A history of English from the age of Beowulf to the rap of Eminem, “written with real authority, enthusiasm and love for our unruly and exquisite language” (The Washington Post).
Many have written about the evolution of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but only Seth Lerer situates these developments within the larger history of English, America, and literature. This edition of his “remarkable linguistic investigation” (Booklist) features a new chapter on the influence of biblical translation and an epilogue on the relationship of English speech to writing.
A unique blend of historical and personal narrative, both “erudite and accessible” (The Globe and Mail), Inventing English is the surprising tale of a language that is as dynamic as the people to whom it belongs.
“Lerer is not just a scholar; he's also a fan of English—his passion is evident on every page of this examination of how our language came to sound—and look—as it does and how words came to have their current meanings…the book percolates with creative energy and will please anyone intrigued by how our richly variegated language came to be.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Seth Lerer is Distinguished Professor of Literature and the former Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of California, San Diego. He is known nationally for his audio and videotape series, The History of the English Language, for the Teaching Company.
Table of Contents
A Note on Texts and Letter Forms Preface to the Revised Edition Introduction: Finding English, Finding Us 1. Caedmon Learns to Sing: Old English and the Origins of Poetry 2. From Beowulf to Wulfstan: The Language of Old English Literature 3. In This Year: The Politics of Language and the End of Old English 4. From Kingdom to Realm: Middle English in a French World 5. Lord of This Langage: Chaucer's English 6. I Is as Ille as a Millere Are Ye: Middle English Dialects 7. The Great Vowel Shift and the Changing Character of English 8. Chancery, Caxton, and the Making of English Prose 9. I Do, I Will: Shakespeare's English 10. A Universal Hubbub Wild: New Words and Worlds in Early Modern English 11. Visible Speech: The Orthoepists and the Origins of Standard English 12. A Harmless Drudge: Samuel Johnson and the Making of the Dictionary 13. Horrid, Hooting Stanzas: Lexicography and Literature in American English 14. Antses in the Sugar: Dialect and Regionalism in American English 15. Hello, Dude: Mark Twain and the Making of the American Idiom 16. Ready for the Funk: African American English and Its Impact 17. Pioneers Through an Untrodden Forest: The Oxford English Dictionary and Its Readers 18. Listening to Private Ryan: War and Language 19. He Speaks in Your Voice: Everybody's English 20. Faith in English: Vernacular Devotion and Biblical Translation Epilogue: The Talk and the Text Appendix: English Sounds and Their Representation Glossary References and Further Reading Acknowledgments Acknowledgments to the Revised Edition Index
This is an excellent introduction to the history of our language for readers without knowledge of linguistics or even of early English language and literature itself. Lerer uses his engaging format to present and elucidate the considerable number of issues and concepts involving the study of usage, which have become part of the matter of the history of English.
— John Hollander, Yale University
Christopher Cannon
Lerer pays particular attention to some of the more important passages in the central texts of English literary history, but he is equally at home when analyzing more immediately popular works and always capable of discovering deep and general interest in the most startlingly simple places.
