Amazon.com
Who would have thought that a book about English would be so entertaining? Certainly not this grammar-allergic reviewer, but The Mother Tongue pulls it off admirably. Bill Bryson--a zealot--is the right man for the job. Who else could rhapsodize about "the colorless murmur of the schwa" with a straight face? It is his unflagging enthusiasm, seeping from between every sentence, that carries the book.
Bryson displays an encyclopedic knowledge of his topic, and this inevitably encourages a light tone; the more you know about a subject, the more absurd it becomes. No jokes are necessary, the facts do well enough by themselves, and Bryson supplies tens per page. As well as tossing off gems of fractured English (from a Japanese eraser: "This product will self-destruct in Mother Earth."), Bryson frequently takes time to compare the idiosyncratic tongue with other languages. Not only does this give a laugh (one word: Welsh), and always shed considerable light, it also makes the reader feel fortunate to speak English.
Book Description
With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson--the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent--brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.
Customer Reviews:
Ever wonder why is English screwed up? .......2007-08-26
If so, this is the book for you. Bryson takes you on a humorous and fascinating journey through the history of English, and explains the sources of many idiosyncrasies of the language, including odd spellings, irregular verbs, plural nouns like mouse/mice, and more. If you have ever felt stupid because you couldn't remember whether to spell something with ie or ei, this is the book for you -- your self-esteem will improve after reading this book: It isn't your fault, it's this crazy language!
Fun and instructive.......2007-08-06
If you ever wondered why some things happen in the English language the way they do, or why do some apparently inexplicable differences arise between British English, American English and many other "Englishes", then this a book for you. Even though the author is no linguist, he certainly is an accomplished writer, and produced a very interesting book: fun to read and instructive at the same time. The writing style is so attractive, in fact, that it keeps you reading even when the subject itself is a bit too far-fetched or too technical. Overall, it is a valuable addition to the library of anyone interested in languages, their history and evolution.
Peters out after awhile.......2007-06-24
The first half of this book is an eminently enjoyable breeze through the history of the English language, and its roots in Scandinavia, Germany, and French, as well as a fun romp through the way English spelling and grammar changed over time. Unfortunately, as the book went on, it started to lose steam and the thesis started getting stretched pretty thin. I managed to slog through and finish it, but I can't recommend it.
How English became the No. 1 world language.......2007-05-12
I have read this book several times and immensely enjoy it every time. Most of us that speak it rarely stop to think where and how its rich texture and depth came about as well as the many oddities and inconsistencies that are embedded in English. Bill Bryson does a fabulous and amusing job of tracing the history and shedding light on the reasons why. He does as always makes light work of a potentially heavy subject. A must read for any lover of the Bard's language
Browsing for Word Lovers.......2007-04-22
Bill Bryson's THE MOTHER TONGUE is not the type of book you pick up and read from cover to cover. Instead, it's a great "dipping" book. You dip in and learn a little bit about the English language's history, quirks about many words, their spellings, their etymologies, and so forth. For added flavor, there's the occasional Bill Bryson joke (he's a clever lad, and it's a good thing, given the book's scholarly bent).
Prepare to like some chapters better than others. "The First Thousand Years" was a bit of a drag for me (going way back, you see) and "Wordplay" was more fun; there's the anecdote, for instance, about a British crossword puzzle maker who came up with the clue "an important city in Czechoslovakia" which has an answer of "Oslo." If you're thinking Norway, look carefully at the sixth through ninth letters of that former Eastern European country's name. Also entertaining are the plentiful details of battles between the English and the Americans (and no, I don't mean Bunker Hill -- I mean colour vs. color and Samuel Johnson vs. Noah Webster, etc.).
It appears that the linguists have poked some holes in Bryson's scholarly research here as well (see spotlight review, for instance). That lowers the rating, too, because, as a layman reader, you have no clue WHAT is accurate and what is not. Not good. Still, much of it is valid, certainly, as I verified many facts in other sources, and some of it is entertaining as well. The bottom line? Worth a look if you're a word fan like me. If not, you probably won't even enjoy it as a "browser" (I'll have to ask Bill if that's a word or not).
Amazon.com
As a sophomore in college, I desperately wanted to major in theoretical linguistics, but I knew only three languages, and I was advised that this was insufficient for the major. Things might have been different if this book were available then: unlike most books about language evolution, Ruhlen's Origin of Language actually gets you involved in applying standard linguistic techniques to carefully chosen examples--by the end of the book, you will have constructed a family tree of the world's languages. And you needn't know any other than your mother tongue when you start, but you'll probably want to go out and learn several more languages by time you are done. Recommended.
Book Description
The Origin of Language
A critically acclaimed journey back through time in search of the Mother Tongue and the roots of the human family
"Invites the reader to learn and apply the common process used by linguists." âScience News
"This book represents exactly the kind of thinking that is needed to pull historical linguistics out of its twentieth-century doldrums. . . . [W]ithout a doubt, a very readable book, well adapted to its popularizing aim." âLOS Forum
"Believing that doing is learning, Ruhlen encourages his readers to try their hand (and eye) at classifying languages. This exercise helps us appreciate the challenges inherent in this fascinating and controversial science of comparative linguistics." âBooklist
"Ruhlen is a leader in the new attempt to write the unified theory of language development and diffusion." âLibrary Journal
"A powerful statement [and] also a wonderfully clear exposition of linguistic thinking about prehistory. . . . [Q]uite solid and very well presented." âAnthropological Science
Customer Reviews:
Intellectually exciting!.......2007-10-10
Who would have thought that we could reconstruct any part of the earliest language? Yet, it seems that we can, as Merritt Ruhlen shows in this book. Others have already described the contents, so I just want to respond to some of his critics.
1. Apparently, his earliest critics complained that he wasn't using a method approved by professional linguists. His response is that linguistics only made progress AFTER someone (Sir William Jones in 1786) used the same method that he was using, and if it is illegitimate for him to use it, then it was illegitimate for that person to use it, too, which would throw out all of linguistics and not just his work.
2. "Languages change too much over time for the earliest language to have left any traces." But we don't know this. Artistic styles in ancient Egypt didn't change at all over a few millennia, so why MUST language change? If language was thought of as sacred, then it may not have changed for thousands of years.
3. "Ruhlen chose the data that would give him the conclusions he wanted." Ruhlen used data to show that in the earliest language, "tik" means one and "pal" means two. Anyone who disagrees can do their own study showing that "pal" means one and "tik" means two. As far as I know, no one has done this.
4. "Going back that far leaves too much to chance." Let's say that the probability of our reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European is 90% accurate. Going back to its proto language would give 81% accuracy, and going back yet further would give 73%. 73% is of course as not as accurate as 90%, but on the other hand, it means that the reconstruction is more likely to be right than not, and that is more than I would have expected. Of course, if the original reconstruction were only 75% accurate, then by the third reconstruction we would be at 42%, which isn't very impressive. Now if mainstream linguists want to say their work is at best 75% accurate, then they've got a good objection, but I suspect they want to say their own work is better than that.
5. "Ruhlen whines." The logic that Ruhlen used in the first point I listed above I found to be quite clear and compelling. Nevertheless, another reviewer, Robert L. Trask, utterly failed to understand it. Trask was a professor of linguistics at the time he wrote his review, whereas the back cover of this book doesn't even give an affiliation for Ruhlen. The fact that a professor of linguistics couldn't understand the simple logic that someone who wasn't a professor used is, I think, an excellent reason to complain. I don't think of it as whining.
By the way, when I first heard of Ruhlen, he was teaching high school, but he is now apparently at Stanford, a move up that is well deserved.
Groundbreaking ideas for the non-specialist.......2007-08-17
I have given this book 5 stars because of the potential significance of the ideas it contains. The book is a bit quirky and I can see why those trained in linguistics might give it the thumbs down. The methods and approach that are described in the book are not rigorous. However, they are designed to present a few important concepts and in that regard, I think the book succeeds.
First of all, this book and its author have been seriously challenged by mainstream academics. But it is worth pointing out that there are two sides to any debate. In a nutshell, the author bases his ideas (in part) on those of his mentor Greenberg and he presents the idea that it is possible to identify protolanguages that existed and form the basis for the language families of today. In itself, that is nothing terribly new or controversial. It is well understood that languages like Hindi, German, Welsh, Latin, English, Greek, Hittite etc. all fall into a common language family known as Indo-European and that a proto-indo-european (PIE) language may have been spoken somewhere in eastern Europe or the middle east thousands of years ago.
Rather than review the book in depth, I would like to take the space provided here to argue against the critics of this book. The book becomes controversial when the suggestion is made that remnants of an original common world language can be identified from a few common words found in many of the world's existing languages.
The major criticisms of this idea are (as I understand it):
1) Ruhlen does not use methodology that is considered appropriate by most linguists. He uses a global comparison approach which many linguists believe favours the identification of chance similarities. Ruhlen himself argues elsewhere that the length of the words he has identified rules out the possibility of chance comparison. Because I do not know any way of easily evaluating this statistically, I cannot comment on this argument. However, as a scientist, I would never dare to argue that something was not true solely because the only method that was accepted by the academic community provided no evidence for its truth.
2) It is argued that the rate of language change is too great for there to be any possibility of comparison between major language families. Here I have to differ. Of course I am not a linguist. But it seems to me obvious that the rate of change of languages depends on many social and geographic factors. A larger population might be expected to have a more stable language structure than a smaller population for example. It is argued that over just a few hundred years, French and English have changed almost to the point of being different languages. This may be true, but obviously we can still easily discern similarities between Indo-European languages, for example.
So, how old is PIE? It is argued on the linguistic evidence (the reasoning seems a little circular here) that PIE is at least 3500 years old and probably about 5000-6000 years old. The problem here is that the archaeological evidence (we know for example that the Celts moved into Ireland soon after the end of the last Ice Age) and the genetic evidence argue against the mass movement of people (and therefore language) in recent millenia. For this reason alone, we might date PIE to at least 11,000 years ago. Of course the arguements linguists use to date languages are sophisticated and I am cautious in concluding that they are wrong. However, their dating is only as good as their methodology. They would argue that movement of people does not necessarily coincide with movement of language. Hmmm... yes, a ruling elite can impose its language on a majority subservient population (Anglo-Saxons, Normal French etc.) but there is not archaeological evidence for this sort of thing during the neolithic period, say in Ireland).
3) It has been argued that Proto-World (the original language) must be hundreds of thousands of years old and that this date is well beyond the period that similar words would be preserved. Here I must differ most strongly. Both the archaeology and the genetics suggest that language could have been invented approximately 50,000 years ago. This period coincides with the start of the great leap forward in artistic endeavour and the migration of people out of Africa. It also coincides with evidence for a major linguistic event (leap forward) as defined by a genetic sweep that occured in the FoxP2 gene which is linked to language acquisition. If we believe an older date for PIE of say about 10,000 BCE, then 50,000 BCE does not seem so distant.
The book presents some of the concepts of language families in an easy-to-digest fashion. This is also its weakness. If you are not trained in linguistics, this book will seem easy to read and enjoyable. If you are trained in linguistics, then its methodology may annoy you. Either way, it is ground-breaking stuff.
I can also recommend The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention by Guy Deutscher as an intelligent read and a great exposition of the mechanisms of language change.
A little shallow.......2006-07-03
I hoped a more scientific book, it starts with too many assumptions, but I have like and I think is worth reading it, at least reading it, since it's not a book to consult frquently.
Controversial Thesis: All Languages Come from One Source.......2006-02-05
This is Ruhlen's point. Based on modern similarities, all languages are related, some more distantly than others. At the end there is a "tree" showing the purported relationships between our language families. Ruhlen offers his case; he does not prove it. And with the exception of a handful of words, he does not attempt to recognize *Proto-World. He argues that reconstruction is unnecessary.
This book is for the lay reader. It offers a small group of words from a group of languages, and asks the reader to compare them. In each case the careful reader will find the intended relationships. Thus "The Origin of Language" guides the cooperative reader to accept the existence of language families, and then, and here's the controversial part, to accept the existence of links between families.
At first I found this infuriating. I was not a cooperative reader. After all, I have always known that there are several major language families and several isolates, each separate from the others. Ruhlen hand-picked words that would make his point. But as I read on, I accepted first that he was making a case that I disagreed with and that was likely wrong. And by the end, my previous thinking had been shaken.
"New Synthesis"
"The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" falls into a category of scholarship that seems to go by the name "new synthesis." Mutually supporting bits of linguistic, archaeological, genetic, and social evidence are woven together to tell the story of humans leaving Africa and spreading, first along the shores of the Indian Ocean and on to New Guinea and Australia, later to the interior and western parts of Eurasia (and even later to the Americas). Authors including Renfrew and Cavelli-Sforza have written, in their own fields, books which fit into this new synthesis. A nice introduction would be Steve Olsen's "Mapping Human History."
Worth a Look
You may not agree with Merritt Ruhlen's thesis. But if you curious about the origins of language, you should take a look at this short volume. Reject it if you will, but at least you will know what the "lumpers," the single origin people are claiming.
OK, now comes the hard part. .......2005-09-24
This book, written for lay readers, ventures two arguments. One, which seems plausible enough, is that existing linguistic families correspond to genetic markers in the peoples who originally spoke them, and are related in a similar tree that relates human populations. The other, far more controversial, is that just as *Homo sapiens sapiens* is the offspring of a single stock and a common group of ancestors, so also are all human languages related; and in fact some root words of Proto-Human can be reconstructed by the comparative method.
Amateur philologists like myself will naturally jump at such a tantalizing suggestion; and perhaps one test of how good an amateur you are is to see how many problems you can find with his development of the themes.
His basic method, like Joseph Greenberg's, is bulk comparison of vocabulary. Few attempts to reconstruct underlying forms are made here, with some conspicuous exceptions. His method is to present words in lists, and invite readers to perceive similarities themselves; an interesting rhetorical ploy that makes the reader the accomplice in setting up the main thesis. In these lists, reconstructed forms from protolanguages appear unmarked next to vocabulary items taken from wide ranges of existing lnaguages; there's no reassurance that any of the words in one of his rows are from the same language, or are actually attested forms. The same is true of the long lists of words cited in text: protolanguages appear besides dozens of obscure languages. Nouns, verbs, and grammatical particles or inflections appear alongside one another in the same list.
The rest of the book is taken towards presenting an argument that explains why reconstructions or analyses of the history of his roots will not be forthcoming. Ruhlen argues that no such analysis was necessary to identify Indo-European, which was discovered on the strength of word lists alone. One flaw in this argument is that scientific hypotheses are not thumbs-up or thumbs-down propositions; rather, they gain or lose confidence depending on the depth, power, and detail of their explanatory power. It isn't that these word lists aren't enough to get to "maybe," it's that they aren't enough to go further than that.
In any case, phonological and historical rules *do* appear in the text. Ruhlen notes correctly that often a /k/ sound is voiced to /g/, or that /t/ sounds can be palatized to /c/ or /s/ sounds. These phonological rules let Ruhlen cast a wider net, allowing more and more words from different languages to be mustered as evidence. They *never* appear as historical grounds to reject a purported cognate, on the ground that the inherited form in this particular branch must have changed in an intermediate stage prior to the observed form in one language.
The bottom line is that Ruhlen's hypothesis stalls at the "maybe" stage. Someone is going to have to do the harder work of actual historical linguistics here if this hypothesis is going to be able to move past that stage.
Customer Reviews:
Wemoon 07.......2007-05-12
Of and for female connection to one another, our ancestory, and the earth.
Loyal We'mooner.......2007-02-11
I love this datebook so much that I buy it anew every year for many years now. Filled with beautiful images from a huge variety of artists, poetry, musings, and seasonal lore as well as astrological data for every day of the year, it brings alive my planning in a spirited context. I have grown accustomed to having my trusty little we'moon at my side. If you love earth based feminist luna praise, you will love this datebook. It rocks. Not for the weak willed.
Great Datebook!.......2007-01-18
This datebook has beautiful artwork, poetry and stories. It has astrological information, sabbat information, lunar phases, and even a planetary ephemeris. I'd recommend this to any woman. I'm totally hooked.
A beautiful, amazing calendar.......2007-01-11
I have bought this calendar every year for the past 6 years... I give them out as gifts to friends... and it never ceases to amaze me how accurate the yearly forcasts are.
INTERESTING, INFORMATIVE AND FUNCTIONAL.......2007-01-10
MY YOUNGER SISTER WANTED THIS FOR CHRISTMAS, SO I ORDERED IT, RECEIVED IT AND WAS UNHAPPY THAT I DIDN'T HAVE MORE TIME TO SPEND LOOKING AT IT BEFORE SHIPPING IT OFF TO HER FOR CHRISTMAS. THE PICTURES AND INFORMATION WERE BOTH EXCEPTIONAL. INFORMATION ABOUT DIFFERENT CULTURES, WOMEN AND PHASES OF THE MOON. THE PICTURES WERE BOTH COLORFUL AND INTERESTING. I DID THINK ABOUT ORDERING ONE FOR MYSELF BUT I ALREADY HAD ENOUGH CALENDARS FOR 2007. MAYBE I'LL WISH FOR ONE FOR MYSELF NEXT CHRISTMAS.
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The Babel of the Unconscious: Mother Tongue and Foreign Languages in the Psychoanalytic Dimension
Jacqueline, M.D. Amati-Mehler , and
Jorge Canestri
Manufacturer: Intl Universities Pr Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0823605302 |
Book Description
"It is a great beauty of a book, and I am so proud of you for standing with and for the disappeared. A sister, a lover, a witness."
--Alice Walker
Mary is nineteen and living alone in Albuquerque. Adrift in the wake of her mother's death, she longs for something meaningful to take her over. Then José Luis enters her life. A refugee from El Salvador and its bloody civil war, José has been smuggled to the United States as part of the sanctuary movement.
Mary cannot help but fall in love with the movement and the man. And little by little, she begins to reveal to José Luis the part of herself she has never known. . . .
"A book that becomes more timely every day, in our present political climate, and deserves the widest possible audience for its beautiful prose and humanitarian heart."
--Barbara Kingsolver
"Demetria Martínez has pulled out all the stops: here is truth to arouse any hardened heart; here is the 'insanity' of a woman in love calling forth a revolutionary lucidity. Read it. Get angry. And act."
--Luis J. Rodríguez, Author of Always Running
Customer Reviews:
Perspective Shifted.......2002-04-15
You can tell the author is a poet. This story was beautifully written, insightful and certainly rang true. When I finished reading it I felt I had gained a new perspective about how it must be for people who have their homeland torn apart by war. They love their homes, so the answer isn't just fleeing to freedom and safety. For some, there just is no answer. This book turned on new lights for me and moved as well as frustrated me. We can't just save the world with our wealth and generosity, as such actions are viewed by so many good and honest people as signs of arrogance and naivety. I enjoyed the closure the author proveded with the epilogue (after all, it was in part, a love story), but in reality the fugitive's fate probably would remain a mystery. This is a wonderful book, a keeper.
Political torture and the fight against it.......2000-07-27
In Martinez's book we find that the character that has suffered political torture and extreme punishment for his beliefs is not able to truly give of himself that which has been taken away from him. Yet, as it often the case in human life a second chance comes and a new life comes of it, free to see life in a new way and to maintain the vigil for human rights and for the survival of the planet as well. I particularly loved the description of the sorrounding area where the two main characters fall in love. Good book.
I was not impressed.......1999-04-14
I don't think this book is that incredible. It starts off interesting, but the end is wrapped up much too neatly. Also, I don't think the focus of this book is the love affair between the two main characters, as some reviewers have said. I think it is more about the narrator's exploration of herself. I like reading Sandra Ciseneros or Cherrie Moraga much better.
A moving and tender novel.......1998-09-27
This is a incrediblebook. The images she creates through her words are not just heartbreakingly beautiful but the anguish of love is something we can all relate to. It's all consuming nature is well explored here with the story gradually proceeding through this woman's life and the effects this one man has had on her. A definite must read, especially if you liked "Like Water For Chocolate".
A SERIOUS LOVE STORY BETWEEN 2 HISPANICS IN CRISIS.......1998-04-09
The characters of Maria & JoseLuis were well written. You could feel the emotional anguish of Maria and the physical pain of Jose. Its rare to read a novel portraying 2 hispanics in non-stereotypical roles. I applaud writer Demetria and hope to read more of her novels.
Average customer rating:
- Fun listening - you can hear the difference
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The Mother Tongue
Bill Bryson
Manufacturer: Books on Tape, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
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ASIN: 0736620699 |
Book Description
"More than 350 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to." Thus begins Bill Bryson's engaging jaunt through the quirks and byways of the world's most baffling language.
Bryson covers the entire history of language, from the first crude utterings of Neanderthal man to the explosion of English as a global language in this century. We learn why "island," "freight," and "colonel" are spelled in such unphonetic ways, and why "four" has a "u" in it while "forty" does not. We also discover that Noah Webster occasionally plagiarized and that Samuel Johnson ("Dictionary Johnson"), though no plagiarist, was often careless and inaccurate.
"MOTHER TONGUE is a book that will, like the English language itself, amuse, delight and occasionally astonish you." (Publisher's Source)
Customer Reviews:
Fun listening - you can hear the difference.......2002-07-28
This book contains more than you expect. Bill Bryson covers language its self with a focus on English. The book covers speech from a historical view, a physical view, an environmental view, a utilitarian view, and many other views. You will want to play the tape over again as it cruses through many concepts that leave you thinking and speculating how it could have all gone differently.
A highlight for me (aside from his dirty word list) was the recognition that we try to impose Old Latin syntaxes on Modern English and it can get reticules.
My only disappointment comes when he mentions things I have already read and gets it wrong or off the mark.
The advantage of the tape is that you actually hear the pronunciations. When it is a matter of spelling the reader will spell it out for you. Also the reader has the ability to change accents to fit the dialect samples.
The disadvantage is when you want to turn back to a particular page for cross-reference; there is no page to turn. So I would be smart to won both versions.
Book Description
Story of a young mother who, missing out on some of the higher points in adolescence, recreates those lost moments with one or several teenage friends.
Customer Reviews:
More porn than erotica ...............2007-05-05
Although the title seems to be misleading it was defininitely smart enough of the author to keep me reading till the end of the book.
We have here a hot young mother, Cherry, who has a 15 year old son away at school, who gets to meet five of her sons schoolfriends as they basically move into her house while they wait the son to arrive for vacation.
Mommy dearest has no problems in munching on the boy toys while keeping an adult 'boyfriend' at bay for most of the book. Ramses, her son, whom everyone knows as Bob really doesnt't even show up until the end of the book .... and ... all the dirty little things I was waiting for never happen .....
Still its a great little porn book .. low on the erotica level ... but a fun read non the less .......
Product Description
The importance of the spoken and written word in Christian culture cannot be overestimated. In this English grammar guide, Nancy Wilson surveys the major concepts in English grammar for beginners at the late elementary and junior high level (even adults seeking a brush-up). Wilson avoids common, contrived sentences that serve merely to illustrate her point; instead, she uses many selections from Scripture and from great English writers which help to instruct the student through their content, style, and structure. In addition to a helpful format that highlights key definitions, punctuation issues, and important concepts, short historical sidebars tell the facinating story of the development of English. She continues the traditional and challenging exercise of sentence diagramming, which trains students to quickly ananlyze the structure of any given sentence. The grammatical explanations, the logic of diagrams, and the rhetoric of her examples blend with complementary emphases to create a helpful classical and Christian text.
Customer Reviews:
Not What I Expected but still a Good Reference Book.......2006-09-15
This book is very similiar in nature to First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind but adds a religious twist. It starts by devoting a section to learning the 8 parts of speech and goes on in later pages to tell about clauses, phrases and concludes with a glossary. I like the word origin part that tells how the English language came to be.
There are a few assignments for each section which is why I give it 4 stars. I would say that this is more a reference with a few assignments thrown in for practice.
If you are looking for a complete solution for a school year, look further like maybe Complete Book of Grammar & Punctuation from the complete book series.
If you are on the other hand looking for reference material to teach lanaguage arts then this is an excellent choice.
Product Description
Hardback, with illustrated dust jacket, a humorous discussion of the English language and how it got the way it is, very informative
Customer Reviews:
So many factual errors and urban myths, more harm than good.......2007-06-26
Bill Bryson's book MOTHER TONGUE has an admirable goal, to present the evolution and current state of the English language in a simple and intriguing fashion. However, it is a book full of factual errors. On nearly every page this is an urban myth, folk etymology, or misunderstanding of linguistics.
Bryson writes charming travelogues - The Lost Continent is a book I'd recommend to any foreigner wanting to learn about rural America - but he is an amateur with an interest in wordplay and not a professional linguist. Much of the book appears to have been thrown together from older books on language for the popular reader, especially those of Otto Jespersen, Mario Pei, and Montagu, which themselves have been criticised for errors and oversimplications.
The errors of the book astound from the start any reader with the slighest knowledge of language. Bryson speaks of the Eskimos having a multitude of words for snow, though this urban myth causes linguists to shudder and has been soundly debunked in The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax. Bryson goes on to say that Russian has no words for "efficiency", "engagement ring", or "have fun", a preposterous statement that can be proved wrong by any Russian speaker. His knowledge of British history is also shaky, as he asserts that the Saxon invaders eliminated entirely the former Celtic inhabitants, but in reality they merely imposed their language and Britons now remain essentially the same people genetically as 4,000 years ago.
Every reader who speaks another language besides English will find a most annoying mistake in THE MOTHER TONGUE. For me, once a speaker of Esperanto, it was Bryson's ridiculous summary of the language. He begins by misspelling the name of the language's initiator. Then he asserts that the language has no definite articles - it does - but then gives a sample of the language in which this definite article he just denied is used twice (and misspelled once).
These are only a few examples, the book is filled with multitudes more.
While the birth and growth of the English language is a fascinating subject, it's a shame that it is spoiled in MOTHER TONGUE by an abundance of errors. If you are interested about how English got the way it is today, I'd recommend trying another book, one preferably written by someone with a degree in linguistics.
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Trinidad Yoruba: From Mother Tongue To Memory
Maureen Warner-Lewis
Manufacturer: University Press of the West Indies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 9766400547 |
Book Description
This bibliography was "designed to guide and assist researchers on Caribbean topics in the task of identifying published and unpublished works by Nettleford relevant to their interest. Further it is hoped that the bibliography will facilitate the researcher in determining the dominant trends in Nettleford's pursuit in the identity of the developing needs of the Caribbean. The bibliography covers published and unpublished works by Nettleford produced from 1950 to December 1995 . . . It also includes his choreography for the National Dance Theatre Company and the Little Theatre Movement Pantomime . . . A chronology of biodata of Nettleford's life and achievements is also included." Introduction
Books:
- The Nursing Mother's Companion: Revised Edition
- The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (Arkana)
- The Sugar Solution: Weight Gain? Memory Lapses? Mood Swings? Fatigue? Your Symptoms Are Real - And Your Solution is Here
- The Tenth Circle: A Novel
- The Ultimate Gift (The Ultimate Series #1)
- This Is Not the Life I Ordered: 50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down
- Three Complete Xanth Novels: A Spell for Chameleon; The Source of Magic; Castle Roogna
- Trail Guide to the Body: How to Locate Muscles, Bones, and More (3rd Edition)
- True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership (J-B Warren Bennis Series)
- ttyl (Talk to You Later-Internet Girls)
Books Index
Books Home
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