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The Mother Tongue Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: A book worth rereading
Comment: An absolutely delightful introduction to a history of the English language. Like the author's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", it approaches a huge subject with great enthusiasm -giving me a general understanding of a topic I previously knew very little about. A joy to read.

I've taken a few moments to write this very brief endorsement because I saw that one person was dissuaded from purchasing the book because of a one-star review. What a shame.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Flawed but Effective Introduction to What Makes English, and Language, Fascinating.
Comment: "The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way" is an entertaining tour of the merits and idiosyncrasies of humanity's most global language: English. Author Bill Bryson introduces the reader to the history, evolution, and variety of English with good humor and lots of examples. Spoken fluently by probably about 400 million people worldwide, not including speakers of English-based creoles, English is not the most-spoken language, but it is the most studied, emulated, and widely distributed, being an official language in 44 countries. As it has become "the lingua franca of business, science, education, politics, and pop culture", it's worth taking a look at how confusing and wonderful English really is.

Bryson writes mostly of British and American English, with occasional references to Australian and Canadian, but this book is written for an American audience. Although it does touch upon some different dialects, it does not address pidgins or creoles. It does explain what makes English simple -few inflected verbs and adjectives, few consonant clusters and tonal variations, no gender- and what makes it difficult -huge vocabulary and ridiculous spelling. No less fascinating than the discussions of English are Bryson's examples of the behavior of other languages for comparison, which give the characteristics of English some context and inspire interest in language in general.

After a history of English's 1000+ years and an explanation of how words enter into language, the book launches into English's endearing (ahem) eccentricities: the evolution of pronunciation, development of regional dialects, how (and why?) we manage (or not) to spell 40 sounds in 200 different ways, word meanings and dictionaries, and a lightweight chapter on the lack of authority on English grammar. Bryson concludes with some fun chapters on names, swear words, and word games. He's dismissive of attempts to restore/introduce phonetic spelling, but there are good arguments for doing so, and workable alphabets have been devised for this purpose.

"The Mother Tongue" does not go into a great deal of depth on its subjects but rather introduces the reader to the strengths and peculiarities of English. Though I think Bryson gets his main points across well, there are an unfortunate number of factual errors, particularly relating to other languages. Bryson seems to have taken a lot of information from popular books instead of consulting direct sources, such as linguists or foreign language scholars. Still, he is a good writer, and the casual reader cannot help but develop a new fascination and admiration for the English language. "The Mother Tongue" is a charming inducement to investigate its subjects in more depth. 3 1/2 stars.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Comment: This book is a notch above Bryson's other books. And that is saying A LOT! It is compelling, very witty, and overall memorable. It certainly piqued by interested in the English language and linguistics in general. Do yourself a favour, and get this book. You will not be disappointed with this well-researched tome that Bryson produced here.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: "The Mother Tongue" -- Factual Mistakes and Forced Jokes
Comment: Mr. Bryson's "The Mother Tongue" is an easy read, but unfortunately it contains many factual mistakes and, as one other reviewer put it so well, "sloppy scholarship". I am a native speaker of German and I wish he would have gotten some help from a German linguist for his comparisons of English with German.

My problem with the book started with the "Acknowledgments" where Mr Bryson writes "certain passages in this book originally appeared in somewhat altered form in TWA Ambassador and in the Canadian textbook Language in Action, and I wish to thank both organizations for permission to reproduce those excerpts here." My understanding of the word "to alter" in its form "altered" is that it refers to something that has been changed from its original form. Bryson's sentence hence implies that the chapters in question had been written initially for the book "The Mother Tongue" and were only later changed to be published in the TWA magazine. I think this is hardly likely and, in fact, the altered versions of the original articles are in the book, not the other way around. If somebody uses language incorrectly already in the acknowledgments section, my trust in the author's expertise about language is seriously impacted.

I read about one third of this book, but I did not finish it, because I am afraid it may hurt my understanding of the English language more than it will help. There are several mistakes obvious to me, so I am afraid other "facts" might by incorrect as well. I simply cannot trust Bryson.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A tribute to the English language
Comment: This book brings to the forefront the richness of the English language. English is my cherished second language and I feel heavily indebted to it. English has allowed me to travel to some countries where I would have remained almost incommunicado with my native Spanish. Also, English has allowed me access to certain books that deal with topics that are not available in Spanish written books (to my knowledge).

To read this book was a pleasurable experience to me. The book is entertaining, instructive, full of useful information, and, inspiring. This book is a must reading for anybody that loves the English language. Five shining stars for it.

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