Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-Language Tourist's Guide to BritainWordsmiths and Warriors explores the heritage of English through the places in Britain that shaped it. It unites the warriors, whose invasions transformed the language, with the poets, scholars, reformers, and others who helped create its character. The book relates a real journey. David and Hilary Crystal drove thousands of miles to produce this fascinating combination of English-language history and travelogue, from locations in south-east Kent to the Scottish lowlands, and from south-west Wales to the East Anglian coast. David provides the descriptions and linguistic associations, Hilary the full-colour photographs. They include a guide for anyone wanting to follow in their footsteps but arrange the book to reflect the chronology of the language. This starts with the Anglo-Saxon arrivals in Kent and in the places that show the earliest evidence of English. It ends in London with the latest apps for grammar. In between are intimate encounters with the places associated with such writers as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth; the biblical Wycliffe and Tyndale; the dictionary compilers Cawdrey, Johnson, and Murray; dialect writers, elocutionists, and grammarians, and a host of other personalities. Among the book's many joys are the diverse places that allow warriors such as Byrhtnoth and King Alfred to share pages with wordsmiths like Robert Burns and Tim Bobbin, and the unexpected discoveries that enliven every stage of the authors' epic journey. |
Contents
Bede and the origins of English | |
glossaries and translations | |
the finest runic inscription | |
King Alfred and the birth of English | |
Robert Cawdrey and the first dictionary | |
John Smith and new Englishes | |
the East India Company and global English | |
King James and his Bible | |
John Ray and English proverbs | |
John Dryden and an English Academy | |
the Royal Society and scientific English | |
Tim Bobbin and local dialect | |
the ultimate warrior wordsmith | |
the first standard English | |
Ælfric and the first English conversation 11 Ely Wulfstan and Old English style | |
the AngloSaxon Chronicle | |
the French connection | |
Orrm and English spelling | |
Layamons English Chronicle | |
Higden Trevisa and the rise | |
the English language in Wales | |
little England beyond Wales | |
the birth of Scots English | |
Chaucer and Middle English | |
from ancient to modern | |
Chancery and standard English | |
Caxton and printing English | |
Juliana Berners and collective nouns | |
a family of letters | |
John Wycliffe and Bible translation | |
William Tyndale and the English Bible | |
William Bullokar and the first English grammar | |
Richard Mulcaster and the status of English | |
Shakespeare and English idiom | |
Shakespeare and linguistic innovation | |
Johnson and the dictionary | |
John Walker and pronunciation | |
Lindley Murray and English grammar | |
Robert Burns and Scots | |
the Chambers brothers and encyclopedic English | |
William Wordsworth and poetic language | |
Roget and the thesaurus | |
Isaac Pitman and English shorthand | |
James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary | |
William Barnes and speechcraft | |
Thomas Hardy and Wessex dialect | |
Joseph Wright and English dialects | |
Henry Fowler and English usage | |
George Bernard Shaw and spelling reform | |
Dylan Thomas and Welsh English | |
the Empire Windrush and new dialects | |
Daniel Jones and English phonetics | |
the Survey of English Usage | |
Sources and Acknowledgements | |
Other editions - View all
Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-Language Tourist's Guide to Britain David Crystal Limited preview - 2013 |
Wordsmiths & Warriors: The English-language Tourist's Guide to Britain David Crystal,Hilary Crystal No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
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