Customer Reviews

Our Marvelous Native Tongue

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Where does English come from? How did it become the many-mouthed, thousand-eyed, saw-toothed, hulking gut-beast of expression that it is today? What is the real meaning of the phrase "Grand Tetons"?

In an extraordinary display of scholarly acumen and tireless gusto, Robert Claiborne gives us a complete history of the English language. And he makes it fun.

Starting 8,000 years ago with the Indo-Europeans, Claiborne traces the English tongue as it wriggles its way through the mouths of aboriginal Baltics, Roman traders, Latin monks, Dutch pirates, Norman knights, Italian poets, Arab alchemists, Spanish conquistadors, Native American victims, and much more. Hundreds of actual roots and actual words are used to vividly illustrate each developmental stage of our language.

Claiborne pulls from an impressively broad range of sources to supply his account. From literature, we see how Chaucer, Shakespeare, Johnson, Webster, and other titanic literary figures revolutionized our tongue. From history, we see how the Norman invasion of England nourished the language. From politics, we see how the English Revolution made English the tongue of the free.

The story of Pidjin English and the origins of American dialects is particularly engaging, as well as the surprisingly foolish reasons for those arbitrary rules that grammarians cling to.

Highly recommended for writers, word lovers, philologists--hey, even proctologists might want to give this fascinating book a try.

An enjoyable read for both the language student as well as the student of history. My wife and I read this book 10-years ago. Since then, I have studied various European languages and most recently Turkish (we're now living in Izmir, Turkey). I picked this book up again to re-read it and now am enjoying it from a whole new persective. 10-years ago we ordered extra copies of this book for selected friends, and most especially, my father who studied journalism early in his life and has always been a great teacher to his children of English and its uses. I'm now ordering more copies again for my English-speaking Turkish friends (and a few Brits too). This book is even better the second time around.