The Mother Tongue

The Mother Tongue
The Mother Tongue  
Author(s) Bill Bryson
Cover artist Tom Curry
Language English
Genre(s) Language
Publisher William Morrow & Company, Inc.
Publication date July 1990
Media type Print
Pages 279
ISBN 0-380-71543-0
OCLC Number 20934335
Dewey Decimal 420.9
LC Classification PE1072 .B76 1990

The Mother Tongue (ISBN 0-380-71543-0) is a book by Bill Bryson which compiles the history and origins of the English language and the language's various quirks. It is subtitled English And How It Got That Way. The book discusses the Indo-European origins of English, the growing status of English as a global language, the complex etymology of English words, the dialects of English, spelling reform, prescriptive grammar, and more minor topics including swearing. Bryson's account is a popularization of the subject, designed to entertain as well as to inform, and the book is sprinkled with trivia and language lore.

This book has also been published in Great Britain by Penguin Books under the title Mother Tongue: The English Language (ISBN 0-14-014305-X).

Bryson has since followed up this work with Made in America.

See also

  • Velleity

External links

v · d · eBill Bryson selected bibliography
Travel
Language
Science
Memoir
Biography
  • Shakespeare: The World as Stage
History
  • At Home: A Short History of Private Life

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  • The Mother Tongue (book) — infobox Book | name = The Mother Tongue orig title = translator = author = Bill Bryson cover artist = Tom Curry country = language = English series = genre = Language publisher = William Morrow Company, Inc. release date = July 1990 media type =… …   Wikipedia

  • Mother tongue mirroring — is a technique for teaching languages. It is the adaptation of the time honoured practice of literal translation, or word for word translation for pedagogical purposes. The aim is to make foreign constructions salient and transparent to learners… …   Wikipedia

  • Mother tongue (disambiguation) — Mother tongue usually refers to a person s first language. Mother tongue may also refer to: Proto Human language, the hypothetical most recent common ancestor of all the world s languages The Mother Tongue (book), a history of the English… …   Wikipedia

  • Mother tongue — Mother Moth er, a. Received by birth or from ancestors; native, natural; as, mother language; also acting the part, or having the place of a mother; producing others; originating. [1913 Webster] It is the mother falsehood from which all idolatry… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Mother Tongue Records — is an independent record label formed in the early 1990s that featured the 12 piece glam orchestral Britpop band My Life Story, the label was resurrected in the early 2000s with The Barbs, Nick Oliveri and The Long Weekend amongst its acts. The… …   Wikipedia

  • mother tongue — n especially BrE your mother tongue is the first and main language that you learnt when you were a child = ↑native language/tongue ▪ children for whom English is not their mother tongue …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • mother tongue — mother tongues also mother tongue N COUNT: oft poss N Your mother tongue is the language that you learn from your parents when you are a baby. Syn: native tongue …   English dictionary

  • Mother Tongue (journal) — Mother Tongue is the yearly periodical of the Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory and was established in 1995. Its goal is to encourage international and interdisciplinary information sharing, discussion, and debate among… …   Wikipedia

  • Mother Tongue (Journal) — Mother Tongue ist das einmal jährlich erscheinende umfangreiche Periodikum (Journal) der Association for the Study of Languages in Prehistory (kurz ASLIP). Es wird seit 1995 von der ASLIP herausgegeben und enthält Artikel hervorragender… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • mother tongue — mother ,tongue noun count usually singular the main language you learn as a child …   Usage of the words and phrases in modern English

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