A survey of language describes how it reached its present state, how it operates, and how it will develop in the future, discussing such topics as Shakespeare's pronunciation, low-life language, and English's place in the world. 30,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Burgess, who invented a teenspeak for the gangs in his novel A Clockwork Orange, infects readers with his love of words in a delightful, wittily urbane romp through the world's languages, in particular "volatile and hospitable" English. This is several books in one: a painless primer on linguistics; a survey of tongues from Albanian to Welsh (spoken by King Arthur, a Romanized Celt); the story of alphabets and of language's evolution from prehistoric Indo-European to words like quark ; an exploration of how English became rich and flexible as Old English was transformed into what is spoken and written today. Chapters cover slang and taboo words, great dictionary makers, poetry, the Bible, film dubbing, how Shakespeare spoke his lines. Burgess also offers tips for learning foreign languages and suggestions for secondary-school English teachers. A Mouthful incorporates much of Language Made Plain , published some 30 years ago, but it contains a wealth of new material.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Burgess has written a fascinating study of language. His wide knowledge of languages, music, and literature and his ability to explain the most difficult concepts make this an engrossing book. In the first section, Burgess discusses languages in general, paying special attention to grammar and phonetics. The second section is devoted to the English language. Burgess's discussion of the Celtic languages and Shakespeare's pronunciation are excellent brief summaries, and his understanding of grammar and phonetics is the key to his explanations of the change and development of English. He compares various languages and shows the differences and similarities of structure and content. Demonstrating a sound historic knowledge of English, he explains many of the difficultaspects of the language while providing interesting comments about Creole languages, slang, black English, and language education. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/93.
- Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Anthony Burgess (25th February 1917-22nd November 1993) was one of the UK's leading academics and most respected literary figures. A prolific author, during his writing career Burgess found success as a novelist, critic, composer, playwright, screenwriter, travel writer, essayist, poet and librettist, as well as working as a translator, broadcaster, linguist and educationalist. His fiction also includes NOTHING LIKE THE SUN, a recreation of Shakespeare's love-life, but he is perhaps most famous for the complex and controversial novel A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, exploring the nature of evil. Born in Manchester, he spent time living in Southeast Asia, the USA and Mediterranean Europe as well as in England, until his death in 1993.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Mouthful of Wonderful,
By
This review is from: A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially English (Paperback)
This is the ultimate book for someone like me, an amateur linguist and lover of literature. While Burgess covers some territory with which I am intimately familiar (and makes some minor factual errors), I can't but recommend the book whole-heartedly.
Aimed at British readers (noticeable only in the sections on phonology, or the production of sounds), Burgess gives a crash course on linguistics and language in a tone that is at once entertaining and informative, bookish without being pedantic. He argues persuasively for the teaching of the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) in schools and, near the end of the book, even ventures into how the study of the components of langugae can inform the reading of modern poetry and prose. While it will help for a reader to be familiar with some basics of linguistics (phonology more than syntax, morphology or grammar), it is not required. I couldn't help wishing, as I read the book, that it had been my introduction to the subject. After learning about how speech sounds are produced by the lips, teeth and tongue, and learning about how they are categorized scientifically and recorded in various alphabets, Burgess plunges us into perhaps the greatest linguistic development of the last two centuries, the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, the language from which sprang Greek, Latin, Russian, Sanskrit, German, English, Spanish, French, Swedish, Persian and so many others. The miracle of being able to find instant cognates in other languages once you know a few simple rules of sound changes is superbly demonstrated by Burgess here. Burgess also discusses two non-Indo-European languages, each in its own individual chapter: Malay & Japanese. His knowledge of Malay, formed by his longtime residence in Indonesia, is very deep and he was able to give a great deal of interesting information to a Malay layman like me. His Japanese chapter is from the perspective of an outsider with limited knowledge, and I found it less informative but still interesting. Finally, Burgess turns his cannons on the canon of English literature, and its medium, the English language. His jaunt through the very tortured history of English is extremely well done. This is the sort of non-fiction writing that manages to put you at the calm center of a whirlwind of historical and literary events. I compare it, not lightly, with the essays of Jorge Luis Borges in its lucidity and magisterial effect. Like Borges, Burgess writes about the metaphysics of translation and the essentiality of reading poetry in its native tongue. Where the two great writer-scholars differ is on the subject of James Joyce, regarding whom Burgess manages to slip in a very convincing apology. Burgess' explication of a passage from FINNEGAN'S WAKE is no doubt a preview from his book length treatment of the same subject in RE JOYCE. Fan of Burgess' fictions, especially A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, will find much of interest in this book, which gives up his secrets of language manipulation so lightly and with such goodwill. Burgess, told he had a terminal illness, was motivated to be quite prolific as a writer, and there are arguments to be made for which of his books are worth reading first. Not having read them all, I will not speculate that this is among them. All I can say is that, for readers like myself who have an abiding interest in language and literature, time reading this book is time well-spent.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
great intro to the study of language,
By Al Kihano (Iskandria) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially English (Hardcover)
This book, an expansion of Burgess' earlier _Language Made Plain_, is a fabulous way to learn how language works -- how we make sounds, how words change through the years, how languages differ from each other. Burgess' book on language is in many ways a curious sort of literary autobiography, as so much of his writing has been wordplay of one sort or another. As always, his writing is lively and lucid.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Englishman Writes About English,
This review is from: A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially English (Hardcover)
This is the same Anthony Burgess who writes novels. He was a teacher of English before he became a professional writer and thus he brings credentials to this book about language and linguistics.
"Mouthful of Air" is written for British readers and Americans may find some of the discussions of British pronunciation a bit esoteric and mysterious. Being a sloppy-voweled American I didn't really comprehend the subtle differences the author perceives in pronunciation of the words "marry merry Mary," for example. They sound the same to me. Thus, his technical discussions of vowel differences did not resonate in differing vibrations to my inner ear. I would likewise question the author's opinion that the phonetic alphabet should be required learning in school. That would be about as useful as reinstituting Latin as a required course. Burgess divides his book into two parts. Part one deals with technical aspects of language. For example, he titles one graphic, "Chart of Consonants According to their Organs of Articulation." The consonants are then divided into stop plosives, nasals, laterals, fricatives, glides, and affricates. Whew! I don't think I would want to be in an English class with Burgess as a teacher. Amongst discussion of affricates and fricatives, however, are some interesting chapters on the development of the Indo-European tongues and brief chapters on Malay and Japanese to show how they differ from Indo-European languages. Part two is about English -- mostly British English, but also American, Australian, and Scottish. He briefly examines dialects, literature, "low life" language, and the influence of the Bible on language. A minority of people will find his technical discussions instructive. The author defines his objective as pedagogic and the reader should expect some hard sledding if he wishes to comprehend every last word in this book. However, I suspect that the majority of us will skip blithely over words like "alveolar" and enjoy the rest of the book -- which is informative and fascinating. Smallchief
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