Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p> <jats:italic>The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World</jats:italic> presents a paradigm shift in the world’s knowledge about children’s speech development. The 80 chapters describe children’s speech development in 49 languages (plus 26 dialects across six languages) to celebrate, respect, and preserve the uniqueness and integrity of all languages and dialects. The Handbook presents a transformative solution for overcoming traditional English- and Western-centric biases by respecting and incorporating longstanding traditions of research, theories, and knowledge from across the globe (including knowledge not previously translated into English). Chapters on languages and dialects spoken by First Nations people and traditionally marginalized groups are presented with equivalent status to majority languages, acknowledging the impact of colonization. Bringing together 172 of the world’s leading scholars, the 80 chapters in The Handbook provide a thorough and updated overview of children’s speech development in: Afrikaans, Akan, Arabic, Azerbaijani/Azeri Turkish, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Jamaican Creole, Japanese, Kurdish, Laki, Maltese, Mandarin/Putonghua, Māori, Norwegian, Persian/Farsi, Polish, Portuguese, Samoan, Sesotho, Setswana, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Tok Pisin, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Walpiri, Welsh, Xhosa/isiXhosa, Zapotec, and Zulu/isiZulu. Each chapter discusses language varieties, and specific chapters expand dialectal knowledge about Arabic, English, French, Greek, Portuguese, and Spanish dialects. A rights-based, social justice approach has been taken to create language maps, resources, and pronunciation guides for key terms. The Handbook is an ideal resource for students and professionals in the fields of communication, speech-language pathology, phonetics, applied linguistics, and related degrees such as applied English language and TESOL/TEFL, or for anyone with a love of languages. Readers and communication specialists will be enriched by the authors’ expertise to support children’s communication around the world. </jats:p>