The Stories of English (1)

Trama

How did a language originally spoken by a few thousand Anglo-Saxons become one used by more than 1,500 million people? How have all the different versions of English evolved and changed? In this compelling global tour, David Crystal turns the history of the language on its head and tells the real stories of English that have never been fully told.

The Stories of English is a history of the language by David Crystal. Crystal provides an original view of where the richness, creativity, and diversity of the language truly lies - in the accents and dialects of nonstandard English users all over the world. Whatever their regional, social, or ethnic background, each group has a story worth telling, whether it is in Scotland or Canada, South Africa or the United States - and Crystal relates the fascinating and sometimes arcane details.

Interwoven throughout the central chronological story are accounts of uses of dialect around the world, as well as in classics from The Canterbury Tales to The Lord of the Rings. For the first time, regional speech and writing is placed center stage, giving a sense of the social realities behind the development of the English language. This shift in perspective enables the reader to understand, for the first time, the importance of everyday, previously marginalized voices in our language and provides an argument for the way English should be taught in the future.