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| Preface to the third edition | |
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| Preface to the second edition | |
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| Symbols | |
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| Texts and facsimiles | |
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| Acknowledgements | |
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| Introduction | |
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| English today | |
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| Studying variety across time in language | |
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| How has the English language changed? | |
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| How can we learn about Old English and later changes in the language? | |
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| Changes of meaning - the semantic level | |
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| The English Language is Brought to Britain | |
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| Roman Britain | |
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| The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle | |
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| How the English language came to Britain | |
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| Old English I | |
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| Written Old English | |
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| The development of writing hands (i) | |
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| Dialects and political boundaries | |
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| Danish and Norwegian Vikings | |
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| Effects of Viking settlement on the English language | |
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| The Norman Conquest | |
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| Old English II | |
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| The language of Old English poetry | |
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| OE prose | |
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| OE grammar | |
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| Latin loan-words in OE | |
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| ON loan-words in OE | |
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| Early French loan-words | |
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| From Old English to Middle English | |
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| The evidence for linguistic change | |
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| The Norman Conquest and the English language | |
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| The earliest 12th-century Middle English text | |
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| The book called Ormulum | |
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| 12th-century loan-words | |
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| Early Middle English - 12th Century | |
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| Evidence of language change from late OE to early ME in La[subscript 3]gamon's Brut | |
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| The Owl & the Nightingale | |
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| Early Middle English - 13th Century | |
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| The Fox and the Wolf | |
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| The South English Legendary | |
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| A guide for anchoresses | |
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| The development of writing hands (ii) - from the 11th to the 13th centuries | |
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| Three medieval lyrics | |
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| The Bestiary | |
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| The Lay of Havelok the Dane | |
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| Early 13th-century loan-words, 1200-49 | |
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| Northern and Southern Texts Compared | |
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| Cursor Mundi - a history of the world | |
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| Later 13th-century loan-words, 1250-99 (see the Word Book) | |
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| The 14th Century - Southern and Kentish Dialects | |
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| The dialect areas of Middle English | |
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| How to describe dialect differences | |
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| A South-Eastern, or Kentish dialect | |
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| An early South-West dialect | |
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| A later 14th-century South-West dialect | |
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| 14th-century loan-words, (see the Word Book) | |
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| The 14th Century - Northern Dialects | |
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| A 14th-century Scots dialect | |
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| Another Northern dialect - York | |
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| The York Plays | |
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| Northern and Midlands dialects compared | |
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| Chaucer and the Northern dialect | |
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| Loan-words 1320-39 (see the Word Book) | |
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| The 14th Century - West Midlands Dialects | |
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| A North-West Midlands dialect - Sir Gawayn and [Th]e Grene Knyzt | |
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| A South-West Midlands dialect - Piers Plowman | |
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| Loan-words 1340-59 (see the Word Book) | |
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| The 14th Century - East Midlands and London Dialects | |
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| The origins of present-day Standard English | |
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| The development of writing hands (iii) - the 14th century | |
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| A South-East Midlands dialect - Mandeville's Travels | |
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| The London dialect - Thomas Usk | |
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| Loan-words 1360-79 (see the Word Book) | |
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| The London Dialect - Chaucer, Late 14th Century | |
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| Chaucer's prose writing | |
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| Chaucer's verse | |
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| Editing a text | |
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| Loan-words 1380-99 (see the Word Book) | |
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| Early Modern English I - The 15th Century | |
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| The beginnings of a standard language | |
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| The development of writing hands (iv) - the 15th century | |
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| Chancery English | |
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| Early 15th-century East Midland dialect - The Boke of Margery Kempe | |
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| Later 15th-century East Midland dialect - the Paston letters | |
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| Late 15th-century London English - William Caxton | |
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| The medieval tales of King Arthur | |
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| Late 15th-century London dialect - the Cely letters | |
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| 15th-century loan-words (see the Word Book) | |
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| Early Modern English II - The 16th Century (I) | |
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| The development of writing ands (v) - the 16th century | |
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| The Lisle Letters | |
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| Formal prose in the 1530s | |
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| A different view on new words | |
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| John Hart's An Orthographie | |
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| The Great Vowel Shift | |
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| Punctuation in 16th-century texts | |
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| Loan-words 1500-49 (see the Word Book) | |
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| Early Modern English III - The 16th Century (II) | |
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| The development of the standard language | |
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| Evidence for some 16th-century varieties of English | |
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| English at the end of the 16th century | |
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| Loan-words 1550-99 (see the Word Book) | |
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| Early Modern English IV - The 17th Century (I) | |
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| Evidence for changes in pronunciation | |
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| Sir Thomas Browne | |
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| The development of writing hands (vi) - the 17th century | |
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| George Fox's Journal | |
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| John Milton | |
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| John Evelyn's Diary | |
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| The Royal Society and prose style | |
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| Loan-words 1600-49 (see the Word Book) | |
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| Early Modern English V - The 17th Century (II) | |
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| John Bunyan | |
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| Spelling and pronunciation at the end of the 17th century | |
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| John Dryden | |
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| North Riding Yorkshire dialect in the 1680s | |
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| Loan-words 1650-99 (see the Word Book) | |
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| Modern English - The 18th Century | |
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| Correcting, improving and ascertaining the language | |
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| Dr Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language | |
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| The perfection of the language | |
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| 'The Genius of the Language' | |
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| Bishop Lowth's Grammar | |
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| 'The depraved language of the common People' | |
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| 'Propriety & perspicuity of language' | |
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| Language and social class | |
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| William Cobbett and the politics of language | |
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| 18th-century loan-words (see the Word Book) | |
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| From Old English to Modern English - Comparing Historical Texts | |
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| Commentary on Text 173 | |
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| 'Your accent gives you away!' | |
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| Postscript - To the Present Day | |
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| Some developments in the standard language since the 18th century | |
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| The continuity of prescriptive judgements on language use | |
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| The grammar of spoken English today | |
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| 19th & 20th century loan-words (see the Word Book) | |
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| Bibliography | |
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| Index | |