Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
Ratings9
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings9
Average rating3.9
Why do we say "I am reading a catalog" instead of "I read a catalog"? Why do we say "do" at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Language distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history. In this trim volume of linguistic history, respected scholar John McWhorter focuses on underappreciated influences on the peculiar development of the English language: For instance, many of the English's strange grammar ticks can be traced to Celtic and Welch origins, which makes sense given the languages' longtime geographic proximity. Another important factor involves the Vikings. When the Scandinavian sailors came over to the Isles, they took up English as a second language, pruning it of many of its convolutions -- it was, after all, a functional tongue for them. This resulted in English evolving as a grammatically far simpler language than other Germanic languages. In the process of this fascinating historical excavation, McWhorter debunks many contemporary grammatical conventions, doing all this in a style that makes for an informative but unusually enjoyable read. - Publisher.
Reviews with the most likes.
Not about Jon Snow...the title's a bit misleading. But fascinating stuff nonetheless
This isn't so much a book as a series of really long guest lectures from a university professor. I half expected Power Point slides with the audio book.
For a book, the writing style is unprofessional with a snarky attitude. He half sounds like Barney Stinson, quite often using the constructions and wait of it..., or using the same descriptions over and over, such as blew away like autumn leaves.
The author's reading of his own book only added to the lecture feeling. He had a hard time not laughing at his own “witty” remarks and apologizing for plugging his other books.
Despite the fact that I have no training and very little knowledge of linguistics or etymology, I found myself less sympathetic to his view of the history, because of his style of writing and reading.
Entertaining Discussion Of An Esoteric Topic. Up front here: I can't judge this book's bibliography, as I listened to the Audible version of it, which doesn't have that. I'm also no linguist, more of a polyglot who knows a little (or a lottle) about a lot and is interested in learning about... well, damn near everything. Thus, someone who read the text version of the book and *can* speak to its breadth or dearth of bibliography may or may not deduct the star I normally do for dearth, and an actual linguist, or at least someone more familiar with the field, may have more cohesive arguments for or against the actual points raised here.
Those caveats noted, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. McWhorter reads his own work in the Audible form, and he uses enough humor here to make what could be an extremely dense topic rather enjoyable to learn a little about. Further, his arguments *seem* at minimum plausible, and possibly exactly correct - again, at least to someone completely untrained and mostly unknowledgeable in the field at hand. And the arguments he presents are also quite compelling and interesting to boot, which is generally a sign of at minimum a well thought out and well written nonfiction piece. Further, at just 250 or pages in print and just 5 hrs or so in Audible... this isn't exactly a huge time sink if it turns out to be not your thing... and you'll still learn at least a few things while reading it.
Overall, this is absolutely a book that will leave you thinking a bit and perhaps having learned a bit too. It will expand your horizons to think more about *how*, *exactly*, humans communicate with each other and what the grammars of our various languages say about how we think about things - and the arguments that perhaps it says absolutely nothing at all. Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.
This is the third book of McWhorter's I've read–two on audio and one on paper. He's a good narrator also a stimulating writer, in part because he seems to have a lot of bones to pick with other linguists. He makes good arguments, but of course I can't say for sure that he's always right. In this book, one of the most controversial points is his conclusion that some aspects of English grammar weren't accidental but must have been influenced by neighboring/intermingling speakers of Celtic languages. The book concludes with another hypothesis, less certain to him but also less controversial, that proto-Germanic diverged from proto-Indo-European because of influences from the Punic-speaking Phoenicians who established a presence in what is now Denmark and Northern Germany over 2000 years ago. All very interesting to those curious about the development of English. [There is some overlap here with McWhorter's other work, but that's not a serious drawback.]
