Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The History of the English Language



These lectures spend a long time covering the origins and evolution of the English language. The emphasis is on the various dialects and languages that "compete" to become standard English usage.  The attention paid to "pre-English" history is well done, and makes this one of the better histories of the language. There is also interesting discussion on some of the various dialects of English and how they grew in to being. There is, surprisingly, very little coverage of the British empire and English as a global language. However, this is somewhat of a relief, since it allows the focus to be on the language itself.

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