Seth Lerer tells a masterful history of the English language from the age of Beowulf to the rap of Eminem. Many have written about the evolution of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but only Lerer situates these developments within the larger history of English, America, and literature. This edition 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, Inventing English is the surprising tale of a language that is as dynamic as the people to whom it belongs.
- 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
- 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
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