The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language

By Melvyn Bragg

“A captivating history” of the world’s second most widely spoken language, from ancient dialect to digital slang (The Daily Telegraph).
 
What role did the Black Death play in the development of the English language? Where did “the real McCoy” come from? Why is Singlish on the rise? In what ways in language evolving in the age of the internet? How and why did “kirc” become “church”? And what’s the difference between autumn and fall?
 
Here is the riveting history of the English language, from its humble beginnings (around 500 AD) as a regional dialect to its current preeminence as a truly global language, estimated to be spoken or understood by as many as two billion people worldwide. Along the way, its colorful story involves a host of remarkable people, places, and events: the Norman invasion of England in 1066; the arrival of The Canterbury Tales and a “coarse” playwright named William Shakespeare, who added 2,000 words to the language; the songs of slaves; the words of Davy Crockett; and the Lewis and Clark expedition, which led to hundreds of new words as the explorers discovered unknown flora and fauna.
 
In this “thorough and incredibly enjoyable trip down a linguistic memory lane” (Bloomsbury Review)—the basis of an eight-part History Channel documentary—Melvyn Bragg shows how English conquered the world. It is a magnificent adventure, full of jealousy, intrigue, and war—against a horde of invaders, all armed with their own conquering languages, which bit by bit, the speakers of English absorbed and made their own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781628720242

Melvyn Bragg

Melvyn Bragg is a writer and broadcaster. His novels includeThe Hired Man, for which he won the Time/Life Silver Pen Award, Without a City Wall, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, The Soldier's Return, winner of the W H Smith Literary Award, A Son of War and Crossing the Lines, both of which were longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and most recently Grace and Mary and Now is the Time. He has also written several works of non-fiction, including The Book of Books, In Our Time, The Adventure of English and 12 Books that Changed the World. He lives in London and Cumbria.