The Stories of English

Description

A history of the English language draws on the diversity of dialects and regional accents around the world, as well as the dialects that appear in a variety of literary classics, to explain the significance of the language.;The origins of Old English : the Celtic language puzzle -- The Old English dialects : the rise and fall of West Saxon -- Early lexical diversity : understanding Danes -- Stylistic variation in Old English : grammatical transition -- The transition to Middle English : two Peterborough Chronicles -- A trilingual nation : Lay Subsidy dialects -- Lexical invasions : the first dialect story -- Evolving variation : well well -- A dialect age : where did the -s ending come from? -- The emerging standard : complaining about change -- Printing and its consequences : the first English dictionary -- Early modern English preoccupations : choosing thou or you -- Linguistic daring : avoiding transcriptional anaemia -- Dialect fallout : a beggarly portrayal -- Stabilizing disorder : delusions of simplicity -- Standard rules : glottal stops -- New horizons : tracking a change : the case of y'all -- Linguistic life goes on : the grammatical heart of nonstandard English -- And dialect life goes on : dialect in Middle Earth -- Times a-changin' -- Appendix: The location of the towns and counties of England referred to in this book. The origins of Old English : the Celtic language puzzle -- The Old English dialects : the rise and fall of West Saxon -- Early lexical diversity : understanding Danes -- Stylistic variation in Old English : grammatical transition -- The transition to Middle English : two Peterborough Chronicles -- A trilingual nation : Lay Subsidy dialects -- Lexical invasions : the first dialect story -- Evolving variation : well well -- A dialect age : where did the -s ending come from? -- The emerging standard : complaining about change -- Printing and its consequences : the first English dictionary -- Early modern English preoccupations : choosing thou or you -- Linguistic daring : avoiding transcriptional anaemia -- Dialect fallout : a beggarly portrayal -- Stabilizing disorder : delusions of simplicity -- Standard rules : glottal stops -- New horizons : tracking a change : the case of y'all -- Linguistic life goes on : the grammatical heart of nonstandard English -- And dialect life goes on : dialect in Middle Earth -- Times a-changin' -- Appendix: The location of the towns and counties of England referred to in this book.