萊爾•坎貝爾（Lyle Campbell）現為猶他大學（University of Utah）語言學係“校長首席教授”（Presidential Professor），並擔任美國印第安語研究中心主任。坎貝爾著作頗豐，其中《美洲印第安語：美洲印第安語的曆史語言學》（American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America）和閤著的《曆史句法學的跨語言視角》（Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspectives）兩書曾獲得美國語言學學會（Linguistic Society of America）的布龍菲爾德年度最佳圖書奬（Leonard Bloomfield Book Award）。

This accessible, hands-on text not only introduces students to the important topics in historical linguistics but also shows them how to apply the methods described and how to think about the issues; abundant examples and exercises allow students to focus on how to do historical linguistics. Distinctive to this text is its integration of the standard topics with others now considered important to the field, including syntactic change, grammaticalization, sociolinguistic contributions to linguistic change, distant genetic relationships, areal linguistics, and linguistic prehistory. Examples are taken from a broad range of languages; those from the more familiar English, French, German, and Spanish make the topics more accessible, while those from non-Indo-European languages show the depth and range of the concepts they illustrate.<br /> <br /> This second edition features expanded explanations and examples as well as updates in light of recent work in linguistics, including a defense of the family tree model, a response to recent claims on lexical diffusion/frequency, and a section on why languages diversify and spread.