The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

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The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

by Bill Bryson

3.95 · rating details · 8,076 ratings · 805 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 fascinati...more

Paperback, 272 pages

Published September 1st 1991 by Harper Perennial (first published July 1990)

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Jul 16, 2008

Julie (jjmachshev) rated it

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 "...more

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Jun 23, 2007

Punk rated it

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 Published in 1990, this book is already a little out of date.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...moreNon-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 Published in 1990, this book is already a little out of date.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 confusion 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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Apr 28, 2008

Charity rated it

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...more

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Sep 03, 2008

Jill rated it

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' et...more

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Jun 03, 2008

Ceci rated it

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...more

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Nov 28, 2008

Garver rated it

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 vi...more

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Mar 20, 2009

Peter Macinnis rated it

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", ...more

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Jul 17, 2010

Knowledge Lost rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Knowledge Lost by: Kim

Shelves: non-fiction

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?”

...more

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May 24, 2008

Linda rated it

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 ...more

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May 18, 2008

Jan rated it

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 ...more

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Feb 29, 2008

Corrielle rated it

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 hist...moreI 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

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.
...more

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Dec 21, 2007

David rated it

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 ...more

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Sep 19, 2007

JG (The Introverted Reader) rated it

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 E...more

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Jul 25, 2008

Genevieve rated it

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 ...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 "mo...moreAlthough 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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Aug 19, 2011

Lynn rated it

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...more

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Apr 19, 2011

Meg rated it

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 favourit...moreThough 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

· 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 a...more

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Apr 09, 2011

Cassidy rated it

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 unpro...moreI 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

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 nin...moreBryson'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

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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Mar 18, 2010

Jean rated it

Another fabulous book by Bryson. He covers "the first thousand years" of the English language, varieties of English, spelling, English as a world language, names, swearing, word games and, finally, the future of English (great). Because it is Bryson, it is also very funny and endlessly entertaining. While reading it you want to call up a friend and say, "just listen to THIS", and then read another interesting passage.
So I'll do just that. Here are a few examples of con...more

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Sep 28, 2009

Ryan rated it

· review of another edition

I came to this book while discussing nonfiction that successfully entertains as well as educates its reader, and although that intention sounds somewhat pedantic, it is nevertheless a practical mode of delivery for the stuff around us that isn't entirely made up.

I'd already heard high praise for this book, so my experience reading it was largely colored by a tendency to be hyperaware of anything that seemed to approach novelty or otherwise arouse my curiousity. Unfortunately, this...moreI came to this book while discussing nonfiction that successfully entertains as well as educates its reader, and although that intention sounds somewhat pedantic, it is nevertheless a practical mode of delivery for the stuff around us that isn't entirely made up.

I'd already heard high praise for this book, so my experience reading it was largely colored by a tendency to be hyperaware of anything that seemed to approach novelty or otherwise arouse my curiousity. Unfortunately, this sensitivity also rather put the details I was attempting to learn well into the background rather than the forefront of the book. This is entirely my own fault, as a reader. I was rushing forward in order to finish, and in order to see what made this book so good. I missed the forest for the pathway beyond it.

What I can say is that this book is absolutely stuffed with more than enough reasons why the English language has come to be the way it is. (Even though I may not be able to cogently repeat the process of this development as it is presented in the book, it doesn't mean I wouldn't like to try to at some point in the future. I would say this book is, even at a point so close to having finished reading it once, absolutely more compelling to consider reading again than it is on the first go around - there is more promise of reward in a known quantity, in this case, than in some kind of manufactured resolution.)

The author himself is the epitome of solid but subtle intelligence. An expatriate living in England at the time of Mother Tongue's writing, Bill Bryson's written voice in this book is flat - without accent, I suppose - but it's certainly not featureless - it is at least somewhat understandable that an individual with such apparently diverse experiences in the use and uses of English would himself come to best express himself in it with a minimum of distraction and an enviable economy of diction. Luckily, too, there is no shortage of things to laugh at in the book - a feature which tends to whet one's appetite for the next joke whenever the going gets a too pedantic or tedious, which does sometimes occur (there is, after all, a very large territory to cover).

In any case, I feel largely apologetic (to myself, if no one else) because, while I now know more than I ever did previously about the history of the English language (and a few other languages, too), I don't feel I took total advantage of all the knowledge I was being presented with, and that I essentially got in my own way while reading the book. This is a pitfall with me and nonfiction, and it's one I'm currently still trying to rectify by re-re-reading Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction, which was one of my undergrad literature class casualties several years ago, and which I not only mangled in the attempt to understand, but also abandoned out of a misplaced sense of frustration at being unable to apply to anything in the real world. I sense a very different fate for Mother Tongue, which is, I believe, oozing with relevancy, but which also, for the time being, I must let simmer in the dark, swampy areas of my brain until such time as I can allow it to delve into me, as opposed to the other way around.

So, this being a rather lengthy apology, I can only say that I plan to get back to Mother Tongue for our second round together, and, whenever that time may be, I'm bringing a notebook and a pen and no other aim in particular other than to wonder, and to find out, and to know I am well-equipped for the endeavor.

In the meantime, I've only this advice for you, o reader: This is a good book. Be prepared.(less)

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Sep 24, 2011

Julia rated it

when choosing a rating for books, goodreads offers some intended-to-be-helpful advice: when your mouse hovers over a certain number of stars, it offers a short description; for five stars, it gives you the criterion "it was amazing!"

i fully understand the reasoning behind these, but i object. i'm not giving the mother tongue five stars because it's amazing; i'm giving the mother tongue five stars because it's funny and i love the english language and because this book is m...more

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Aug 03, 2011

Darla rated it

This was a really interesting read on the background and information on the history of English as a language. I initially picked up this book because it was written by one of my favorite authors ("A Walk in the Woods" was one of my favorite books as a high school student). However, it wasn't as funny as I've come to expect from Bryson. To be fair, it was only the third book he ever wrote, and I haven't read the first two of his books, so maybe his humorous writing just hadn't evolved y...moreThis was a really interesting read on the background and information on the history of English as a language. I initially picked up this book because it was written by one of my favorite authors ("A Walk in the Woods" was one of my favorite books as a high school student). However, it wasn't as funny as I've come to expect from Bryson. To be fair, it was only the third book he ever wrote, and I haven't read the first two of his books, so maybe his humorous writing just hadn't evolved yet to his more recent state. This book had funny moments, to be sure, but it was definitely more of a scholarly work than I had anticipated it being. Written in 1990, it is now more than 20 years out of date and doesn't cover topics such as how the advent of the internet and "text-speak" is pushing English to evolve. That aside, it still had some really interesting insights into our language. Throughout this book, I had several "liberal arts" moments (what I call it when connections are made with other parts of my life, in whatever form). One that sticks out was in the fourth chapter, which focused on the first thousand years of English's existence as a language; Bryson made the point that from the Norman invasion of what is now England in 1066 until the early 1400s, French would have been the language of the English court. I guess intuitively I should have known this based on my past history classes, but it was never something I thought about explicitly. Over the holidays, I re-watched a classic movie called "The Lion in Winter" (Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole) which focuses on a Christmas holiday spent in 1183 by King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. It turns out they should have all been speaking French! (Which makes sense, because Eleanor was born French, and Henry spent a portion of his early life in France.) Of course a Hollywood movie would be made in English, not French, but it was an interesting realization for me. I had several more of these epiphanies throughout "Mother Tongue". In short, a thought-provoking read, well worth the time.(less)

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Jul 16, 2010

Liz rated it

Recommends it for: English majors and word junkies in general

This book has some interesting trivia (although, from reading other reviews, some of the most interesting bits aren't even true). Unfortunately, the usually hysterical Bryson has approximately two funny lines. He also adopts a sort of know-it-all tone for most of the book, which is incredibly irritating to hear for 245 pages. One passage that particularly confused me was the following:

"The day after he was elected president in 1988, George Bush told a television reporter he cou...more

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Jun 01, 2011

Simone rated it

Shelves: 2011-read

Well considering I got up this morning, started this book, and proceeded to plow through it in about two hours, I liked it alright. It's especially an interesting book to read while being in Thailand, where I speak next to none of the language and constantly rely on people being able to understand English words (Wifi Password?) and thanking my stars for the use of Arabic numerals in money and pricing. You can clearly tell this is a bit dated, because I know computer programs have made stri...more

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May 28, 2010

Malin Engdahl rated it

· review of another edition

Bill Bryson writes not only non-fantasy and/or romance, but non-fiction. I have read several of his travelogues, and his musings on living in the U.K., the U.S. and was greatly entertained. As a language teacher and an eager student of languages myself, I honestly don't know why it took me so long to pick up his book about the English language, which is just as well written as the other books by him I have read. In Mother Tongue he covers most aspects of the English language, from the emer...more
Bill Bryson writes not only non-fantasy and/or romance, but non-fiction. I have read several of his travelogues, and his musings on living in the U.K., the U.S. and was greatly entertained. As a language teacher and an eager student of languages myself, I honestly don't know why it took me so long to pick up his book about the English language, which is just as well written as the other books by him I have read. In Mother Tongue he covers most aspects of the English language, from the emergence of various Indo-European languages, to speculations on where and how English will evolve in the future.

I teach English as a foreign language to secondary school pupils (age 13-15). Many of them come from a large variety of ethnic backgrounds, but seem to find many of the same things very difficult when attempting to learn to read, speak and write English. In Bryson's book, he explores exactly why foreigners might and (probably should) find English such a difficult language to learn, as it is probably the most vocabulary-rich language used in the world today, and there is scarcely a word that cannot hold more than one meaning. Add to that the fact that many names, places and words are pronounced wildly differently from the way they are spelled, and that spelling itself can vary depending on whether you use British English or American English.

There's a fascinating chapter on the origin of words, which emphasized what I already know, that English will happily borrow and assimilate words from pretty much any language it encounters and make them part of an ever-increasing vocabulary, but also that many words that we use today originate from common misspellings, or were simply invented by clever people, like Shakespeare. I was, quite frankly baffled by how many words and expressions that are quite commonplace today were first used by Shakespeare. To mention a few: barefaced, critical, monumental, majestic, obscene, radiance, countless, excellent, hint, hurry and excellent. A quick search on the internet provides tons more. I always knew Shakespeare was a genius, but never realized how bland and colourless the language would probably be without him.

The chapters on spelling and pronounciation were probably not the most entertaining, but there are chapters on English names, on swearing in a variety of languages, on variations of English all over the world that not only really interested me, but taught me something new. I now need to figure out how to simplify some of Bryson's language a bit, in order to be able to use all the things I've learned in my own teaching. (less)

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Feb 14, 2010

Shruts rated it

If you love word play, wonder why English and Americans have different words for the same objects, or are curious why Italian, French, and Spanish are so similar (even to English occasionally), this book is for you.

Bryson follows the evolution of speech, and particularly English, from the Cro-Magnons to the present (that being about 1990, when the book was published). He revels in details such as Shakespeare's prolific invention of new words (who knew?) and total disregard for spell...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.
In The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's hilarious f...more

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A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

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Trivia About The Mother Tongue...

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Quotes from The Mother Tongue: Eng...

“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.” — 5 people liked it

“These Cro-Magnon people were identical to us: they had the same physique, the same brain, the same looks. And, unlike all previous hominids who roamed the earth, they could choke on food. That may seem a trifling point, but the slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat, and thus made choking a possibility, also brought with it the possibility of sophisticated, well articulated speech.
Other mammals have no contact between their air passages and oesophagi. They can breathe and swallow at the same time, and there is no possibility of food going down the wrong way. But with Homo sapiens food and drink must pass over the larynx on the way to the gullet and thus there is a constant risk that some will be inadvertently inhaled. In modern humans, the lowered larynx isn't in position from birth. It descends sometime between the ages of three and five months - curiously, the precise period when babies are likely to suffer from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. At all events, the descended larynx explains why you can speak and your dog cannot.” — 3 people liked it

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