Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language

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English is richer in vocabulary –the Oxford English Dictionary lists 650,000 words. English speakers have 200,000 words in common use; German, 184,000 and French 100,000. The Mother Tongue" has the expected rambling charm of a Bryson nonfiction work. When he becomes enamored on a topic (such as the history of our houses in "At Home" or the history of our universe in "A Short History of Nearly Everything") Bryson digs up all kinds of interesting facts and stories and anecdotes and puts it all together in a delightfully interesting collection of essays. In this book, he discusses the history of the English language, but also the history of languages in general, the history of dictionaries, and many of the odd pronunciations and spellings that are so peculiar to English. Why was this book even published? There are so many errors, inaccuracies, misconceptions, misunderstandings and whatnot, I don't even know where to begin. (And I'm not even a linguist.) Borrowing or adapting from other languages, as with a word like breeze, derived from the Spanish briza (although this particular word has become so thoroughly anglicized that we forget it is actually derived from a foreign source). The most comparable figure in America was Noah Webster. Webster’s English dictionary was the most thorough of its day, with over 70,000 words catalogued. Driven by a fierce patriotic pride in his young nation and a conviction that American English was just as worthy of exaltation as British English, Webster contributed to some of the distinctive features and pronunciations of the language on his side of the Atlantic.

The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way: Bryson The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way: Bryson

Our word “salary” comes literally from the vulgar Latin salarium, “salt money”—the Roman soldier’s ironic term for what it would buy.”We naturally lament the decline of these languages, but it's not an altogether undiluted tragedy. Consider the loss to English literature, if Joyce, Shaw, Swift, Yeats, Wilde, and Ireland's other literary masters have written in what inescapably a fringe language, their work will be as little known to us as those poets in Iceland or Norway, and that would be a tragedy indeed. No country has given the word incomparable literature per head of population than Ireland, and for that reason alone we might be excused to a small, "selfish" celebration that English was the language of her greatest writers.” Given its dominant status, it is convenient, advantageous, and expedient for people around the world to have a working knowledge of English. Yet even within countries that have high levels of English proficiency, people are still quite proud of their native languages and wish to preserve them. Indeed, many parts of the world view the English language itself as a symbol of western colonialism.

Mother Tongue, The Story of the English Language by Bill Mother Tongue, The Story of the English Language by Bill

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and grew up there, but has spent most of his adult life in Britain. He has worked for a number of newspapers, including The Times and the Independent. His books on the English language include Mother Tongue and Troublesome Words, both published by Penguin.

PDF Summary Conclusion: The Road Ahead for English

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way" is a fascinating book written by Bill Bryson that explores the origins and evolution of the English language. Bryson takes readers on a linguistic journey through time, delving into the various events, influences, and quirks that have shaped the English language into what it is today.

Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, Used - AbeBooks The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, Used - AbeBooks

The chapter on swearing was quite funny, there's plenty to learn there. And throughout the book Bryson's humor makes the subject matter interesting. However, though he does make regular references to other languages, the book is by its nature extremely English-centric so many of the statements about how unique English is are almost certainly inaccurate as he is not so authoritative a linguist so much as a very well-informed enthusiast. He certainly loves English. On the dying of Irish (as a language), he says: "we naturally lament the decline of these languages, but it's not an altogether undiluted tragedy. Consider the loss to English literature, if Joyce, Shaw, Swift, Yeats, Wilde, and Ireland's other literary masters have written in what inescapably a fringe language, their work will be as little known to us as those poets in Iceland or Norway, and that would be a tragedy indeed. No country has given the word incomparable literature per head of population than Ireland, and for that reason alone we might be excused to a small, "selfish" celebration that English was the language of her greatest writers." This is a hindsight bias. Then he got into some languages I have a smattering of myself – French and German—and I began questioning. Some of it just sounded wrong, like the quote from an article that says most speakers of other languages aren’t aware there is such a thing as a thesaurus. Some elements of otherwise obscure English dialects have gone mainstream, largely due to the legacy of the British Empire. The common American word peek, as in “to take a peek,” was once confined to a small corner of East Anglia (most other English people would say peep or squint), but because migrants from this region settled in the New World, the word got an unlikely new lease on life. Likewise, the ubiquitous American yeah was, until the mid-20th century, an obscure local word used only in certain regions of southeast England. Divergence Between British and American English And, English is comparatively simple to spell. There are fewer consonantal clusters, singsong tonal variations and it is generally free of gender.

PDF Summary Chapter 4: English Beyond England

So far, we’ve explored the history of the English language mostly as it pertained to its original home—the British Isles. We’ve seen how these historical processes gave rise to a language that is notable for its malleability and adaptability, able to be written and spoken in a wide variety of ways. Invention out of whole cloth like, as in the way hound became dog, with no known explanation as to how it took place.

Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that [PDF] [EPUB] The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that

By 1640, there were over 20,000 titles available in English, more than there had ever been. As printed works produced by London printers began to spread across the country, local London spelling conventions gradually began to supplant local variations. What this also meant was that old spellings became fixed just as many word pronunciations were shifting because of the Great Vowel Shift. Our inheritance is a written language with many words spelled the way they were pronounced 400 years ago.

My only disappointment comes when he mentions things I have already read and got wrong or off the mark. You have to worry a little about what you do not know and if to trust him. Still, it is a fun book. Awful. Awful. I’m now retrospectively mad, five years later, that I once attended a talk by this man. Avoid. So, Bill Bryson + cheap equals insta-buy for me, apparently. Too bad even Bill Bryson couldn't make this terribly entertaining. If you know someone with the surname of Smith, Schmidt, Herrero, Kovacs or Ferraro, then it’s quite likely that their ancestor worked as metalsmiths.