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The English language is now accepted as the global lingua franca of the modern age. But how did it evolve? How did a language spoken originally be a few thousand Anglo-Saxons become one used by over a quarter of the human race? The Stories of English is a groundbreaking and entertaining history of the language by David Crystal, the world-renowned writer and linguist. Crystal turns the history of English on its head and provides a startlingly original view of where the richness, creativity, and diversity of the language truly lies-in the accents and dialects of nonstandard English users all over the world. Whatever their regional, social, or ethnic background, each group has a story worth telling, whether it is in Scotland or Canada, South Africa or the United States. Interwoven within this central chronological story are accounts of uses of dialect around the world and examples taken from current popular culture as well as literary classics. As Newsday wrote, "Crystal is bold, thoughtful, and often very funny.... His comparisons and allusions are effortless, and he's as up on Ali G and Middle Earth as he is on Anglo-Saxon and Middle English".

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• List of Illustrations(p. vii)
• List of Maps(p. viii)
• Introduction(p. 1)
• The standard story(p. 3)
• The real story(p. 5)
• Chapter 1 The origins of Old English(p. 15)
• Interlude 1 The Celtic language puzzle(p. 29)
• Chapter 2 The Old English dialects(p. 34)
• Interlude 2 The rise and fall of West Saxon(p. 54)
• Chapter 3 Early lexical diversity(p. 57)
• Interlude 3 Understanding Danes(p. 82)
• Chapter 4 Stylistic variation in Old English(p. 86)
• Interlude 4 Grammatical transition(p. 101)
• Chapter 5 The transition to Middle English(p. 105)
• Interlude 5 Two Peterborough Chronicles(p. 117)
• Chapter 6 A trilingual nation(p. 121)
• Interlude 6 Lay Subsidy dialects(p. 140)
• Chapter 7 Lexical invasions(p. 144)
• Interlude 7 The first dialect story(p. 163)
• Chapter 8 Evolving variation(p. 169)
• Interlude 8 Well well(p. 190)
• Chapter 9 A dialect age(p. 194)
• Interlude 9 Where did the -s ending come from?(p. 218)
• Chapter 10 The emerging standard(p. 222)
• Interlude 10 Complaining about change(p. 249)
• Chapter 11 Printing and its consequences(p. 254)
• Interlude 11 The first English dictionary(p. 280)
• Chapter 12 Early Modern English preoccupations(p. 285)
• Interlude 12 Choosing thou or you(p. 307)
• Chapter 13 Linguistic daring(p. 311)
• Interlude 13 Avoiding transcriptional anaemia(p. 334)
• Chapter 14 Dialect fallout(p. 338)
• Interlude 14 A beggarly portrayal(p. 361)
• Chapter 15 Stabilizing disorder(p. 365)
• Interlude 15 Delusions of simplicity(p. 388)
• Chapter 16 Standard rules(p. 392)
• Interlude 16 Glottal stops(p. 415)
• Chapter 17 New horizons(p. 419)
• Interlude 17 Tracking a change: the case of y'all(p. 449)
• Chapter 18 Linguistic life goes on(p. 453)
• Interlude 18 The grammatical heart of nonstandard English(p. 480)
• Chapter 19 And dialect life goes on(p. 484)
• Interlude 19 Dialect in Middle Earth(p. 510)
• Chapter 20 Times a-changin'(p. 514)
• Appendix The location of the towns and counties of England referred to in this book(p. 535)
• Notes(p. 538)
• References(p. 551)
• Acknowledgements(p. 561)
• Person Index(p. 562)

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Crystal (Shakespeare's Words; Language and the Internet) is a professor of linguistics who was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 1995 for his services to the English language. His wonderful postmodern study of the history of the English language, for both the scholar and the educated reader, breaks new ground in its attention to nonstandard English and to dialectal dialog in literature at all periods of the development of the language. Crystal shows how linguistic change and other aspects of historical and cultural change are linked and delights in geographic and ethnic variation. Beginning with "The Dream of the Rood," an Old English or Anglo-Saxon poem, he reveals that "linguistic purity" has never existed and that English is far more interesting and complex than standard accounts of normative language have indicated. The book reads easily. As its title implies, it tells many stories-and tells them well. Essential for all libraries.-Carolyn M. Craft. Longwood Univ., Farmville, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Leading British linguist Crystal (Shakespeare's Words) immediately distinguishes his pluralistic study of English's evolution from the standard, narrowly focused histories by describing not only how it evolved on an isolated island example from a Germanic language to the standard English we know today., but also on marginalized regional dialects, vernaculars and other "nonstandard" examples, beginning with the origins of Old English. He shows, for example, how even Chaucer and Shakespeare embraced dialects in The Canterbury Tales and Henry V. There are also lighter moments, such as Crystal's examination of the Anglo-Saxon intonations of Yoda in Star Wars and of Tolkein's Middle Earth idioms. Writing of the 18th century, the author contrasts the proscriptions of Dr. Johnson and others regarding spelling, grammar and pronunciation with the efforts of Americans such as Noah Webster to differentiate American from British English. (Regional and ethnic variations elsewhere in the British Empire receive more cursory treatment.) However, Crystal glosses over the current status struggle in the U.K. between more "authentic" dialects, such as the northern Liverpudlian, and newer ones, such as the suburban Estuary English. As for the language's future, Crystal wishes to see Standard English taught alongside familiarization with the varieties of dialects. Although he doesn't spell out how to accomplish this, his well-informed and appealing book makes a good case for the importance of dialects. 9 b&w illus., 12 maps. (Oct. 5) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

For at least 200 years, the story of English has been the story of Standard English triumphant. But now, in a work of unprecedented scope and range, a distinguished linguist challenges that deceptive hegemony, showing with piquant detail and lively anecdote that no standards of correctness have ever really contained the surging energy of English, in all it multiform varieties. From the syntactical inventiveness of tenth-century Norse invaders to the lexical ecumenism of twenty-first-century Tex-Mex ranch hands, Crystal traces the diverse and unpredictable influences that have shaped English into an unruly family of dialects, creoles, and patois. To be sure, Crystal acknowledges the emergence during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of a prestigious standard version of English. Yet he shows in instance after instance that the tempests of linguistic change have often overwhelmed the custodians of the King's English, compelling them to accommodate forces they could not control. And though he never loses his focus on language, Crystal allows some of its more colorful users--including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson--to bring their personalities and voices into the chronicle. Accessible to the nonspecialist, Crystal's rich chronicle still presses deeply enough into key episodes (the Great Vowel Shift and the Elizabethan effervescence, for instance) to entice even casual readers into the more scholarly sources listed at the end of the book. Why, after all, should professional philologists hog all the fun? --Bryce Christensen Copyright 2004 Booklist

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

David Crystal was born in 1941 and received his PhD from University College London in 1966