The Metamorphosis of English: Versions of Other LanguagesBeginning with the motley crew of invaders who mingled with the Gaelic, Norse, Latin, and French speakers to produce a small nation of empire-builders who would carry their language to the far corners of the globe, the story of the birth and migration of the English language is well known to us through the popular works of Robert McNeil, Robert McCrum, and Bill Bryson. Swiderski expands and extends our understanding of the predatory aspects of the language as he shows how English acquires and is transformed by the myriad other languages with which it comes into contact. Swiderski's examples begin with major world languages, especially Spanish and Chinese, and then go on to look at the less considered connections with remote and extinct languages. Through Swiderski's lens, English takes on the look of an agglutinative museum of linguistic artifacts in danger of having no describable identity or common fabric. Each speaker's variety of English is as individual as his or her genetic makeup; it is both so universal and so dissimilar that English as we know it may be endangered as a separate language. |
Contents
Surface Acceptance | 1 |
Spanish by English | 13 |
Chinese by English | 23 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
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The Metamorphosis of English: Versions of Other Languages Richard M. Swiderski No preview available - 1996 |
Common terms and phrases
accent Acholi actually Ainu American English answer attempt Baoule become Bontoc characters Cherokee Chinook classifiers communication Creole culture describe English language English reference English reflection English speakers English version English words English-speaking equivalent example expression French grammar greeting Haitian Haitian Creole hear Hindi Hopi ideophones innate Jacaltec Japanese Kalenjin Kannada Karok Kiribati Kiswahili Kwakiutl language reflection language versions language's Latin learner linguistic listening Maasai meaning mirror native language Nepali object original language passage phonetic phonology phrases poetry possible pronounced pronunciation quantum electrodynamics question reader receptivity recognize reflected in English reflection of Spanish Roman letters Samoan sentence Sheng Sherente sound Spanish language Spanish speaker speak English speech spoken language Swahili syllable Tamil teaching Tok Pisin tonal tonal language tone Toweet transcription translation understand universal structure usage utterances verb verbal Vietnamese vocabulary vowel Walpiri Whorf writing system written English Yoruba