Why is there such a striking difference between English spelling and English pronunciation? How did our seemingly relatively simple grammar rules develop? What are the origins of regional dialect, literary language, and everyday speech, and what do they have to do with you? Seth Lerer's Inventing English is a masterful, engaging history of the English language from the age of Beowulf to the rap of Eminem. Many have written about the evolution of our grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but only Lerer situates these developments in the larger history of English, America, and literature. Lerer begins in the seventh century with the poet Caedmon learning to sing what would become the earliest poem in English. He then looks at the medieval scribes and poets who gave shape to Middle English. He finds the traces of the Great Vowel Shift in the spelling choices of letter writers of the fifteenth century and explores the achievements of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of 1755 and The Oxford English Dictionary of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.He describes the differences between English and American usage and, through the example of Mark Twain, the link between regional dialect and race, class, and gender. Finally, he muses on the ways in which contact with foreign languages, popular culture, advertising, the Internet, and e-mail continue to shape English for future generations. Each concise chapter illuminates a moment of invention-a time when people discovered a new form of expression or changed the way they spoke or wrote. In conclusion, Lerer wonders whether globalization and technology have turned English into a world language and reflects on what has been preserved and what has been lost. A unique blend of historical and personal narrative, Inventing English is the surprising tale of a language that is as dynamic as the people to whom it belongs.

Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language

History

Seth Lerer

Asia

COLUMBIA UNIV^PRESS

Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Culture and the Arts of Deceit

Cambridge University Press

36 Lectures on 18 cassettes in 3 cases with Course Guides.

The History of the English Language Part 1 2 & 3 Great Courses The Teaching Company

Teaching Company

This course of 36 lectures surveys the history of the English language, from its origins as a dialect of Germanic-speaking peoples, through the literary and cultural documents of its 1,500-year history, to the state of American speech of the present day. The course is in three parts. Part I focuses on the development of English in its earliest forms. We begin with the study of Indo-European, the posited 5,000-year-old original from which the modern and classical European, Iranian, and Indian languages emerged. The lectures move to the Germanic branch of languages and to the Anglo-Saxons who settled the British Isles beginning in the fifth century. Old English emerges as the literary vernacular of the Anglo-Saxons and flourishes until the Norman Conquest in the mid-eleventh century. The interplay of English, French, and Latin from the eleventh to the fifteenth century generates the forms of Middle English in which Chaucer, among others, wrote, and gives us a sense of a trilingual medieval British culture. Part II begins with the emergence of English as an official language after the decline of French in the fifteenth century. This set of lectures charts the changes in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary that distinguish Middle English from Modern English. It looks closely at the rise of an English literary vernacular, and it suggests some ways in which we can trace changes in word meanings by using the resources of historical dictionaries. Part III focuses on American English and the modes of studying the history of the language today. Professor Seth Lerer is Avalon Foundation Professor in Humanities and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

The History of the English Language DVDs: The Teaching Company (The Great Courses)

The Teaching Company Limited Partnership

(12 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture) Course Lecture Titles 1. Introduction to Chaucer's Life and World 2. The Scope of Chaucer's Work 3. Chaucer's Language 4. Chaucerian Themes and Terms 5. Troilus and Criseyde-Love and Philosophy 6. Troilus and Criseyde-History and Fiction 7. The Canterbury Tales-The General Prologue 8. The Canterbury Tales-The First Fragment 9. The Wife of Bath 10. The Pardoner 11. "God's Plenty"-The Variety of The Canterbury Tales 12. Chaucer's Living Influence

Life and Writings of Geoffrey Chaucer CD Course (The Great Courses)

The Teaching Company

The History of the English Language Parts 1-3, 2nd Edition [DVD] [Jan 01, 2006] Seth Lerer and The Teaching Company ... 1598034030

The History of the English Language Parts 1-3, 2nd Edition

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