The adventure of English : the biography of a language / by Melvyn Bragg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bragg, Melvyn, 1939-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--History.

English language.

History.

Physical Description:

pages : color illustrations ; cm

Edition:

First U.S. edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Arcade Pub. : Distributed by AOL Time Warner Book Group, [2003]

Summary:

English is the collective work of millions of people throughout the ages. It is democratic, ever-changing, and ingenious in its assimilation of other cultures. Today, English runs through the heart of world finance, medicine, and the Internet, and it is understood by nearly two billion people across our world. And it seems set to go on. Yet it was very nearly wiped out in its early years. In this thoroughly researched and ground-breaking book, Melvyn Bragg shows us the remarkable story of the English language, from its modest beginnings around A.D. 500 as a minor guttural Germanic dialect to its current position as a truly established global language. Along the way its colorful story takes in a host of characters, locations, and events. Bragg brings the reader from the early Anglo-Saxon tribes and Alfred the Great's stubborn resistance to the Danes, through the impact of the Norman invasion in 1066, and on to the arrival of such early literary masterpieces as Beowulf and Geoffrey Chaucer's bawdy Canterbury Tales.

With anecdotes only a novelist as accomplished as Bragg could capture, he tells the tales of Henry VIII's battles with the Church over bootleg Bibles, and the influence of the "coarse" playwright William Shakespeare, who alone contributed 2,000 new words to the language! With its spread to North America, English expanded with the songs of the Creole slaves, with the bold language of Davy Crockett, and with Lewis and Clark's expedition West, which coined hundreds of new terms as the explorers discovered hitherto unknown flora and fauna. From street slang and Dr. Johnson's dictionary to the role of English in India, Bragg leaves no stone unturned in his linguistic adventure. Embracing elements of Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, and Gullah, this 1,500-year story covers a huge range of countries and peoples. The Adventure of English is an enthralling narrative not only of power, religion, and trade but also of people and how they have changed -- and continue, day by day, to change, along with the extraordinary language that is English.

Contents:

1 The Common Tongue 1

2 The Great Escape 16

3 Conquest 32

4 Holding On 40

5 The Speech of Kings 52

6 Chaucer 66

7 God's English 76

8 English and the Language of the State 89

9 William Tyndale's Bible 99

10 A Renaissance of Words 109

11 Preparing the Ground 121

12 Shakespeare's English 132

13 "My America" 144

14 Wild West Words 161

15 Sold Down the River 176

16 Mastering the Language 188

17 The Proper Way to Talk 207

18 Steam, Streets and Slang 224

19 Indian Takeover 236

20 The West Indies 251

21 Advance Australia 261

22 Warts and All 272

23 All Over the World 281

24 And Now ...? 290.

ISBN:

1559707100