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The Mother Tongue (Paperback)
by Bill Bryson
| Category:
English language, Language, Culture |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
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¥ 148.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Fascinating history of English written in a very entertaining style. Good for native speakers and English learners alike. |
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Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition
Pub. in: September, 1991
ISBN: 0380715430
Pages: 272
Measurements: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00593
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- Awards & Credential -
From one of the best loved writers of our time, The New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country, and A Short History of Nearly Everything. |
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- MSL Picks -
This book is a history of the English language, with particularly interesting chapters on the beginnings of language, wordplay, pronunciation, swearing, spelling, varieties, and just about everything you would ever want to know about our mother tongue. The only question I still have that Bryson was not able to answer was why was the language of the Angles adopted in England, rather than the language of the dominant group, the Saxons? Bryson says that we just don't know why.
I never thought a book on English (and languages, in general) would get me to laugh out loud, but this one did many times. For example, Bryson writes that "some languages have words that we may be pleased to do without," such as the German word "schadenfreude" (which means "taking delight in the misfortune of others") or how about "sgiomlaireachd" (meaning "dropping in at mealtimes" in Scottish Gaelic)? The delight that Bryson takes in languages is, well, simply wonderful: He writes that strozzapreti is a pasta in Italy and means "strangled priests" and that vermicelli means "little worms." Or how about that "A ydycg wedi talu a dodi eich tocyn yn y golwg?" is Welsh for "Did you remember to pay?" Bryson is also quick to give opinions, such as: "There is no logical reason not to split an infinitive" and "Sentences [can] end with a preposition." Then he tell us the sources of these "dubious" strictures.
Bryson is intrigued about where English words come from, and they come from many other languages: Scandinavian (skull, leg, husband, rotten, their), Norman French (jury, traitor, marriage, govern), native American ("hoochinoo" became hooch!), Mexican-Spanish (rancher), German (dollar), etc. In fact, only about 1% of our words are Old English ones (but they include man, wife, and love) we discover. Where do our words come from? Well, about 1,700 were invented by Shakespeare alone, including the following words: critical, monumental, castigate, majestic, obscene, excellent, and lonely. Also quite interesting is how English words have changed in the last millennium: For example, to Chaucer a "girl" meant any young person, "brave" implied cowardice (which "bravado" still does), and that "knight" was pronounced something like "kuh-nee-guh-tuh.". And new words keep coming ("apolitical" is only 50 years old)! And, of course, we learn that English has influenced other languages greatly: in China, conversations occur on the "te le fung," a Ukrainian goes to the barber for a "herkot," and a Japanese commuter is crammed into a subway car during "rushawa" (rush hour)!
And where else would I have discovered such facts as these?: that there are 176 names for dust balls under the bed; that there are 17 different pronunciations for the word "house" in Northern England; that there are no Chinese crossword puzzles (because there is no alphabet); that Kennedy means "ugly head" in Gaelic; that the Japanese, Malayans, and American Indians do not have any swear words in their native languages; that an anagram for "The Morse Code" is "Here come dots"; that a couple of centuries ago, many words could be spelled two or more ways, but today there are only three such words in North America (ax/axe, gray/grey, and inquire/enquire); that the Pilgrims were among the first generation in England who said "has" rather than "hath" and "runs" instead of "runneth"; and that "O.K." is "arguably America's single greatest gift to international discourse, able to serve as an adjective, verb, noun, interjection, and adverb," with obscure origins that may be someone's initials (Martin Van Buren's nickname, "Old Kinderhook"), a popular snack (Orrins-Kendall crackers), or words in Finnish ("oikea"), Haitian ("Aux Cayes," a source of rum), or Choctaw ("okeh"), or perhaps a contraction of "oll korrect" (which is how Andrew Jackson spelled this expression)! This is a book to treasure! (From quoting an American reader)
Target readers:
General readers
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Bill Bryson's many books include, most recently In a Sunburned Country, as well as I'm a Stranger Here Myself, A walk in the Woods, Neither Here Nor There, Made in America, and The Mother Tongue. He edited The Best American Travel Writing 2000. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, he lived in England for almost two decades. He now lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, with his wife and four children.
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From the Publisher:
With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson - the acclaimed author of A Walk in the Woods - brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.
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| View all 11 comments |
Fred S. Holley (Los Angeles Times) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Vastly informative and vastly entertaining... A scholarly and fascinating book. |
Robert Taylor (The Boston Globe) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Diverting and richly anecdotal... Bryson is an unalloyed fan who relishes the language's versatility, verb hoard and vast vocabulary. |
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
In The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way, Bill Bryson tries to solve the mysteries of the English language. He explains why the spelling and pronunciation of certain words don't match and why certain American words are different from their British counterpart. Bryson gives his readers a history lesson about English, complete with lessons about the different English dictionaries, a journey through England after the French left, and the propriety of Victorian England.
He writes about topics other than English's history, including its present dominance and its uncertain future. These topics serve to create a fuller picture of a language that Bryson claims has become "the lingua franca" of various areas of everyday life.
Throughout the book, Bryson entertains his reader with wit and humor. Bryson's jokes make reading the book a smooth process because their accurately demonstrate his topics. When writing about the difference between American words and English words he gives the example of the word "fanny" which has an innocent meaning in America, but a rather vulgar one in England.
The Mother Tongue is clearly entertaining, but Bryson also informs his readers well. He has covered the various topics of language thoroughly. Bryson is well versed on the topic. He draws on the writing of many worthy predecessors, including William Safire and H. L. Mencken. Readers will find Bryson's book to be educational and enlightening. |
Ken James (MSL quote), UK
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Am I the only person who is amazed at the range and gravity of errors that diligent reviewers have discovered in this book? Inuit snow (they don't have fifty words for it); Finnish swearing (they do); Japanese orthography (I didn't get that one)... the list goes on. I'll tell you a real shocker: I knew a journalist, a graduate in English, who thought that the language he majored in and professed to write descended largely from Welsh (certain Celtic and Latin dialects spoken in Britain at the end of the Roman Empire). If that doesn't strike you as risible, you need to read this book. This is not a work of high scholarship but it isn't dumb (or dumm). It's a popular account by an enthusiastic amateur, written with his usual brio, and if it persuades more people to take an interest in their mother tongue, or, at a pinch, their native language, good on it and about time.
If you want the full story, study Baugh & Cable's History of the English Language and references there. Bryson's book is more fun, though. I recommend it along with Simeon Potter's Our Language, which covers much the same ground but without the swear words.
I can pick nits too. In chapter 6 he gets the High German Sound-Shift back to front. In his version, 'water' ought to appear as 'wasser' in Dutch, Frisian and Plattdeutsch (this may be his Wasserloo). Also, he has a tendency to refer to the group in question, including English, as 'north Germanic', which is a big no-no to us nerds. Bottom line: read Potter as well.
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