The Story of English PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Story of English PDF full book. Access full book title The Story of English by Joseph Piercy. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Joseph Piercy
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books
ISBN: 1843179237
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 161
Get Book Here
Book Description
Discover how the relatively obscure dialects spoken by tribes from what are now Denmark, the Low Countries and northern Germany, became the most widely spoken language in the world.
Author: Joseph Piercy
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books
ISBN: 1843179237
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 161
Get Book Here
Book Description
Discover how the relatively obscure dialects spoken by tribes from what are now Denmark, the Low Countries and northern Germany, became the most widely spoken language in the world.
Author: Philip Gooden
Publisher: Quercus
ISBN: 1623653045
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Get Book Here
Book Description
Born as a Germanic tongue with the arrival in Britain of the Anglo-Saxons in the early medieval period, heavily influenced by Norman French from the 11th century, and finally emerging as modern English from the late Middle Ages, the English language has grown to become the linguistic equivalent of a superpower, and is now sometimes described as the world's lingua franca. Worldwide, some 380 million people speak English as a first language and some 600 million as a second language. A staggering one billion people are believed to be learning it. English is the premier international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, and diplomacy and also on the Internet. It has been one of the official languages of the United Nations since its founding in 1945. It is considered by many good judges to be well on the way to becoming the world's first universal language Author Philip Gooden tells the story of the English language in all its richness and variety. From the intriguing origins and changing definitions of common words such as OK, berserk, curfew, cabal, and pow-wow, to the massive transformations wrought in the vocabulary and structure of the language by Anglo-Saxon and Norman conquest, through to the literary triumphs of Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales and the works of Shakespeare. The Story of English is a fascinating tale of linguistic, social and cultural transformation, and one that is accessibly and authoritatively told by an author in perfect command of his material.
Author: David Crystal
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468306170
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 453
Get Book Here
Book Description
A groundbreaking history of worldwide English in all its dialects, differences, and linguistic delights: “Informative . . . distinctive . . . a spirited celebration.” —The Guardian In this “well-informed and appealing” work (Publishers Weekly), David Crystal puts aside the usual focus on “standard” English, and instead 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 Somerset, South Africa or Singapore. He reminds us that for several hundred wonderful years, there was no such thing as “incorrect” English—and traces the evolution of the language from a few thousand Anglo-Saxons to the 1.5 billion people who speak it today. Moving from Beowulf to Chaucer to Shakespeare to Dickens and the present day, Crystal puts regional speech and writing at center stage, giving a sense of the social realities behind the development of English. This significant shift in perspective enables us to understand for the first time the importance of everyday, previously marginalized, voices in our language—and provides an argument too for the way English should be taught in the future. “A work of impeccable scholarship [that] could easily serve as a standard textbook for students of linguistics, but Mr. Crystal, reaching out to a more general audience, recognizes that even the most avid reader might flinch at the sections on Old Norse grammatical influence. Cleverly, he has sprinkled the book with little digressions, set apart in boxes, that address historical mysteries, strange loanwords, interesting etymologies and the like.” —The New York Times “Learned and often provocative . . . demonstrates repeatedly that common conceptions about language are often historically inaccurate—split infinitives bothered no one until recently (likewise sentence-ending prepositions).” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Simply the best introductory history of the English language family that we have. The plan of the book is ingenious, the writing lively, the exposition clear, and the scholarly standard uncompromisingly high.” —J.M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Author: Olly Richards
Publisher: Teach Yourself
ISBN: 1473683564
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 220
Get Book Here
Book Description
An unmissable collection of eight unconventional and captivating short stories for young and adult learners. "I love Olly's work - and you will too!" - Barbara Oakley, PhD, Author of New York Times bestseller A Mind for Numbers Short Stories in English for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, and most importantly - enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories will both entertain you, and give you a feeling of progress when listening. What does this book give you? · Eight stories in a variety of exciting genres, from science fiction and crime to history and thriller - making learning fun, while you gain a wide range of new vocabulary · Controlled language at your level, including the 1000 most frequent words, to help you progress confidently · Authentic spoken dialogues, to help you learn conversational expressions and improve your speaking ability · Pleasure! It's much easier to learn a new language when you're having fun, and research shows that if you're enjoying listening in a foreign language, you won't experience the usual feelings of frustration - 'It's too hard!' 'I don't understand!' · Accessible grammar so you learn new structures naturally, in a stress-free way Carefully curated to make learning a new language easy, these stories will entertain you, while at the same time allowing you to benefit from an improved range of vocabulary and a better grasp of the language, without ever feeling overwhelmed or frustrated. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in English for Beginners will make learning English easy and enjoyable.
Author: John Honey
Publisher: Gardners Books
ISBN: 9780571190478
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Get Book Here
Book Description
Across the English-speaking world there is a liberal orthodoxy which opposes the use of standard English in schools and in society at large. But does this truly protect the underprivileged, or has it inflicted lasting educational damage on a generation of children? Is Steven Pinker, best-selling author of The Language Instinct, right to claim that all languages and dialects are equal? Professor John Honey refutes the arguments that for the past three decades have been put forward against standard English, and shows how apparently egalitarian notions of 'Black English' and other dialects can effectively limit access to standard English and hence power for disadvantaged or minority groups. He discusses the charge that the worldwide teaching of English amounts to 'linguistic imperialism', and examines whether British English will inevitably lose out to American.
Author: Samuel Pegge
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 444
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: John McWhorter
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592404944
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Get Book Here
Book Description
A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar Why do we say “I am reading a catalog” instead of “I read a catalog”? Why do we say “do” at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Language distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history. Covering such turning points as the little-known Celtic and Welsh influences on English, the impact of the Viking raids and the Norman Conquest, and the Germanic invasions that started it all during the fifth century ad, John McWhorter narrates this colorful evolution with vigor. Drawing on revolutionary genetic and linguistic research as well as a cache of remarkable trivia about the origins of English words and syntax patterns, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue ultimately demonstrates the arbitrary, maddening nature of English— and its ironic simplicity due to its role as a streamlined lingua franca during the early formation of Britain. This is the book that language aficionados worldwide have been waiting for (and no, it’s not a sin to end a sentence with a preposition).
Author: Edwin L Battistella
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 019536712X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Get Book Here
Book Description
School of Music, and the Charles Atlas and Dale Carnegie courses to illustrate how culture became popular and how self-reliance evolved into self-improvement." "This book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of English, the history of business, and American Studies generally."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: David Crystal
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198791097
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Get Book Here
Book Description
It's the most simple, unassuming, innocent-looking verb: to be. Yet it is jam-packed with more different meanings, forms, and uses than any other English word. As he reveals be's multiple incarnations, David Crystal takes us to the heart of our flexible and changing language. He tells the intriguing story in 26 chapters, each linked to a particular usage. We meet circumstantial be ("how are you?"), numerical be ("two and two is four"), quotative be ("so I was like, 'wow'"), and ludic be ("oh no he isn't "), and a whole swarm of other meanings. Bringing the ideas to life are a host of examples from sources as varied as Beowulf, Jane Austen, pantomime, Hamlet (of course), and Star Wars, with cartoons from Ed McLachlan and Punch peppered throughout. Full of fascinating nuggets of information, it is a book to delight any lover of words and language.
Author: John Gross
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199543410
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Get Book Here
Book Description
In The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes, master anthologist John Gross brings together a delectable smorgasbord of literary tales, offering striking new insight into some of the most important writers in history. Many of the anecdotes here are funny, others are touching, outrageous, sinister, inspiring, or downright weird. They show writers from Chaucer to Bob Dylan acting both unpredictably and deeply in character. The range is wide--this is a book which finds room for Milton and Shakespeare, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, Kurt Vonnegut and P. G. Wodehouse, Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie, James Baldwin and Tom Wolfe. It is also a book in which you can find out which great historian's face was once mistaken for a baby's bottom, which film star experienced a haunting encounter with Virginia Woolf not long before her death, and what Agatha Christie really thought of her popular character Hercule Poirot. It is in short an unrivalled collection of literary gossip offering intimate glimpses into the lives of authors ranging from Shakespeare to Philip Roth--a book not just for lovers of literature, but for anyone with a taste for the curiosities of human nature.
