Customer Reviews

The History of English

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I received Shay's book for Christmas, and I am finished with it already, two days later. Much of the information regarding the history of the English language was familiar to me, although I did learn a few interesting tidbits here and there. The area in which this book shines, however, is with the introduction to linguistics. Unlike many other books on the topic, which are written for the linguistic, Shay takes the time and effort to clarify linguistic terms as well as pronunciations, so that the lay person can easily understand the linguistic aspects of the text...if one is interested in pursuing linguistics (such as myself), this text seems like a good springboard with which to start.

My only problem is that there are dozens of typos and grammatical errors located within the text. I can understand that a typo may slip by the editor now and then, but there were times where words were repeated, and I found this to be annoying, especially since this book is about the English language.

Overall, the information is good, and hopefully the author will correct his errors before the next version comes to print.

Many introductory English linguistic text books are either too complex or too thin. Mr. Shay demonstrates and educates the audience on the Germanic roots, old/middle/modern English, as well as the future of English language. This book is a gem.

Lively history of the English language. Fascinating exposition of the relationship of English to the other Germanic languages. Enough linguistic details to keep scholars interested, but broad enough to appeal to the general interested reader.

This one is on my KINDLE. I bought several related print editions, but wanted the same material on a "quick and dirty" source, like KINDLE.

This is a well-written, brief-but-thorough overview of the history of English. I would recommend it broadly to any educated English speaker (or learner) that wants a better understanding of how we got her from Indo-European. I always find it fascinating to think about the fact that languages as 'diverse' as Hindi and English are from the same big, happy, language family.

As a language buff, I found this book to be very informative and entertaining. I learned a lot about many things I didn't know about very well, and I also learned lots of things I didn't know about at all. I have to admit, though, that there are things in it that I'm kind of skeptical about. Most of them are in the chapter on "The Future Of English." I'm not so sure about some of Shay's predictions (in fact, there are a couple of them that I actually kind of hope won't come true), but I still think that chapter is kind of fun and that it does make a lot of sense. Also, it is true that the book contains a lot of typographical and grammatical errors (though I'm not sure if there are really as many of them as someone else has said). I think this is ironic and even a bit comical, considering that the book's subject is the English language. These errors would kind of make it seem like the author and/or the publishers haven't got that great a grasp of Modern English. All in all, though, I find the book to be quite fascinating.

Book arrived promptly as promised. Excellent condition. Excellent packaging. A thoroughly satisfactory transaction. Five stars to the vendor and my thanks!