Mother Tongue: Flavours of a Second Generation

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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. There’s a wealth of articles about this half-truth (I’m being generous). Here’s one http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca... On the other hand, as a foreigner who had to learn English (and I’m native in non-Roman language), Bryson's insight in this area was particularly interesting and accurate for me. Especially when it comes to intricate English pronunciation. So a big plus for that. Those were the days of the Indo-Europeans, but Bryson suggests that there may never have been such a language. At any rate, it branched into Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, Slavonic and Thraco-Illyrian, which further branched to Latin, Faroese, Parthian, Armenian, Hindi, Lithuanian, Sanskrit and Portuguese. One curious thing: Norwegians supposedly "talk about departing like an Englishman" (p7) Eh, really? Never heard of that. Googling it, I find only quotes from this book.

Mother Tongue, A Cookbook – Best Wishes Mother Tongue, A Cookbook – Best Wishes

Awful. Awful. I’m now retrospectively mad, five years later, that I once attended a talk by this man. Avoid. 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. William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, FRS was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and worked in journalism until he became a full time writer. He lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to New Hampshire in America for a few years, but they have now returned to live in the UK.If you approach this book hoping for a scholarly analysis of the English language, you are going to be sorely disappointed. For that don't come to old Bill. What he does is to throw out titbits (or tidbits in the US, as they the consider the former spelling risque - so Bryson tells me) of information, some useful, some useless, some bizarre: but all fascinating. One thing you can be sure of - you won't be disappointed. Over 300 million people speak English in some fashion, and it seems as if all the rest of the world wish they spoke English. English has invaded other languages mercilessly. For years the French resisted introduction of English words into their language, but no more. There are more students of English in China than there are people in the United States. Another issue, Bryson wrote his book in the late 1980s. The world has changed a lot since then. First of all, we have internet, which, at least in my opinion, makes British and American English even closer to each other and more similar. That is why the book seemed to be slightly outdated at times. I would love to read its modernized version. The Mother Tongue" not only presents a comprehensive account of the history of the English language but also explores its global impact. Bryson delves into how English has become a dominant language worldwide, focusing on its spread during the British Empire and its current prevalence as a lingua franca. 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.

Mother Tongue — Gurdeep Loyal

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. 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.”His recipes have a dynamism that is genuine, personal and flavour-led… dazzling and yet warmly inviting… There is so much more to the book than the recipes’ - Nigella Lawson

Mother Tongue - University of Washington Mother Tongue - University of Washington

The recipes in Mother Tongue using his expansive palate, his broad knowledge and anecdotes of British Indianness will brighten up any bookshelf!’ - Ravneet Gill

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The only reason that I’m giving it 4 stars rather than 5 is that it’s a bit dated. It was written in 1990 before the internet age. I would simply love to see an updated version. All in all, this was a fun and informative read. Mother Tongue: Flavours of a Second Generation by Gurdeep Loyal is published by 4th Estate on 2 March. Germans talk about ein image problem or das Cash Flow, Austrians eat Big Mäcs, Japanese spread a blanket and have a pikunikku, drink kohi (coffee) or miruku (milk), speak through a maiku (microphone), shop in a depaato (department store), and put on meeku (make-up). Poles watch telewizja and French shop at le drugstore.

Gurdeep Loyal

So, Bill Bryson + cheap equals insta-buy for me, apparently. Too bad even Bill Bryson couldn't make this terribly entertaining. An enlightening linguistic journey through a thousand years of feminist language—and what we can learn from the vivid vocabulary that English once had for women’s bodies, experiences, and sexuality Bryson warns that the danger of another language crowding out English is not the real problem. More and more Americans show that they are unable to grow a useful vocabulary, use educated grammar and spelling, or express themselves intelligently. If you use Facebook or other such social media, note when a popular topic comes up for wide discussion and many chime in the comment: How many comments reflect a low level of fluency in what must be the native language of people?He surveys the history of language, the world's language families and where English is situated in the Indo-European stream, and all the other offshoots, some which are no longer living languages. He recounts the triumph of Anglo-Saxon language over Celtic (even though many of England's place names preserve their Celtic roots), the impact of the Norman invasion (of 10,000 words, approximately 3/4ths are still in use including much of the language of nobility (duke, baron prince) and much language of jurisprudence (justice, jury, prison among others). He explores the different ways words are created, sometimes by doing nothing! His discussion of pronunciation and particularly the shifts in vowel sounds was fascinating, For example house was once pronounced hoose. You weren't born in a barn but barn in a born. Mother Tongue is the first book from Akiko Kurematsu; a project exploring generations of Japanese family and home cooking. Update: Not sure I'll finish this book. I was worried it'd be outdated, but that's only part of the problem. There are so many inaccuracies, facts that are not facts at all and some Bryson attitude issues.