Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language

If reading a history of the English language seems a daunting task, do not despair. Lerer presents his concise history as a conversation with his reader and not as an encyclopedic form. Lerer's style of writing is familiar and close, like you are having light discourse with friends over a glass of wine. He writes in short, self-contained chapters, which smoothly take the reader from seventh century English to the present. It is a book that can be read in a few nights, or if one wishes, at a more leisurely pace which does not make one feel detached from the subject. During the course of this book, Lerer connects with his readers on many levels. He offers his own feelings of inadequacy about studying the language and provides his readers with a sense of immediacy about language change. Although some prior knowledge of linguistics may be helpful, Lerer's text is complete with an appendix and glossary of terms. So, while studying the English language may not seem like easy reading, be assured that Lerer's book provides readers with the experience of reading at ease.

Why is there such a difference between English spelling and pronunciation, and how did grammar rules develop? INVENTING ENGLISH is an engaging survey considering all the oddities of English: it not only covers these oddities but places them in rare American historical perspective, adding background to a survey where others would focus on linguistics alone. High school, college and public library holdings alike will find it a lively historical survey of how people discovered and developed new forms of expression bundled into the English language we know and use today. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

I found this book one of the best of its type. It gives a logical and understandable survey of the development of the English language from its earliest days -- the most interesting and illustrative part of the book -- to contemporary times. The first few chapters are particularly enjoyable though merit a second reading, not because of the presentation, but because of the complexity of the subject.

I ordered INVENTING ENGLISH the minute I read the reviews and was not disappointed. In fact, it exceeded my expectations. Lerer, a Stanford professor who has produced audio lectures on the English language as well as a considerable backlog of scholarship, has created a highly readable book that goes back to the very origins of the language--its sounds, rhythms, organization, meanings and looks--in post-Roman Britain and then follows its very organic, human trail forward from Old English to Middle English to the modern language that leaped an ocean, spread across the New World and is still evolving. Lerer has great passion for his topic and a gift for delivering information. While there is considerable technical content, it is incorporated effortlessly and backed up with a glossary and appendices. Citations from Old and Middle English literature are followed immediately by translations. With less than 300 pages, Lerer has to leap from lily pad to lily pad in time to show how the language grew with expanding human experience and was influenced by historical acts, but he seems to hit all the key moments: Caedmon in the 7th century wrapping his consonant-dense bluntish language around Christian concepts; chroniclers documenting daily lives and events; King Alfred organizing a nation state; the Norman Conquest introducing French and a language of court apart from a language of the countryside; Chaucer seizing on the internationalism of King Richard's reign; the Great Vowel Shift; Shakespeare inventing our modern language; orthographers attempting to corral it; American colonists consciously shaping it their way; and those who have continued to use it to interpret experience and communicate life, influenced by technology, warfare, politics and globalization. There is something beautiful in a language where at the very beginning on a cold, rough shore, users were calling the ocean the "swan-road" and the "whale-road" and the word for poet was the word that became today's "shaper." It is amazing to see that even in times when human endeavor has been at its most self-destructive, the language has been able to flower and step forward.

This isn't intended to be a review. Just that I found the book to be extremely readable, very exacting, very interesting from its historic and modern social perspective (and insights), and incredibly human. From its interesting contrasting of Anglian from Saxon dialects, to its description of 21st century ethnic speech, it keeps the reader informed and fascinated. Each chapter could be read independently of the others. I have long been interested in the subject of English language history, and found this to be concise, eloquent and inspiring.