Inventing English A Portable History of the Language

Name: Inventing English A Portable History of the Language
Price: 4.04 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780231137942

ISBN-10: 023113794X

ISBN-13: 9780231137942

Edition: 2007

Authors: Seth Lerer

List price: $27.95

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Description:

Why is there such a striking difference between English spelling and English pronunciation? How did our seemingly relatively simple grammar rules develop? What are the origins of regional dialect, literary language, and everyday speech, and what do they have to do with you? Seth Lerer's "Inventing English" is a masterful, engaging history of the English language from the age of "Beowulf" to the rap of Eminem. Many have written about the evolution of our grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but only Lerer situates these developments in the larger history of English, America, and literature. Lerer begins in the seventh century with the poet Caedmon learning to sing what would become the…

Book details

List price: $27.95
Copyright year: 2007
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication date: 4/10/2007
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Size: 0.65" wide x 0.92" long x 0.10" tall
Weight: 1.232
Language: English



A Note on Texts and Letter Forms


Introduction: Finding English, Finding Us



Caedmon Learns to Sing: Old English and the Origins of Poetry



From Beowulf to Wulfstan: The Language of Old English Literature



In This Year: The Politics of Language and the End of Old English



From Kingdom to Realm: Middle English in a French World



Lord of This Langage: Chaucer's English



I Is as Ille a Millere as Are Ye: Middle English Dialects



The Great Vowel Shift and the Changing Character of English



Chancery, Caxton, and the Making of English Prose



I Do, I Will: Shakespeare's English



A Universal Hubbub Wild: New Words and Worlds in Early Modern English



Visible Speech: The Orthoepists and the Origins of Standard English



A Harmless Drudge: Samuel Johnson and the Making of the Dictionary



Horrid, Hooting Stanzas: Lexicography and Literature in American English



Antses in the Sugar: Dialect and Regionalism in American English



Hello, Dude: Mark Twain and the Making of the American Idiom



Ready for the Funk: African American English and Its Impact



Pioneers Through an Untrodden Forest: The Oxford English Dictionary and Its Readers



Listening to Private Ryan: War and Language



He Speaks in Your Voice: Everyhody's English



English Sounds and Their Representation


Glossary


References and Further Reading


Acknowledgments


Index