Ishtla Singh,The history of English: a student’s guide. London: Hodder Arnold, 2005. ISBN: 0-340-80695-8/978-0-340-80695-1

which is founded in the tradition of American dialectology. For the dialectologist or linguist unfamiliar with this tradition, the maps are effectively not accessible until this system has been mastered. Chapter 2 of the ANAE provides a description of this method of transcription and of the underlying system of North American English vowels. Another barrier for many dialectologists is financial. The current price for the ANAE (this includes the book, the CD, and free access to the website until the end of 2006) at www.amazon.de is €598.00 (as of 30 May 2006), a price which will scare off most individuals, if not entirely prohibiting them from purchasing the Atlas. The ANAE is a massive collection of dialect data and an unprecedented accomplishment in North American English dialectology. The data are consistent across speakers, with respect to content and register, thus allowing for cross-speaker comparison. Analyses of the raw data and the conclusions drawn concerning isoglosses and the resulting dialect areas are well thought out and explained in detail. The accompanying CD and website supplement the material, but insubstantially so. Indeed, the book can stand on its own without these accompanying interactive media. Technology played an essential role in allowing a project of this size to be carried out. With this in mind, modern technological advances place dialectology as performed by the ANAE well ahead of its precursors with respect to efficiency. Yet at the same time, the ANAE, as a multimedia reference tool intended for dialectologists, does not significantly improve on classic works of dialectology in the shape of books with maps and data sets.