Languages of Asia and the Pacific: A Travellers' Phrasebook

From Turkey west, you are well provided with phrasebooks; from Iran east, only one or two languages are easily accessible to the traveller. It is, of course, a Great Truth of modern travel that "you can go anywhere with English"; but it is a truth that assumes that you never wish to venture far out of sight of an international hotel or a tourist bus. The real facts of linguistic geography are sketched below in "Languages by Countries," (page 407). This book makes possible basic communication with most of the population of South and East Asia, Indonesia, the Pacific and Latin America. It is complementary to books such as the excellent Languages of Europe of Archibald Lyall or one of its successors. In fact it follows Lyall's format, though it gives more grammar. Basic communication with Asians and Oceanians is neither easier nor more difficult than with anyone else. To learn a language thoroughly takes years of study, but you can be speaking a sentence or two within five minutes. You do not have to start with a new alphabet or difficult phonetics. You may need to form some new habits of pronunciation, but they are hardly more difficult than those required for, say, French.