The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

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The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 14,559 ratings · 1,068 reviews

With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson--the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent--brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often up...more

Paperback, 272 pages

Published October 23rd 2001 by William Morrow Paperbacks (first published June 28th 1990)

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Jun 23, 2007 Punk rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Non-fiction. Published in 1990, this book is already a little out of date. In its first pages, Bryson reports OED editor Robert Burchfield's theory that American English and British English are drifting apart so rapidly that within two hundred years we won't be able to understand each other. That was a theory made back when cell phones still required a battery the size of an unabridged dictionary, long before the internet became such a large part of the way the world communicates, in a time when...more Non-fiction. Published in 1990, this book is already a little out of date. In its first pages, Bryson reports OED editor Robert Burchfield's theory that American English and British English are drifting apart so rapidly that within two hundred years we won't be able to understand each other. That was a theory made back when cell phones still required a battery the size of an unabridged dictionary, long before the internet became such a large part of the way the world communicates, in a time when you couldn't imagine downloading a British Doctor Who or an American Stargate Atlantis to your iPod. We live in a new world! Unfortunately it's also a world where the Harry Potter books are "translated" for American readers, lest we be too confused by the lingo: "What's this? Harry's eating a biscuit? And wearing a jumper? While battling Fizzolian Snargletoothed Whatsits?! This book is impenetrable!" JK Rowling aside, with communication technology becoming smaller, cheaper, and more powerful, I think we'll still be able to communicate two hundred years down the line. Bryson eventually disagrees with Burchfield for many of the same reasons, though he was unable to cite the internet as a factor.

In that way, this book is showing its age -- the chapter on online language use is, of course, conspicuously absent -- but it's got the history part down. Bryson spends most of his time looking at how we got where we are today. Where English came from, how it got to England, where it went from there. With its in-text references, footnotes, extensive bibliography and index, this book looks almost academic, but Bryson, an American living in England, handles it all with a cheerfully low-key sense of humor -- almost as if Terry Pratchett had turned his eye to grammar -- and even a refreshingly open approach to the word fuck in the chapter on swearing.

My one complaint is that, despite being loosely hung on British and American history, for the most part the book lacks a greater structure and ends up reading like a series of interesting facts. But, hell, they got my attention, and, as it happened, the attention of everyone around me: "Hey! Did you know the Romans had no word for grey?" Since English, as this book proves, is a big crazy mess, I guess Bryson can be excused for not being able to wrangle its history into a more pleasing order. Lack of structure aside, I really enjoyed reading this and will be reading more books by Bryson in the future.(less)

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Jul 16, 2008 Julie (jjmachshev) rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everybody

Recommended to Julie (jjmachshev) by: Eastofoz (and thanks!)

Shelves: 2008-reads

What a hilarious, fascinating, and educational look at our wacky, wonderful, and WAY complicated language. If English is your mother tongue, this book will amaze and amuse you with interesting tidbits about just how our language evolved into the wonder it is. If you had to learn English as a second language (and more power to you), then bless your heart for taking on the task. You will read this book, and say YES, absolutely, I always wondered..., etc. Bill Bryson turns his sharp-eyes to "The Mo...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Michael rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, read-before-2012, read-in-english

I have to share my discontent with the world after keeping the words bottled up inside me for so long.

I bought this book about two or three years ago, thinking it might be an entertaining read that might fill me in on some of the historical aspects of the English language. I had already read "A Short History Of Nearly Everything", and, knowing nothing about science, thought it was a rather entertaining read, even though I had some... well, doubts about the book since I tend to favour more system...more I have to share my discontent with the world after keeping the words bottled up inside me for so long.

I bought this book about two or three years ago, thinking it might be an entertaining read that might fill me in on some of the historical aspects of the English language. I had already read "A Short History Of Nearly Everything", and, knowing nothing about science, thought it was a rather entertaining read, even though I had some... well, doubts about the book since I tend to favour more systematic and precise literature over a tapestry of facts with entertainment and jokes woven in.

I also believe this to be one of the few books I have on my Goodreads shelves worthy of one star only.

Why?

Before I start, let me tell you two things: it has been a long time since I read the book, so my memory may not be as fresh anymore.

The second thing I would like to mention is that I have some kind of idea about linguistics, but am not a linguist; where I am, however, a kind of expert, is in the study of foreign languages. I am therefore intimately acquainted with the workings of many foreign languages -- though almost all of them are European. I have also rather extensively studied the historical connections between languages and their classification in language families and so on.

It is painfully obvious that Bryson speaks no foreign languages. Fine. Neither does Chomsky and he knows a thing or two about linguistics. You don't have to be a multilingual prodigy to study linguistics, after all. But I digress.
Bryson makes the same mistake most monolingual speakers of any language make: they think of their language as something unique. Bryson tries to justify the popularity of the English language not with historical or political arguments (because I am sure that the colonization of a significant part of the world by the British Empire and the subsequent cultural and political hegemony of the United States had nothing to do with it -- nooo, English is magic!), but rather seems to believe that English has, through some kind of divine intervention, been miraculously endowed with characteristics that have made it "beat the other languages"... as if linguistics were some kind of free-market economy where the best product gets the biggest share of the market.
Bryson then tries to argue the point with facts that are, while true for the most part, totally irrelevant. Seriously, this is like reading a paper by a student who's been watching one too many linguistic quiz shows on ITV, if such a thing existed; someone who likes to read trivia sections, and then pieces together the information obtained therefrom and tries to pass it off as knowledge to people unfortunate enough to be more ignorant than him.
One "fact" that makes the English language so great, he says, is that it has "so many more words than all the other languages". How many words a language has, Bill, is not only something that cannot accurately be ascertained, but also something that is completely irrelevant. Why? In brief, language create composita in a different way, for instance; so where you might create a million different random words in German, in other languages, you have to link them together, meaning you will have less dictionary hits. Not that that has any bearing on the "quality" of the language. Some languages even HAVE to make more words because they have agglutinative qualities (such as Hungarian and Turkish; meaning they lump prefixes, suffixes, and other elements together, creating big lump words). Also, English is the dominant language of science; as such, a lot of the scientific vocabulary is included in dictionaries. Not that these words are usually English (except for the newer sciences like computer science, of course); they often come from Latin or Ancient Greek anyway. There are also more dictionaries being produced in English on account of it being more "popular", and the commercial production of English being more viable. As such, its lexicography can be assumed to be more advanced. "Word count" is as irrelevant as the number of brain cells or the size of the brain with regards to intelligence.
This is my biggest beef with Bill's book. At one point, I had to stop reading. I should read it again and reiterate some of the other numerous "arguments" Bill Bryson puts forward in favour of the English language. I can only advise the author to commit himself to the study of foreign languages for a while, and to understand that "fun facts", no matter how objectively true they are, don't always have the meaning or significance someone thinks they have if one is not familiar with the field being discussed. Unfortunately, Bryson probably thought that he can easily trespass on this territory, since everyone who is able to speak must be a linguist.
My review may sound harsh, but this book definitely does more harm than good.
And people should remember that "fun fact" books, be they about natural sciences or linguistics, do not represent knowledge. I am sure that people endowed with a deeper understanding of natural science have shaken their head at "A Short History Of Nearly Everything" as well.(less)

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Apr 28, 2008 Charity rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, brit-lit

Did you know that drumstick was coined in the 19th century because polite society could not bring itself to utter the word leg? Or that Shakespeare gave us no less than 1700 new words including barefaced, frugal, dwindle, and summit?

Bill Bryson, an American transplanted to England, traces the history of English on both sides of the Atlantic. He explains the evolutionary accident that altered the human larynx and enabled us to speak. He traces the origins of English's naughtiest words, and offers...more

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Sep 03, 2008 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: adela

I got this book from Madonna.

Loving every page of this book, as it really keeps rolling on and keeps getting more and more interesting.

However, I have to be fair to Steve who said something to the effect of "it was the same thing over and over again - every page: 'The English Language is f***ed up... blah blah blah... look how f***ed up the English Language is... blah blah blah... here's another example of how f***ed up English is, as a language... blah blah blah' etc."
He's totally right. That's...more

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Jun 03, 2008 Ceci rated it 2 of 5 stars

The one thing that bothered me the most about this book was a huge error it had on swearwords, in reference to my mother tongue Finnish:

(p. 210, Ch. Swearing, in my Penguin paperback:) “Some cultures don’t swear at all. (…) The Finns, lacking the sort of words you need to describe your feelings when you stub your toe getting up to answer a phone at 2.00 a.m., rather oddly adopted the word “ravintolassa.” It means ‘in the restaurant.’"

I mean, what the hell?! We Finns have probably the world's mo...more

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Nov 28, 2008 Garver rated it 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Oliver for putting this one up here. It's a great tour of the history of the English language, from its origins to its current diffusion as the de facto business language of the world. The story of English is told with Bryson's characteristic wit and mother tongue-in-cheek asides -- though the book is a bit outdated and contains some points now known to be apocryphal.

I prefer nonfiction that changes the way you put things in context, that gives you a new lens to view everyday things....more

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Jul 18, 2012 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Is the fact that my grandfather gave me this book reason enough to keep reading? Some of the stories are interesting, and even reasonably factual, but at other times the failed fact-checking is glaringly obvious--and come on, the perpetuation of the "Eskimo Snow Myth"?
I think the lesson here is that as a linguist, I should not be reading popular writings about language. It's true that there are a thousand interesting things to encounter in the history of the English language, replete as it is wi...more

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Mar 20, 2009 Peter Macinnis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: language, history, reference

I'm a writer, and I don't hold with slam-dunking other writers in print, because they can't reply. In a more open medium like this, I am prepared to serve Bryson as he serves others, but with a little less barren pedantry.

It's an excellent book, but like so many foreigners, Bryson thinks a quick tour makes him an expert on all things Australian. WRONG!!

We don't say cookie, we say biscuit. Getting that wrong is clumsy.

We don't normally say "labor", we call it labour. The sole exception is in the...more

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Jul 17, 2010 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Michael by: Kim

Shelves: non-fiction, 1990s

Recently I read ‘Made In America’ by Bill Bryson, so I thought it would be appropriate to read ‘Mother Tongue’ as well. Though there was a fair chunk of similar information in both books, ‘Mother Tongue’ is just more relevant. While ‘Made in America’ focused on the history of English in America; ’Mother Tongue’ focuses mainly on the history of English in general. Trying to cover questions like, “Why is there a ‘u’ in four and not in forty?” or “Why do we tell a lie and tell the truth?”

Bill Bryso...more

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May 24, 2008 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: language, non-fiction

I found this history of English to be quite readable and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. While somewhat dated, it still has interesting information. I've read about the general history of English more than once, but I certainly wasn't bored reading Bryson's version. I especially appreciate this book for the chapters on names, swearing, and wordplay, and also about the use of English around the world, as these were topics that I haven't read much about in other books on English. That said, I s...more

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May 18, 2008 Jan rated it 3 of 5 stars

A topic of interest written by one of my favourite authors - I was excited to find it on a bookshelf but in the end it took quite a long time to read. While reading this book it felt like Bryson deliberately got muddled and wallowed in the irregularities and complexities of language, so in a sense it wasn't as clear to read as A Short History of Nearly Everything. In some reviews of A Short History of Nearly Everything I read that some factual mistakes had crept into print as they have done in T...more

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Feb 29, 2008 Corrielle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I am an English teacher. I like grammar. It fascinates me. I like knowing big words and little words and word histories and word games. Being at a computer with access to the online version of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) can provide me with endless hours of amusement. So, this book was a treat for me. Bill Bryson writes with an exuberance and excitement about what English (and language in general) is capable of that is infectious and uplifting. Though it is not a comprehensive history of...more I am an English teacher. I like grammar. It fascinates me. I like knowing big words and little words and word histories and word games. Being at a computer with access to the online version of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) can provide me with endless hours of amusement. So, this book was a treat for me. Bill Bryson writes with an exuberance and excitement about what English (and language in general) is capable of that is infectious and uplifting. Though it is not a comprehensive history of the English tongue, it does drop in at key moment and point out some of the really interesting, weird, trivial tidbits. At the same time, he recognizes some of the strange idiosyncrasies of English that make it ridiculously difficult for non-native speakers to learn. Unlike other pieces on English I've read that are uncomfortably superior sounding, this one points out some of the places where other languages can easily express concepts that English speakers don't have precise words for. I also learned that a lot of the rules we hapless grammar teachers try to impart to our students have somewhat dubious origins. For instance, I learned that using a preposition at the end of a sentence, as I have just done a couple of sentences before, is only considered improper because a fellow who wrote an influential book on grammar in England decided HE thought it sounded common and ungraceful. I was also fascinated by all of the words that were once common in Britain that have fallen out of use there, are still in use here, and are now viewed as "Americanisms." In fact, the section on the "drift" between various English speaking countries was very neat. I knew a lot of the Brit-speak already (thank you, year in London and Age of Sail fandom...) but I really liked the argument that British English, Australian English, and American English aren't drifting apart as fast as they might because of the ease of communication and the media shared between the countries. It made a lot of sense to me.

Anyway, I found this to be a useful, witty, fun collection of facts and oddities concerning English.(less)

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Jan 31, 2008 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2008

Published: 1990

How I discovered: A Xmas present from Jamie, who is one of the world's biggest Bryson fans.

What I liked: Everything! It's deliciously entertaining for word-lovers. Bryson has a wealth of knowledge and does his research well, presenting it all with his witty sarcasm and dry humor. There are chapters on history, etymology, dialects, spelling, grammar, surnames, and even swearing.

What I didn't: I can't think of a single thing I didn't like.

What I learned: Too much to state here. The...more

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Dec 21, 2007 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical, nonfiction

I first ran into Bryson in one of his travel books (A Walk in the Woods), and have read several other of his travelogues since (I'm A Stranger Here Myself, Notes from a Small Island, In a Sunburnt Country, and Neither Here Nor There). But while Bryson's travel writing is entertaining, I've found that I like his writing about other things even better. A Brief History of Nearly Everything was remarkably good, and I'm very fond of both Bryson's books about the English language: The Mother Tongue an...more

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Sep 19, 2007 JG (The Introverted Reader) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, read_in_2007, reviewed, 2_stars, author_american

I checked this book out of my local library expecting to find it as funny as most of the other Bill Bryson books I've read. It wasn't funny at all.

It's exactly what the title says it is, a book about "English and how it got that way." Bryson's wit would flare up occasionally, but mostly it was buried under a lot of dry trivia about the evolution, spread, and adaptation of the English language. The only things I really retained were the fact that the longest word in the English language is a chem...more

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Jul 25, 2008 Genevieve rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an engaging tour of the English language. Some passages made me laugh out loud, and I read it quickly, because so often I simply didn't want to put it down.

It's not a perfect book. Written in 1990, it's out-of-date already. For example, I wondered how many of the regionalisms that Bryson describes have diminished in the last 20 years. The numbers he gives (of native English speakers, for instance, or people studying Russian) are almost certainly wrong. And of course, he was not able to t...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Marc Maitland added it

Although I found the book a good read - inevitably the case with Mr. Bryson's tomes - perhaps because it was written in 1991, almost 20 years ago, I found it lacking in certain respects.

For example, Mr. Bryson wrote of the effects that mass immigration have had on the position of English as a language in the U.S.A., and that some are so fearful of it losing its primacy there that it has become the "official languange" in several States, he made no mention of the threat to the "mother tongue" in...more Although I found the book a good read - inevitably the case with Mr. Bryson's tomes - perhaps because it was written in 1991, almost 20 years ago, I found it lacking in certain respects.

For example, Mr. Bryson wrote of the effects that mass immigration have had on the position of English as a language in the U.S.A., and that some are so fearful of it losing its primacy there that it has become the "official languange" in several States, he made no mention of the threat to the "mother tongue" in the Mother Country by a politically-correct state that regards a requirement to be reasonably proficient in English as a prerequisite for Citizenship as tantamount to zenophobia, and the huge interpretation industry that has mushroomed in the U.K. in recent years.

Also, most surprisingly, Mr. Bryson made little mention on one of the most fascinating aspects of English in England - that of class. That, for example, one can tell which class (whether it matters or not is a different subject) one belongs to the minute someone opens their mouth in England, and the perceptions that flow can have dramatic and lifelong consequences for those concerned. Mr. Bryson has amusingly highlighted different meanings attributed to the same word depending on which side of the Atlantic one is (e.g. "fanny" in the U.S.A. simply means "bottom" whereas in the U.K. it has an altogether more risque meaning!), he has said nothing of the different ways certain words are pronounced by different classes in England. Since this can be a whole swathe of the comedy profession, it is rather surprising that he made no mention of the hilarity and confusion that can arise. Even a mere mention of the famous 1980s television advertisement series featuring the drink/word "Cockburns" would have served well. "Pygmalion" does get a mention somewhere, but much more ought to have been said about this fascinating division of English.

An updated book would also surely have to feature "textspeak" (as in telephone text messages), the internationalisation of English thanks to the Internet, quasi-English languages such as "Franglais", ridiculous extremes of accent engendered by class sub-groups, e.g. the Sloane Rangers of the 1980s/90s and such gems as "jawls" for "Charles" and "yah" as the stock reply to any conceivable oral statement, and too many others to mention.

So, overall, a nice book, well-written, but already outdated in certain respects and lacking some subject matter altogether. In fact, my suggestion would be for an expanded and updated second edition, which is long overdue.(less)

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May 23, 2013 Aleksi rated it 2 of 5 stars

Bryson's book on the English language is a compendium of linguistic trivia interspersed with the author's biased and misinformed musings on the history and features of the language. Published in 1990, the book was written before Internet changed the way the world communicates and hence a lot of the content regarding the spread of languages is hopelessly outdated by now.

Bryson is not a linguist, neither is he a historian. Therefore his attempts to explain the popularity and status of English as t...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Mark added it

Shelves: nonfiction-and-essays

As someone who has taught courses on "The History of the English Language" at the university and graduate levels, I'm probably not the best person to review this book, but I will say I loved it. It's an admirably concise and witty overview of a potentially boring subject, and Bryson's famous flair and charm run all the way through it. This is a great book for a general reader, but is neither comprehensive nor accurate enough to use as a coursebook. (For that you'd need to turn to the classics, B...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Johnbarefield rated it 2 of 5 stars

I thought this book would be ideal for me, since language is part of my degree and one of my interests. It turns out that was not the case, as I often found the book inaccurate and disorganized, a mere hodgepodge, as some of Bryson's books are. The first half of the book covered the history of the English language, which I am familiar with. I would have liked to know more, but this was just a bagatelle of often inaccurate or incomplete snippets of information.

The second half was better, and red...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Rebecca rated it 1 of 5 stars

I teach English as a foreign language but other than that linguistics and language learning is just a hobby, having said that, I know enough Irish, German, Czech, Russian and Spanish to know that the things he said about these languages are half truths or complete and utter codswallop. For example claiming that the German preposition/suffix "auf" is unusual among foreign words in that it has more than one meaning... anyone who has spent any time learning a language will tell you that all of them...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Molly Pace rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

The English language is spoken by about 300 million people worldwide. It is the most widely used language on the planet…sometimes with mixed results. This message appeared as a warning to English-speaking motorists in Tokyo: “When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor.” To be fair, though, the unfortunate sign-maker was not attempting a simple task. Any language where the un...more

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May 05, 2012 Jenny Smith rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ah, Bill Bryson- it's always a pleasure to read your work. Intelligent, funny, gently informative- a rare combination. Mother Tongue details the colourful evolution of the English language, or should I say this continued evolution...

Although published 21 years ago now, there are still many aspects of it that are relevant. However, there are many words around these days- chav, etc- that I daresay might not have been understood in the early nineties. Bryson explores how terms like this enter publ...more Ah, Bill Bryson- it's always a pleasure to read your work. Intelligent, funny, gently informative- a rare combination. Mother Tongue details the colourful evolution of the English language, or should I say this continued evolution...

Although published 21 years ago now, there are still many aspects of it that are relevant. However, there are many words around these days- chav, etc- that I daresay might not have been understood in the early nineties. Bryson explores how terms like this enter public consciousness to such a degree that there comes a time when you can't remember them NOT being there! At the moment, I am transcripting my grandad's life story from tapes that he recorded in the early 90's, and he often uses terms that are not in use today, such as 'the pictures' for the cinema. Who knows what the English language will be like towards the end of the 21st century? My grandchildren will probably be using words and terms that I don't understand...probably mostly related to imminent technology that I couldn't imagine in my wildest dreams.

Bryson explores all aspects of English, from the origin of names, swear-words, different dialects between and within countries, and of course, of the language itself. The present-day prevalence of English is misleading- it is more of a recent language, and more of a conglomorate of other langauges, than you might first assume. He even manages to make the explanation of grammar (a word that makes any English student shudder- or is that just me?) fun for the reader. The different dialects between and within countries was obviously one of the more interesting parts for me, having lived in Australia for a year and acquiring a Canadian boyfriend. It's crazy how people who speak the same language cannot understand each other; Patrick and I must have at least one linguistic misunderstanding every few weeks. Of course, I know of a few North-Americanisms from watching American films and comedies, but I honestly had no idea that words such as 'gutted', 'jumper', 'zebra crossing' and the greeting 'are you alright?' were so distinctly British. I knew that sweets were 'candy' in North America, but who knew they were 'lollies' in Australia? One of Britain's greatest assets- and frustrations for outsiders, probably- is our vast array of accents. 'Dinner' and 'lunch' mean one and the same in the North and South of England respectively; the former is the South's evening meal, which is called 'tea' in much of the North. Confused? Me too! But I LOVE the rich diversity of English dialects; it makes our tiny, often unpopular country all the more interesting and three-dimensional.

One thing I have learnt from traveling is the arrogance of the English when it comes to language. We just let other nations speak English rather than try to speak in their language. I have asked in travellers what they think of this; they just shrugged and said English was the 'travelling language'. They were probably being polite, but this context made reading Mother Tongue all the more fascinating for me. Why is English the language that everybody speaks? If it was not the main language of the USA- a huge global presence both politically and in the media- would everybody still feel the need to learn English? A tentative debate, especially among (the few) patriotic Brits. The reason the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand speak English is because of British colonisation, but ironically, I think the English language would have found it more difficult to survive without these nations. Our reliance on fellow English speakers was really brought home to us in China, where often nobody spoke English; we couldn't even find an English-speaking policeman in Beijing after the tea-scam incident. The Chinese characters meant that we couldn't even GUESS road-signs or shop names...thank god for train times being shown in regular numbers at train stations, or we'd never have gotten anywhere. I'm ashamed to say that this was the only country in which we used our Lonely Planet phrasebook everyday. In other Asian countries, learning 'hello', 'thank-you' and 'goodbye' was enough; their proficiency in English allowed us to be lazy. After the experience in China, I've definitely learnt that we should NEVER just 'assume'' that people will understand us...there's no reason why the majority of Chinese (people involved in business aside) should learn English. If they want to, that's fantastic, but by no means should it be expected of them for our benefit.

I apologise for mostly rabbiting on about my own experiences with English instead of the book, although this is by no means a reflection of the book's quality; Bryson's enthusiastic writing just accentuated my passion for language. His love for English is truly infectious, and he has half-inspired, half-put me off teaching English as a foreign language! It is a daunting, exciting prospect- Mother Tongue makes you realise just how complex English is- but I'm determined to try it at some point. I would love to read an updated version of this book, to see Bryson's opinion of the future of English right now. My prediction? After traveling Asia and managing to speak English pretty much everywhere (apart from China), I believe that tourism and the media will ensure the survival of English for a good few years to come. Saying that, I also hope that the English-speaking world will wake up out of their language laziness and start learning other languages too...this can only enhance empathy, understanding and friendships between nations.(less)

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Aug 19, 2011 Lynn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interesting, insightful, wide-ranging (there is even a chapter on swearing), and often quite funny, this book more or less lived up to the expectations I'd had since reading another Bryson book about the English language ("Made in America"). I did start to get a bit bored by the end (though perhaps this had more to do with being distracted by other things), and I did take exception to a few claims. (For example: Bryson says that it would be simpler to drop plural forms than the future tense. Rea...more

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Apr 19, 2011 Meg rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Though we don’t have official travel dates yet, Neil & I are still expecting our move abroad to happen sometime in mid- to late-June. As such, part of my relocation prep has been to start reading up on our new home to be. The Lonely Planet had a list of recommended travel books about England that seemed to offer a perfect mix to help give me ideas on where we might like to focus our travels & explorations once we arrive.

The very first book on their list was from one of my favourite* tra...more Though we don’t have official travel dates yet, Neil & I are still expecting our move abroad to happen sometime in mid- to late-June. As such, part of my relocation prep has been to start reading up on our new home to be. The Lonely Planet had a list of recommended travel books about England that seemed to offer a perfect mix to help give me ideas on where we might like to focus our travels & explorations once we arrive.

The very first book on their list was from one of my favourite* travel writers, Bill Bryson. While the Lonely Planet listed his Notes from a Small Island, I actually decided to start with one of his earlier books, The Mother Tongue. The book’s subtitle, “English & How It Got That Way”, gets to the heart of the book's essence as an exploration of language, and particularly, the factors that shaped the development of modern English.

Several years ago now, I had read Bryson’s Made in America, about the development of American English and expressions peculiar to the U.S., and his entertaining historical approach to the topic easily made it one of the most entertaining and interesting non-fiction books I have ever read. Mother Tongue, not surprisingly, proved to be as similarly intriguing and captivating.

With chapters on subjects ranging from etymology (where words come from) and spelling to swearing and wordplay, the books was full of interesting anecdotes that often caught me either saying “huh” outloud (prompting a need to explain what I had just read to Neil if he happened to be in the room) or oftentimes laughing outright. To name just a few:

Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language, with an estimated 200-400 million more who speak it as their second language, making English the third most natively spoken language in the world after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

English is one of the most rich languages in the world, with a particular love of multiple words that mean the same thing. (As Bryson explains, "something is not just big, it is large, immense, vast, capacious, bulky, massive, whopping, humongous.")

While we English speakers may find consonant combinations of other world languages quite daunting (such as Czech “vrch pln mlh” or the Welsh “pwy ydych chi”), our often-used combination of the “th” sound of “the” and “think” is remarkably rare in other world languages. (And when you think about, it is weird, right?)

One section in particular in which he outlined some key differences between British words vs. American words proved especially helpful. For instance, if staying at a hotel and needing a spare bed, I should not be surprised if asking for a “cot” resulted in the arrival of a baby’s crib, rather than one meant for an adult.

Additionally, I now feel well-prepared to learn how to correctly pronounce the names of British towns and names which may have no seeming relation as to how such words are spelled. For example, two of the colleges that are part of Cambridge University, Caius College and Magdalene College, are correctly pronounced “Keys College” and “Mawdlin College” respectively. Who would know??

There was a lot that I loved about this book. If you are in anyway interested in languages, or have always been a little curious why in English we say “four” and “fourteen” but suddenly feel the urge to drop the “u” and when spelling “forty”, then add this book to your reading list – you won’t be disappointed!

*this was not a typo – just part of my attempt to make my spelling & word usage adapt a little to the tradition of the “Mother Tongue”(less)

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Apr 13, 2011 Truehobbit rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bryson has become something like a jack-of-all-trades, writing about a huge range of subjects. Of course, with standard research skills, it's quite possible to research into any topic and produce sensible, if not deeply insightful results. It's thanks to his entertaining writing style that something that might just pass for an undergraduate's thesis becomes a fairly enjoyable book.

However, some good laughs are offset by some unpleasant remarks, and a number of bloopers cause doubt about the res...more

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Apr 09, 2011 Cassidy rated it 1 of 5 stars

I know exactly a little bit about English, and a little bit less about linguistics in general. Studied a few foreign languages, took a linguistics class or two in college. I'm what you might call a big fan of language. A dabbler. Certainly not an expert. But boy, did I find this book infuriating.

My problem with this book is that it gets so much right, and so much wrong. The example that really set me off was his treatment of the Welsh language. To Bryson, Welsh is "as unpronounceable as it looks...more I know exactly a little bit about English, and a little bit less about linguistics in general. Studied a few foreign languages, took a linguistics class or two in college. I'm what you might call a big fan of language. A dabbler. Certainly not an expert. But boy, did I find this book infuriating.

My problem with this book is that it gets so much right, and so much wrong. The example that really set me off was his treatment of the Welsh language. To Bryson, Welsh is "as unpronounceable as it looks", and Welsh pronunciations "rarely bear much relation to their spellings." He then spouts off with a series of jokes that are so ethnocentric and condescending that, if you took them at face value, you couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor backward speakers of silly old Welsh.

The problem is, he's completely wrong. I happened to study the phonology and orthography of Welsh for about a week in that freshman linguistics class (I know, that makes me a big authority, right?) but in that week I learned something Bryson apparently never bothered to look up: Welsh orthography is remarkably regular, about as regular as Spanish. It's not at all difficult if you bother to learn the rules, which are far simpler than those of English. (The fact that I learned them in one week, and remember them decades later, should be some indication of how easy they are.) The phoneme represented by the double-l is called a lateral fricative, and yes, it's hard to pronounce if you don't speak Welsh, but that does not mean it's sometimes pronounced "kl" and other times "thl" as Bryson suggests. It is always pronounced just like it's spelled. But Bryson's Anglo-American tin ear failed to pick that up, and he took his ignorance and turned it into a cheap joke at another culture's expense.

Knowing that he got Welsh so wrong made me doubt all of the rest of the information in the book. And that's a real shame, because it covers such fascinating topics, and it's so very entertainingly written. But it's hard to enjoy Bryson's jokes when you have this nagging suspicion that he's bending the truth for the sake of a snappy punchline.
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Dec 13, 2010 Bob Nichols rated it 3 of 5 stars

Bryson's book pulls together the various strains that led to the formation of modern English. The predominant influences come from the Celts and Romans, Scandinavia and France and, particularly, from Germany. This sort of hodgepodge makes it understandable why exceptions are as common as the rule in pronunciation, spelling, grammar, etc., and why we are bound to be frustrated in "learning English."

Bryson's book is full of the quirks that constitute English (e.g., just nine words make up one-quar...more Bryson's book pulls together the various strains that led to the formation of modern English. The predominant influences come from the Celts and Romans, Scandinavia and France and, particularly, from Germany. This sort of hodgepodge makes it understandable why exceptions are as common as the rule in pronunciation, spelling, grammar, etc., and why we are bound to be frustrated in "learning English."

Bryson's book is full of the quirks that constitute English (e.g., just nine words make up one-quarter of the words we use) and interesting tidbits such as Noah Webster's attempt to make misspelling a legal offense, Andrew Carnegie's financing of a Simplified Spelling Board, and BBC's employment of a group of professional pronouncers. He also writes that "shit" was an acceptable word until the early 19th century and that the Romance languages might be considered modern Latin.

Bryson's breezy style sometimes causes the eyebrow to rise. He suggests that the dropping of the larynx in early infancy is associated with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He also states that there was a time in prehistory where "people in widely separated places suddenly and spontaneously developed the capacity for language at roughly the same time," which suggests that humans who migrated out of African from a common lineage all were silent until they arrived at their places around the globe and decided to speak.

Bryson notes the fuzzy, serious types who insisted on their rules about what constitutes good and bad English, including one Robert Lowth who argued that infinitives not be split and that a preposition was a poor word to end a sentence with. Bryson says that makes much out of nothing but later quotes Dan Quayle's remarks to suggest that we have some sense of a good standard after all: "I suppose three important things certainly come to my mind that we want to say thank you. The first would be our family. Your family, my family - which is composed of an immediate family of a wife and three children, a larger family with grandparents and aunts and uncles. We all have our family, whichever that may be." If somewhere between these extremes lies a standard for what is good English and good expression, Bryson does not illuminate what that might be. Clearness and good thinking skills might be a start. (less)

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Sep 21, 2010 Tulpesh Patel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Mother Tongue charts the early history, eventual world dominance and preposterously quirky nature of the English language and has that classic Bryson combination being funny and informative in equal measure. His disarming humour makes it delightfully easy to read about such topics as technical grammar or advisory boards for the preservation of spelling, which in the hands of other authors would have you reaching for the nearest dictionary to club yourself over the head with. Literally every page...more

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About Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and worked in journalism until he became a full time writer. He lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to New Hampshire in America for a few years, but they have now returned to live in the UK.
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“People don't talk like this, theytalklikethis. Syllables, words, sentences run together like a watercolor left in the rain. To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response. If what we say is suitably apt and amusing, the listener will show his delight by emitting a series of uncontrolled high-pitched noises, accompanied by sharp intakes of breath of the sort normally associated with a seizure or heart failure. And by these means we converse. Talking, when you think about it, is a very strange business indeed.” — 15 people liked it

“At a conference of sociologists in America in 1977, love was defined as "the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of the amorance." That is jargon - the practice of never calling a spade a spade when you might instead call it a manual earth-restructuring implement - and it is one of the great curses of modern English.” — 14 people liked it

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