The Stories of English
by David Crystal
The history of English is a complex story and Crystal makes it clear to readers what a paradoxical process has created the English language
Recommendations from our site
“This is an attempt to provide a standard history of English and it does that very well. It starts with the origins of Anglo-Saxon and moves on to the advent of the printing press and so forth. But what he does in addition is look at how English was not one language or one unified system – it was rather a family of systems that were growing up on the same island. That’s why he calls it ‘stories’ of English rather than ‘story.'” Read more...
The best books on The History and Diversity of Language
Nicholas Ostler, Linguist
