The Stories of English (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Leading British linguist Crystal (Shakespeare's Words) immediately distinguishes his pluralistic study of English's evolution from the standard, narrowly focused histories by describing not only how it evolved on an isolated island example from a Germanic language to the standard English we know today., but also on marginalized regional dialects, vernaculars and other "nonstandard" examples, beginning with the origins of Old English. He shows, for example, how even Chaucer and Shakespeare embraced dialects in The Canterbury Tales and Henry V. There are also lighter moments, such as Crystal's examination of the Anglo-Saxon intonations of Yoda in Star Wars and of Tolkein's Middle Earth idioms. Writing of the 18th century, the author contrasts the proscriptions of Dr. Johnson and others regarding spelling, grammar and pronunciation with the efforts of Americans such as Noah Webster to differentiate American from British English. (Regional and ethnic variations elsewhere in the British Empire receive more cursory treatment.) However, Crystal glosses over the current status struggle in the U.K. between more "authentic" dialects, such as the northern Liverpudlian, and newer ones, such as the suburban Estuary English. As for the language's future, Crystal wishes to see Standard English taught alongside familiarization with the varieties of dialects. Although he doesn't spell out how to accomplish this, his well-informed and appealing book makes a good case for the importance of dialects. 9 b&w illus., 12 maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* For at least 200 years, the story of English has been the story of Standard English triumphant. But now, in a work of unprecedented scope and range, a distinguished linguist challenges that deceptive hegemony, showing with piquant detail and lively anecdote that no standards of correctness have ever really contained the surging energy of English, in all it multiform varieties. From the syntactical inventiveness of tenth-century Norse invaders to the lexical ecumenism of twenty-first-century Tex-Mex ranch hands, Crystal traces the diverse and unpredictable influences that have shaped English into an unruly family of dialects, creoles, and patois. To be sure, Crystal acknowledges the emergence during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of a prestigious standard version of English. Yet he shows in instance after instance that the tempests of linguistic change have often overwhelmed the custodians of the King's English, compelling them to accommodate forces they could not control. And though he never loses his focus on language, Crystal allows some of its more colorful users--including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson--to bring their personalities and voices into the chronicle. Accessible to the nonspecialist, Crystal's rich chronicle still presses deeply enough into key episodes (the Great Vowel Shift and the Elizabethan effervescence, for instance) to entice even casual readers into the more scholarly sources listed at the end of the book. Why, after all, should professional philologists hog all the fun? Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (September 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585676012
• ISBN-13: 978-1585676019
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #671,852 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but heavy going at times, October 1, 2004

By	Calum in the Caribbean (St. Maarten) - See all my reviews

I am very pleased to have read this book, but I was glad to reach the end on page 534. I found the multitude of facts incredibly detailed and sometimes repetitive. The occasional flashes of humour and interesting snippets kept me going, particularly as the author came closer to modern times. This book is probably required reading for students of the English language. For interested amateurs it might at times prove to be heavy going.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable Historical Linguistics, February 11, 2005

By	Larry K. Uffelman (Mansfield, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

David Crystal's "The Stories of English" is an excellent book. Here's why. For one thing, his approach to the history of the English language is significantly different from that taken by most other authors on the subject. For another, his presentation is linguistically professional without being dull.
The title of the book is important: it focuses the thesis. Crystal traces the development of standard English, as do other historical linguists and such popularizers as Robert MacNeil and Bill Bryson, but-different from them-he traces it alongside the development of competing non-standard, dialects. He insists that one needs to see standard English developing and then existing alongside these other dialects. There are, he urges, several "stories of English," each of which can and should be appreciated.
Crystal argues that there are, in fact, several standard forms of English, each with its own history as it diverges from standard British English. There is, for example, standard American English, standard Canadian English, standard Australian English, and so on, each with a number of non-standard varieties existing alongside it. And there are varieties of English employed in such nations as India, where they provide communication across native language lines and exhibit their own characteristics. The very term "standard" English requires definition.
Amazingly, given the subject he covers and given that he is a professional linguist, Crystal writes accessibly for an educated general audience. For one thing, he breaks into his narrative to offer specific examples and details set off in boxes from the main text. The material presented in his boxed examples clarifies points raised in the main text and, if they occasionally prove a bit heady going for non-specialists, they can be skipped without significant loss. His writing itself is clear, detailed, and often witty. Crystal has done a fine job of explaining sometimes arcane matter without dumbing down and without writing in so technical a manner as to baffle understanding.
Finally, Crystal reviews several implications of there being "stories" and not "a story" of the English language. He says we need what we refer to as "standard" English because of the advantages it provides: we can speak to other English speakers in other countries easily, we can have easy access to their written and oral cultural artifacts, and so on. However, we also need to become less judgmental about non-standard dialects and learn to appreciate them. They are, after all, a part of what we mean when we speak the word "English."
This book would make a fine textbook or corollary reading for a college course dealing with the history of the English language. But it is also just a plain good read for a terrified amateur interested in the subject.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful effort, November 22, 2005

By	Tim North (Perth, Australia) - See all my reviews

I had the good fortune to stumble across this wonderful book recently, and I found it both entertaining and informative.

As the title suggests, the book tells the various stories by which the English language has come to be what it is today. (It's as much about history and politics as it is about language.)

This isn't the only book to cover these topics, of course, but at 584 pages this is certainly one of the most comprehensive and well researched.

What makes this work so special is that it doesn't just concentrate on the history and character of "standard" English:

Indeed, for every one person who speaks Standard English,
there must be a hundred who do not, and another hundred
who speak other varieties as well as the standard. Where
is their story told? (p. 5)

In this vein, it tells the stories of the rise of British English, American English, Scottish English, creoles, street slang and, most recently, Internet English.

It argues that we're presently in the middle of a period of rapid change and growth of English, and these are among some of its many conclusions (p. 529):

1. Language change is normal and unstoppable, reflecting
the normal and unstoppable processes of social change.

2. Language variation is normal and universal, reflecting
the normal and universal diversity of cultural and social
groups.
...
4. A highly diversified society needs nonstandard varieties
('nonstandard language') to enable groups of people to
express their regional or cultural identity.

I recommend this enjoyable and instructive work to anyone who has an interest in this wonderful and diverse language: English.

(c) 2005 Tim North: http://www.BetterWritingSkills.com