The adventure of English
Subtitle: 500AD to 2000 : the biography of a language
By: Melvyn Bragg
Edition: Large print ed.
Publisher: Windsor
Published: 2005
Place of publication: [Bath]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 425
ISBN-13: 9780754095583; 9781405610131
Subjects: Large type books; English language; History
Description: In this book Melvyn Bragg shows us the remarkable story of the English Language; from its beginnings as a minor guttural Germanic dialect to its position today as a truly established global language. Along the way its colorful story takes in a host of characters and locations, from the early tribes, Alfred the Great's stubborn resistance to the Danes, and through its early literary masterpieces such as Beowulf and the bawdy Geoffrey Chaucer; Henry VIII's battles with the church over bootleg bibles; a 'coarse' playwright named William Shakespeare; the songs of the Creole slaves and the worlds of Davy Crockett; street slang and Dr. Johnson's dictionary; the role of English in India and its adoption in the United States of America which returned the language with full interest.
Notes: Originally published: London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: 1. The Common Tongue; title: 2. The Great Escape; title: 3. Conquest; title: 4. Holding On; title: 5. The Speech of Kings; title: 6. Chaucer; title: 7. God's English; title: 8. English and the Language of the State; title: 9. William Tyndale's Bible; title: 10. A Renaissance of Words; title: 11. Preparing the Ground; title: 12. Shakespeare's English; title: 13. 'My America'; title: 14. Wild West Words; title: 15. Sold Down the River; title: 16. Mastering the Language; title: 17. The Proper Way to Talk; title: 18. Steam, Streets and Slang; title: 19. Indian Takeover; title: 20. The West Indies; title: 21. Advance Australia; title: 22. Warts and All; title: 23. All Over the World; title: 24. And Now ...?