“The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way” - Bill Bryson

 💬 Bryson begins with a linguistic jaunt around the globe which was itself extremely interesting.

💬 I recommend the audiobook for this one because it enables you to hear the pronunciations; it does get a little tiresome when he gets into orthography. There is a bit of overlap from Bryson’s Shakespeare book, but naturally a book on the evolution of English must need to include a bit on the Bard.

💬 A notable point in time in the evolution of English from a language spoken by few, to the linguistic global juggernaut (see what I did there?) of today, is the Norman conquest. Bryson notes that despite conquering England, the French-speaking conquerors showed no interest in eradicating English. While French did take root in England post-conquest - there is an interesting reference to “London French” in Chaucer - it didn’t maintain its hold on the people. English gradually dominated the region because British French was viewed disdainfully in France; Norman descendants favored English as a point of pride.

💬 Another milestone in English global domination was the invention of the printing press. There was money to be made, and publishers would publish any and every thing. Bryson notes that this contributed directly to standardization of English spelling. And some of our oddball spellings and grammar rules? Per Bryson, blame Latin.

💬 Bryson points out that a great deal of linguistic guesswork is required to arrive at original pronunciations. The colonization of the New World began during time of Shakespeare; this informs the evolution of American English. In the Names chapter, Bryson contemplates what Native Americans would have said to Spanish conquistadors, and how this exchange of unfamiliar words would go on to influence English. In the same vein, the language of the Pilgrims had to incorporate new words to describe the new lands (Dutch, Native American, Mexican Spanish, French terms enter the American English lexicon).

💬 Surprisingly there is greater dialect variety in the UK than in the US. You would expect the opposite to be true; you’d expect more homogeneity among smaller population in smaller geographic area, speaking English for a longer period of time, but this is not borne out in reality.

💬 The history of the Merriam-Webster American English dictionary and OED is fascinating. As Pip Williams describes in “The Dictionary of Lost Words”individual, amateur philologists would send in slips of contributions for the dictionary. 

💬 Today, it’s quite difficult to gauge the extent of a person’s vocabulary because we know far more words than what might appear in our writings.

💬 I enjoyed Bryson’s musings on the global grammatical versatility of the American phrase “OK”.

💬 Another fascinating tid-bit from Bryson: the number of non-English speakers in US is equivalent to the total number English speakers in England.

💬 If you’re interested in how English came to be spoken on such a global scale, you’ll find this book engaging and informative. The chapter on swearing was entertaining, and Bryson’s thoughts on the future of the language were thought-provoking. On a related note, check out this Language Nerds article on why Americans and Brits have such different accents.