The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way“Vastly informative and vastly entertaining…A scholarly and fascinating book.” —Los Angeles Times With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can’t), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world’s largest growth industries. |
Contents
| 11 | |
The Dawn of Language | 21 |
Global Language | 35 |
The First Thousand Years | 46 |
Where Words Come From | 67 |
Pronunciation | 84 |
Varieties of English | 99 |
Spelling | 117 |
Old World New World | 161 |
English as a World Language | 179 |
Names | 196 |
Swearing | 214 |
Wordplay | 225 |
The Future of English | 239 |
Select Bibliocraphy | 247 |
Index | 257 |
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Common terms and phrases
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