/the Americas and the Pacific might be useful but I would see if you could find one to thumb through first, maybe via interlibrary loan. There's also The World of Linguistics series published by De Gruyter but even one of the nine books likely out of all of our price ranges and for whatever reason it doesn't cover the indigenous languages of North America.

[verdastelo]

You may want to check out Языки мира (Languages of the World) of the Linguistics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. They have been working on an encyclopaedia of languages for many years and have already published 20 volumes; seven more are ready for publication.

What does the encylopaedia cover?

1. Уральские языки (Languages of the Urals)
2. Тюркские языки (Turkic Languages)
3. Палеоазиатские языки (Paleoasiatic languages)
4. Монгольские языки. Тунгусо-маньчжурские языки. Японский язык. Корейский язык. (Mongolic Languages. Languages of the Tungusco-Manchuria. Japanese. Korean.)
5. Иранские языки. I. Юго-западные иранские языки. (Iranian Languages I. South Western Iranian Languages)
6. Дардские и нуристанские языки
7. Иранские языки. II. Северо-западные иранские языки. (Iranian Languages II. North Western Iranian Languages)
8. Иранские языки. III. Восточноиранские языки (Iranian Languages III. Eastern Iranian Languages)
9. Кавказские языки. (Caucasian Languages)
10. Германские языки. Кельтские языки. (Germanic Languages. Celtic Languages)
11. Романские языки. (Romance Languages)
12. Индоарийские языки древнего и среднего периодов.(Indoaryan Languages from the Ancient and Middle Ages)
13. Языки мира. Славянские языки. (Slavic Languages)
14. Балтийские языки. (Baltic Languages)
15. Семитские языки. Аккадский язык. Северозападносемитские языки. (Semitic Languages. Akkadian. North Western Semitic Languages)
16. Древние реликтовые языки Передней Азии.
17. Новые индоарийские языки. (New Indoaryan Languages)
18. Семитские языки. Эфиосемитские языки.
19. Дравидийские языки. (Dravidian Languages)
20. Реликтовые индоевропейские языки Передней и Центральной Азии.

In case you are wondering, they aren't thin pamphlets or a dumbed down version of Wikipedia. Some of the volumes have more than 800 pages of appetizing delicacies for language aficionados.

Have fun!

PS: Here is a Wikipedia article on the project for those who can't read Russian: Lingvoj de Mondo