Review by Choice Review
In 40 chapters, each a mini essay, British linguist David Crystal takes the reader on a tour of the workings and oddities of human language and of the linguistic questions ordinary people care about most. Beginning with a chapter titles "Baby Talk" and ending with "Applied Linguistics" and "Your Language," the author explains accents, linguistic variation, sign language, the origins of language, the languages of the world, language change, and language death. He also gives his thoughts on language games, dictionaries, typography, spelling, names, literary style, and texting. The author of a hundred-odd books, Crystal writes in a lucid style that will give American readers a taste of British usage (and slang). He provides sidebars on such popular issues as the pronunciation of @ in different languages (it is called a monkey in Polish and a dog in Russian), the grammar of the Star Wars character Yoda (backwards speak, he does), the Braille alphabet, and the NATO phonetic alphabet. Jean-Manuel Duvivier's many illustrations are a bonus. Those who grew up reading the likes of Willard Espy will find Cyrstal's little book a delight. It is both a linguist's and a language-lover's book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; general readers. E. L. Battistella Southern Oregon University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In the mode of Yale's successful publication of E.H. Gombrich's A Little History of the World, one of the world's leading linguists introduces us to our most critical mode of communication. Crystal (The Story of English) fills this exhilarating romp through the mysteries and vagaries of language, from how infants acquire language to how many words the average adult knows (40,000) and slang ("Linguists love collecting slang. It's a bit like collecting stamps"). In a concluding minimanifesto, he hopes, among other things, that everyone who has a real interest in language will try to preserve the world's languages in all their rich variety, whether remote, dying languages or the variations of dialect and accent in their own language. This is especially important today, he says, to note how we shape language and how language shapes us. Crystal smoothly boils down his vast knowledge about the peculiarities of spelling, grammar, and diction, and the influence of new kinds of linguistic style (computer language, texting) on language development. This is the perfect primer for anyone interested in the subject. Illus. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved