Reviewed by Colette van Kerckvoorde, Bard College at Simon’s Rock
The motivation for this textbook came from Elly van Gelderen’s dissatisfaction with the existing histories of the English language. In comparison to previous histories, this volume focuses more on the change that English underwent from a synthetic to an analytic language, and, as a result, presents more information about grammatical and typological features than has been discussed elsewhere.
The book is divided into ten chapters, the first three of which provide necessary background information. In Ch. 1, the concept of linguistic change is introduced as well as a definition of English. Ch. 2 surveys English spelling and sounds as well as its case system. Ch. 3 investigates the origin of languages and the language families of the world before focusing on Indo-European and Germanic languages.
The history of English spans five chapters, and the author adheres to the customary treatment of Old English, its transition to Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English. Ch. 9 discusses English around the world with an emphasis on phenomena observed in different locations, such as the elimination of verbal endings, rather than on individual dialects. Additionally, the author examines English-influenced pidgins and creoles. Ch. 10 reviews the major changes that have occurred in English and explores several theories about language—in particular, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
There is no accompanying workbook, but exercises and sample texts are included at the end of each chapter. Middle English, for example, is exemplified by excerpts from Layamon, “Piers Plowman”, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”, the Paston Letters, and some anonymous lyrics. Possible answers to the exercises are included in an appendix. At the end of the book, a table contains a ‘Chronology of historical events’, which will be helpful for those interested in English history. Recognizing the growing availability of internet resources, the author frequently refers to websites and includes only those that are expected to be fairly stable. A website designed specifically to accompany this textbook provides many more links, which, the author promises, will be tested regularly and kept current.
This book is written with a linguistics-oriented audience in mind. Whenever possible, the author includes discussions of recent scholarly debates, such as the influence of Celtic on Western Old English syntax and morphology. This makes the book less suited for courses offered through an English department, although still a great choice for linguistics students. Students not familiar with linguistics, or those who acquired English as a foreign language, may need some additional readings or instruction.