The Oxford history of English / edited by Lynda Mugglestone.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Mugglestone, Lynda.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--History.

English language.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 485 p. ) ill., maps

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

History of English

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This text traces the language from its obscure Indo-European roots to its 21st-century position as the world's first language. It describes the history of English within the British Isles, its changing roles in different places, and its rise to global pre-eminence.

The Oxford History of English traces the language from its obscure Indo-European roots to its position as the world's first language. In accounts made vivid with examples from an immense range of documentary evidence, including letters, diaries, and private records, fifteen experts describe the history of English in all its versions, written and spoken. They reveal the language's rich and protean variety over the centuries and chart the progress of all its versions, standard, regional, and international. With impeccable and approachable scholarship, they describe and explain its constantly changing sounds, words, meanings, and grammar. This is a book for everyone interested in the English language, present and past.

Contents:

Preliminaries: Before English / Terry Hoad

Beginnings and Transitions: Old English / Susan Irvine

Contacts and Conflicts: Latin, Norse, and French / Matthew Townend

Middle English - Dialects and Diversity / Marilyn Corrie

From Middle to Early Modern English / Jeremy Smith

Restructuring Renaissance English / April McMahon

Mapping Change in Tudor English / Terttu Nevalainen

The Babel of Renaissance English / Paula Blank

Correctness and its Origins / Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

English in the Nineteenth Century / Lynda Mugglestone

Modern Regional English in the British Isles / Clive Upton

English Among the Languages / Richard W. Bailey

English Worldwide in the Twentieth Century / Tom McArthur

Into the Twenty-first Century / David Crystal.

Notes:

Originally published: 2006.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [433]-471) and index.

ISBN:

1-280-75423-0

0-19-153037-9

1-4294-7038-0

OCLC:

609831979