The Oxford History of English

by Lynda Mugglestone

Overview

The Oxford History of English traces the language from its obscure Indo-European roots to its position as the world's first language. In accounts made vivid with examples from an immense range of documentary evidence, including letters, diaries, and private records, fifteen experts describe the history of English in all its versions, written and spoken. They reveal the language's rich and protean variety over the centuries and chart the progress of all its versions, standard, regional, and international. With impeccable and approachable scholarship, they describe and explain its constantly changing sounds, words, meanings, and grammar. This is a book for everyone interested in the English language, present and past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199544394
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	09/28/2008
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Dr Lynda Mugglestone is a University Lecturer in English and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. She has published widely on language in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. recent work includes Lexicography and the OED. Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest (Oxford University Press, 2002), 'Talking Proper'. The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol 2nd edn. (Oxford University Press, 2003), and Lost for Words. The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary (Yale University Press, 2004).

Table of Contents

Introduction: A History of the English Language, Lynda Mugglestone