Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English

by John McWhorter (Author)

165 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-1592404940

ISBN-10: 1592404944

Why is ISBN important?

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Share <Embed>

Buy new

$15.20

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

This item ships to France. Want it Thursday, Oct. 18? Choose AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping at checkout. Learn more

58 New from $8.96

Deliver to France

Turn on 1-Click ordering

More Buying Choices

58 New from $8.96 76 Used from $10.00

134 used & new from $8.96

See All Buying Options

Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student

A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar

Why do we say “I am reading a catalog” instead of “I read a catalog”? Why do we say “do” at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Language distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history.

Covering such turning points as the little-known Celtic and Welsh influences on English, the impact of the Viking raids and the Norman Conquest, and the Germanic invasions that started it all during the fifth century ad, John McWhorter narrates this colorful evolution with vigor. Drawing on revolutionary genetic and linguistic research as well as a cache of remarkable trivia about the origins of English words and syntax patterns, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue ultimately demonstrates the arbitrary, maddening nature of English— and its ironic simplicity due to its role as a streamlined lingua franca during the early formation of Britain. This is the book that language aficionados worldwide have been waiting for (and no, it’s not a sin to end a sentence with a preposition).

Frequently bought together

Total price: $40.40

Buy the selected items together

This item:Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorter Paperback $15.20
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John McWhorter Paperback $12.97
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally) by John McWhorter Paperback $12.23
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

John McWhorter

105

Paperback
$12.97
John McWhorter

44

Paperback
$12.23
Nicholas Ostler

119

Paperback
$14.57
John McWhorter

8

Paperback
$16.00
Robert McCrum

64

Paperback
$13.33
Melvyn Bragg

218

Paperback
$12.94

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John McWhorter is the author of the bestseller Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America, The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language, and four other books. He is associate professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a contributing editor to The City Journal and The New Republic. He has been profiled in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and has appeared on Dateline NBC, Politically Incorrect, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Avery (October 27, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1592404944
ISBN-13: 978-1592404940
Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 7.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 165 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #80 in Books > Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Etymology
- #113 in Books > Textbooks > Social Sciences > Anthropology
- #131 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > History > Europe

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Be the first video

Your name here

Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features:

See Kindle Edition

Customer reviews

Write a customer review

See all 165 customer reviews

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Anne Mills

Interesting Look at a Puzzling Question

December 24, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The question is: what happened to Celtic? The population of the British Isles up to somewhere in the middle of the first millenium was mostly Celtic, and Celtic tongues survive on the edges, in Wales, Eire and Scotland. And many Britons before the Germanic invasions were probably Latin speakers. But English itself is basically Germanic, with only a smattering of Celtic words in the lexicon, and Latin-based influences coming in later in its development. That's unusual. Germanic groups came to dominate much of the rest of Europe, but in areas where Latin-based languages had emerged, they persisted. Why not in Britain?

The lengthy introduction is to explain why this is such an interesting -- if not entirely convincing -- book. It provides an unusual historical look at English -- not an overview, but a specific consideration of the ways in which English grammar has diverged from that of the other Germanic languages. This, McWhorter proposes, reflects the underlying influence of Celtic. What happened to the Celtic language(es) presumably spoken by most of the inhabitants of Britain at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions is a tantalizing question that most histories of the language brush over. McWhorter doesn't; his argument is interesting, but I still wonder if Celtic could have had that much grammatical impact with so little impact on the lexicon. Whether or not McWhorter is right (and is there a "right" answer?} he is certainly worth reading.

25 people found this helpful

Helpful

Not Helpful

Comment

Tyler G

More Facets Than the Title Would Indicate

January 31, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The book is well written, highly cogent, and congenial in the best sense. The arguments not only flow well, but have the perfect pieces of information to provide a solid backbone to them. A few of his anologies are a stretch and seem a tad far-flung, but the vast majority are extremely apt. He also touches on issues such as a singular "they" and comments on how language does not determine culture, rather the other way around.

4.7/5 If I had to be overly critical and specific.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

Not Helpful

Comment

A. Chong

Excellent layman's complement to Story of English and Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language

January 18, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

These 2 books are favorites of McWhorter (and mine) and he wastes no time
in rehashing them. Instead he promotes several theories/topics
that are different from the conventional wisdom, and for which he
argues very convincingly.

Namely these are that

a) though most linguists argue that we inherited almost nothing
from Gaelic languages, McWhorter points out that much of our
grammar is Welsh and Cornish.

b) that the transition from Old to Middle English did not
rapidly occur in the 150 years after 1066, but that had been
going on all along and was only committed to paper then when
scribes started writing English again after a gap. There is
very little real evidence for this, but it is also very very
plausible. Compare Mark Twain's writing when he attempts to
put real speech down on paper with anything contemporary.

c) some Semitic language was probably responsible for much of
the wierdness of proto-Germanic in the Indo-European language
family. There is a far flung theory (which he notes as such)
that this was the Phoenicians.

McWhorter also spends a while exploring the intricacies of how Old Norse
and Old English collided, fighting the grammatical dictocrats, and far
too long debunking the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. McWhorter's writing is
entertaining and flawless.

I would buy the Story of English as an intro, David Crystal's Cambridge
if you liked that, and this book 3rd. I wish he had a longer book on English
or even the evolution of the Germanic languages.

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

Not Helpful

Comment

Justin Brent

Shrewd and Delightful

August 30, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

McWhorter tends to delight in moments of language mixing and often would call those instances brand spankin' new languages, rather than Creoles. But in this book his impulse to expose the bastard origins of the English language are delightfully subversive. I would encourage any would-be purchasers on the merits of his "Miscegenated Grammar" chapter alone. The latter shows pretty irrefutable evidence of Celtic-language influence that shakes up many of our traditional notions of the English language's history.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Not Helpful

Comment

WBF

I needed to know these things

October 19, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

McWhorter writes in a breezy, folksy style that makes the pages of what would otherwise be tedious stuff fly by instead.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Not Helpful

Comment

Tori

I know McWhorter tries to write for popular consumption - ...

June 28, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I know McWhorter tries to write for popular consumption - and I'm very interested in the source of languages and regional differences. But this was way too scholarly for me. I finally gave up on it. Not his fault - it's just over my head.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Not Helpful

Comment

d a frey

Linguistics in the Context of Northern European History

May 29, 2015

Verified Purchase

John McWhorter's fresh and engaging presentation of evolutionary English is informed by the major forces of social and cultural flows through what we now call Europe and the U.K. While he is adept at making a larger picture out of detail, as one might expect, he is also bold enough to look in the other direction, from the sweep of history to the resultant detail left in its wake. Fascinating and entertaining, as well as diligent whole-brain detective work . . . makes the most complex and important language's history more comprehendible, and its continuing evolutionary usages easier to bear! I enjoyed it thoroughly, and would recommend Bryson's "The Mother Tongue" as a companion book. Both excellent!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Not Helpful

Comment

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English

Set up a giveaway

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

John McWhorter

105

Paperback
$12.97
John McWhorter

44

Paperback
$12.23
Melvyn Bragg

218

Paperback
$12.94
Guy Deutscher

108

Paperback
$16.59
John H. McWhorter

37

Paperback
$13.45
Nicholas Ostler

119

Paperback
$14.57

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: history of english literature, history of english, english word, europe history, european history