The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way

Product Information

Review part I: Bringing science to the people, Bill Bryson style, is always funny and edcuational. However, this book is old, (it was written before the Wall came down, which is evident in the mentioning of the number of citizens of the Soviet Union who don't speak Russian) and a lot has happened in the lingustic field since then. So I'm not sure the information is always correct. Until I find out, I will simply enjoy the book as is :-) He repeatedly dings Irish (and even more so Welsh) for having spellings that are bizarre, strange, overly convoluted, etc, when what he should mean is that the Irish language attaches sound values to the Latin alphabet that are different from those used by English. I replied that in that case, Malayalam is my mother, and both Hindi and English are nannies. And I just happened to prefer my English nanny over my native one. She had no answer to that! Nevertheless, the book itself is a bundle of joy of finding invariably humorous take on how word changed - even corrupted - over the course of time. It is amusing to know people made mistakes and those mistakes held on until today. Adapted, in 2009, as an illustrated children's edition titled "A Really Short History of Nearly Everything"

If we define dialect as a way of speaking that fixes a person geographically, then it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that in England there are as many dialects as there are hills and valleys. Just in the six counties of northern England, an area about the size of Maine, there are seventeen separate pronunciations for the word house.” We’ve seen how invasions from the Angles, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans helped to form the basic structure of the English language. In this chapter, we’ll look at more recent developments in the history of the language that made it into the language we know today. These later developments helped give English the richness, variety, and adaptability that helped transform it from a local language into a global one. Shakespeare: Elevating the Language Honorary degrees 21st - 25th June". st-andrews.ac.uk. University of St Andrews. 20 June 2005. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016 . Retrieved 11 September 2016. Westminster setting for Bill Bryson award". RSC.org. Royal Society of Chemistry. 31 October 2005 . Retrieved 21 November 2010. The only reason that I’m giving it 4 stars rather than 5 is that it’s a bit dated. It was written in 1990 before the internet age. I would simply love to see an updated version. All in all, this was a fun and informative read.

Retailers:

University of Winchester honours prominent figures at Graduation 2016". Archived from the original on 4 January 2017 . Retrieved 3 January 2017. In this chapter, we’re going to take our survey of the language beyond the British Isles. We’ll explore how American English came into existence, diverged from British English, and developed its own unique characteristics. Then, we’ll examine how English has evolved as a global language. The Legacy of the British Empire He worked as a journalist, first for the Bournemouth Evening Echo, eventually becoming chief copy editor of the business section of The Times and deputy national news editor of the business section of The Independent. As Jones studied these texts, he began to recognize unmistakable similarities between Sanskrit and the European languages. In Latin, for example, “king” is “rex,” and in Sanskrit it’s “raja.” And Sanskrit for the English word “birch” is “bhurja.” Knowing that "The Mother Tongue" was published in 1990, I had fun imagining what additions Bryson would have added to the text today, knowing how many new words have been adopted since the Internet took over our world. Overall, this was a pleasant read and is a nice complement to other books that have been written about the English language. Recommended.

Deducing the existence of Indo-European is an impressive feat of historical linguistics. The speakers of this language would have only been alive during the Stone Age (around 7000 BC) and there are no traces of Indo-European writing. Nonetheless, scholars have offered convincing hypotheses about these people’s lives, solely based on common words in the descendent languages. Update: Not sure I'll finish this book. I was worried it'd be outdated, but that's only part of the problem. There are so many inaccuracies, facts that are not facts at all and some Bryson attitude issues. I stopped reading, thinking I might accidentally absorb some of the "facts" and perpetuate them myself! Most of the languages of Europe and Asia belong to one great Indo-European family of languages. English is a member of the Germanic family of languages (the West Germanic branch, to be precise), which is itself part of the larger Indo-European language family.

PM in conversation with Bill Bryson", number10.gov.uk, UK Prime Minister's Office (published 30 November 2006), 29 November 2006, archived from the original on 27 October 2007 , retrieved 10 April 2009 Eventually, Jones presented his theory in Calcutta. This presentation gave birth to a whole new field of scholarship. European scholars began conducting research of their own and, in the end, they agreed with Jones. They named the parent language Indo-European. The above list of imperfections does not mean that I did not like the book. Just like always, it's easier for me to specify what I was not delighted with than what I like. And I must admit that this is a very good book. However, I think that it is directed primarily to English native speakers, because they will be able to capture and better understand all the issues that the author raises. The first chapter of this book has so many mistakes that I couldn't finish it. Almost every sentence has a mistake. In 2012, Bryson sued his agent, Jed Mattes Inc., in New York County Supreme Court, claiming it had "failed to perform some of the most fundamental duties of an agent." [27] The case was settled out of court, with part of the settlement being that Bryson may not discuss it.