The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way

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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. 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. When the first inhabitants of the continent arrived in Botany Bay in 1788 they found a world teeming with flora, fauna, and geographical features such as they had never seen. “It is probably not too much to say,” wrote Otto Jespersen, “that there never was an instance in history when so many new names were needed.” Among the new words the Australians devised, many of them borrowed from the aborigines, were…” In addition to the history of language, Bryson examines how language functions. He charts its changing pronunciation and spelling and discusses how the language that currently exists today reflects the prejudices of many centuries of printed material. Tracing the influence of Shakespeare and other notable figures in the development of language, he also provides historical and linguistic detail about the first printed books, linguistic studies, and dictionaries of the English language. There’s a wealth of articles about this half-truth (I’m being generous). Here’s one http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca...

In addition to its rich historical context, The Mother Tongue explores the complexities of English grammar, highlighting the idiosyncrasies and irregularities that confound even native speakers. Bryson presents grammar rules and peculiarities with the right mix of humor and expertise, making even the most perplexing aspects of English accessible and engaging. At this point Bryson notes how many languages have similar words, like bruder in German, biradar in Farsi, bhrata in Sanskrit, bhrathair in Gaelic, all meaning brother in English.

Summary

In May 2007, he became the president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. [36] [37] His first focus in this role was the establishment of an anti-littering campaign across England. He discussed the future of the countryside with Richard Mabey, Sue Clifford, Nicholas Crane, and Richard Girling at CPRE's Volunteer Conference in November 2007. [21] In 2011, Bryson won the Golden Eagle Award from the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild. [38] The book's 1990 publication also betrays its age as it is hopelessly out of date when describing how absurdly impractical the computer keyboards are for Chinese and Japanese users and how that has hindered their economic development. Can't blame a book for being out of date, so it's actually somewhat amusing to see how things can change so much in just a few decades. He worked as a journalist, first for the Bournemouth Evening Echo, eventually becoming chief copy editor of the business section of The Times and deputy national news editor of the business section of The Independent. Author Bill Bryson Takes Agent to Court". Courthouse News Service. Pasadena, California. 4 December 2012. Archived from the original on 16 February 2013 . Retrieved 31 January 2020. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL ( link) Proclamation of October 21, 2006 as 'The Thunderbird Kid' Day" (PDF). The City of Des Moines; republished online by Random House. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 June 2008.

Bryson takes to 'Streets of Bournemouth' ". bournemouth.ac.uk. Bournemouth University. Archived from the original on 5 October 2016 . Retrieved 16 July 2018. Bill Bryson stepping down as Chancellor". Durham University. 20 September 2010 . Retrieved 4 July 2011. Then again, he seems to think that Pennsylvania Dutch is a form of pidgin English, so perhaps that’s unsurprising! The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, written by renowned linguist Bill Bryson, is a captivating exploration into the origins, evolution, and peculiarities of the English language. Published in 1990, this seminal work provides readers with a comprehensive and engaging account of how English became the global phenomenon it is today. The Main Library is being renamed 'The Bill Bryson Library'!". Durham University. 25 September 2012 . Retrieved 27 November 2012.

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It was first published in 1990 and it has not aged well. Some statistics are well out of date, Bryson using a figure of 56 million for the population of Britain, with 60 million more accurate at the time I write, for example. The political position has moved on, too. The story of English began when Germanic peoples known as the Angles and Saxons, hailing from what is now Northern Germany, began migrating to and conquering the Roman province of Britannia in the mid-5th century CE. These Angles and Saxons brought their Germanic language to their new home, where it morphed over time into the language we now call Old English. Some of our most fundamental words today come from Old English, particularly words related to family— man, wife, child, brother, and sister, to name a few. Old English was a rich literary language as well, leaving behind a trove of letters, charters, religious works, and legal texts. Old English works like Beowulf and Caedmon’s Hymn are the starting points of English literature. I found Bill Bryson about a month ago when I read hilarious In a Sunburned Country. I liked that one a lot and decided to try out his other book. And I liked this one too, but unfortunately not as much as In a Sunburned Country. And there are several reasons for that. Including the one that it can be at least partly my fault.