The Stories Of English David Crystal by David Crystal 9781585676019, 1585676012 instant download after payment.

The English language is accepted as the global lingua franca of the modern age. But how did it evolve? How did a language spoken originally by a few thousand Anglo-Saxons become one used by over a quarter of the human race?

The Stories of English is a groundbreaking history of the language by David Crystal, the world-renowned writer and commentator on English. Other books have been written about English, but they have focused on the educated, printed language called "standard" English. Crystal turns the history of English on its head and provides a startlingly 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 brilliantly 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 significant 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 m the future. The Stories of English is the compelling narrative history of a true global adventure.