This undertaking represents the first dedicated attempt at a complete coverage, both geographically and chronologically, of all linguistic traditions, from the earliest beginnings in the Near East of the third millennium B.C. to present-day discussions in "cognitive linguistics". This means that every effort is made to go far beyond the traditional Eurocentric accounts which, for instance, include the work of Indian grammarians because (and only so far as) they have become of interest to the discovery of the Indo-European language family, or which at times include a small chapter on classical...