The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Paperback. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
English is the world's most widely spoken language, yet its origins are a glorious tangle of theft, accident, and reinvention — and Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue chronicles this extraordinary story with wit and infectious curiosity. From the guttural consonants of Anglo-Saxon to the linguistic plunder of the Norman Conquest, Bryson traces the chaotic evolution of a language that has swallowed words from virtually every culture it has ever encountered, producing a vocabulary richer and more contradictory than any other on Earth. Bryson argues with characteristic verve that English's greatest strength lies precisely in its lawlessness — its stubborn refusal to conform to tidy grammatical rules. Drawing on history, etymology, and cognitive science, he illuminates why English spelling is a nightmare, why accents diverge so sharply, and how a language born in a damp corner of northern Europe came to dominate the globe. Part linguistic history, part cultural comedy, The Mother Tongue leaves the reader with an entirely new appreciation for the strange, magnificent chaos of the words we use every day.
Author: Bill Bryson
Format: Paperback
Published: 1990, William Morrow
Genre: Reference & language
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Paperback. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
English is the world's most widely spoken language, yet its origins are a glorious tangle of theft, accident, and reinvention — and Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue chronicles this extraordinary story with wit and infectious curiosity. From the guttural consonants of Anglo-Saxon to the linguistic plunder of the Norman Conquest, Bryson traces the chaotic evolution of a language that has swallowed words from virtually every culture it has ever encountered, producing a vocabulary richer and more contradictory than any other on Earth. Bryson argues with characteristic verve that English's greatest strength lies precisely in its lawlessness — its stubborn refusal to conform to tidy grammatical rules. Drawing on history, etymology, and cognitive science, he illuminates why English spelling is a nightmare, why accents diverge so sharply, and how a language born in a damp corner of northern Europe came to dominate the globe. Part linguistic history, part cultural comedy, The Mother Tongue leaves the reader with an entirely new appreciation for the strange, magnificent chaos of the words we use every day.