The Adventure of English: The Biography of a LanguageEnglish is understood by around two thousand million people across the world. Yet it was very nearly wiped out in its early years. Melvyn Bragg explores the story of the English language - from its beginnings as a minor Germanic dialect to its position today as a truly established global language. |
Contents
The Common Tongue | 1 |
The Great Escape | 16 |
Conquest | 32 |
Holding On | 40 |
The Speech of Kings | 52 |
Chaucer | 66 |
Gods English | 76 |
English and the Language of the State | 89 |
Shakespeares English | 132 |
My America | 144 |
Wild West Words | 161 |
Sold Down the River | 176 |
Mastering the Language | 188 |
The Proper Way to Talk | 207 |
Steam Streets and Slang | 224 |
The West Indies | 251 |
William Tyndales Bible | 99 |
A Renaissance of Words | 109 |
Preparing the Ground | 121 |
Warts and All | 272 |
And Now ? | 290 |
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Common terms and phrases
accent adventure of English African Alfred American English Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Australian battle became become began Bible Britain British brought called Cambridge Canterbury Tales Celtic Celts Chaucer Church claim Cockney common creole culture Danelaw Danes dialect dictionary educated eighteenth England English language English words example fight French Germanic glish grammar Greek guage Gullah Henry hundred fifty Indian invented island John Johnson King knave land later Latin linguists lived London meaning Native American nineteenth century Norman Old English Old Norse Oxford phrases pidgin play poem poet poetry pronunciation Sanskrit scholars Scots seems Shakespeare slang slaves sound Spanish speak speakers speech spelling spoken story thought thousand tion tongue took translation Tyndale Tyndale's University Press vocabulary Waltzing Matilda wanted Welsh West William writing written wrote Wycliffe Wycliffe's