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History of English Language?? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4878 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish | Message 1 of 8 08 December 2011 at 6:36pm | IP Logged |
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Hi, I was wondering whether anyone could recommend any books to read about the history of the English language... How words developed into what they are today, where they came from etc...
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| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5046 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 2 of 8 08 December 2011 at 7:03pm | IP Logged |
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I have a book but it is in Russian. Аракин. История английского языка.
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| WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4878 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish | Message 3 of 8 08 December 2011 at 7:11pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Mapk... I think I'll pass unless I decide to learn russian :o)
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 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5957 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 8 08 December 2011 at 7:34pm | IP Logged |
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I have a few right on my shelf here:
The Story of English by McCrum, Cran and McNeil. Companion book to the PBS series, which I think is available to watch online. The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way by Bill Bryson. The Lexicographer's Dilemma: the Evolution of "Proper" English, From Shakespeare to South Park by Jack Lynch. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. Not the entire history of the language, just of the OED, but quite a dramatic read. A bit overdramatic, actually. I know I have more, but these were the ones within reach right now! Edited by meramarina on 08 December 2011 at 7:40pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4878 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish | Message 5 of 8 08 December 2011 at 7:55pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Meramarina! :o) I'll have a look into them :o) Is PBS a US channel? Would love to see the series :o)
edit: googled and found it with links to Youtube :o) Edited by WentworthsGal on 08 December 2011 at 8:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5199 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 8 09 December 2011 at 8:40am | IP Logged |
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The Adventure of English, presented by
Melvyn Bragg, was a fascinating TV series. (Produced by ITV; I'm guessing you missed it when it first screened in the UK?) It doesn't seem to be (ahem) legally available on DVD at a non-institutional rate. But, as seen in the Wikipedia article, there's also a companion book. The Guardian gave it a bit of a mixedreview, but I think you may enjoy it nonetheless. (For obvious reasons, there's a certain amount of overlap with the material in the - also excellent - The Story of English that Meramarina mentions.) Updated to add: Sorry, I can't get the formatting tweaked to remove the extra spaces. Or are they only showing up in my browser? Edited by songlines on 09 December 2011 at 8:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4878 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish | Message 7 of 8 09 December 2011 at 11:56am | IP Logged |
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Thanks Songlines :o) that docu is actually on my list to watch lol. I found the first docu by googling and it came up with Top Documentary Films.com and on the same page it recommends this one too :o)
The Story of English is actually quite interesting for more than just language, it's a good few years old so it's nice to see how things were and how they have changed (plus you get the history part actually spoken about in the docu). Language, but also style, culture etc can be compared :o) Double hit of interest lol :o) Your message does have spaces but it looks ok to me :o) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5310 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 8 of 8 09 December 2011 at 4:12pm | IP Logged |
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There's a comprehensive free iTunes U podcast series about the history of the English language: Structure of English Words by Stanford linguist William Leben.
I also found most episodes of The Word Nerds interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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