How do our brains enable us to speak creatively and build up an understanding of language? This concise and accesible book examines the linguistic and neuro-anatomical underpinnings of language. It considers how language skills can systematically break down in individuals with different types of brain damage, such as children with language disorders, adults with right-hemisphere brain damage, demented patients, and people with reading problems. In a wide-ranging discussion, the authors cover brain damage on bilingual people as well as the reading and writing difficulties experienced by dyslexics and dysgraphics. Information is also provided on "split-brain" patients, visual-gestural languages and language savants. By studying the linguistics behaviour of these groupings the authors provide and understanding of how language is organised in the brain.