Inventing English: a portable history of the language

Description

Presents a history of the English language, beginning with the Old English of the seventh century, through the Great Vowel Shift between the time of Chaucer and Shakespeare, and the later full emergence of modern English.;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 an 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 : everybody's English -- Faith in English : vernacular devotion and biblical translation -- The talk and the text -- Appendix. English sounds and their representation.