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The History of the English Language
18 audio CDs and Course Guide Books in 3 hard shell cases. Course is divided into 36 lectures.
9 pages, Audio CD
First published July 8, 2013
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324 people want to read
About the author
Seth Lerer
29 books19 followersProfessor Seth Lerer (1956 -) is a contemporary Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Stanford University, specialising in historical analyses of the English language, in addition to critical analyses of the works of several authors, including in particular Geoffrey Chaucer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
April 22, 2018
Update I loved this book a lot when it was discussing the Indo-European roots of the language write up until Samuel Johnson. I've kind of got a bit bored with it since then. But suddenly I am not bored, I am ANGRY and what I am angry about is probably going to upset all you Americans.
I've got up to the chapter on the Declaration of Independence which Lehrer things is written in a very erudite manner by Jefferson who would have chosen the words knowing their Latin, or otherwise roots. Well I'm not so sure about that. But Im sure Jefferson meant exactly what he said.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" etc.
It is a beautifully written piece of self-superiority enshrouding racism and sexism as the natural order that God Himself created. One look at a slave* tells you that s/he is human in looks, thoughts and ability and therefore should be entitled to human rights. The only way to continue with this free labour was to keep them subjugated by denying them their 'unalienable rights' and by saying that it is in the Bible, so it is perfectly justified. *Woman can be substituted here. How was this justified by Jefferson who disapproved of slavery whilst keeping and even selling slaves? Cognitive dissonance assuaged by money and power?
I can't believe all this passed me by. Oh the ignorance of a British education that we learn so little about American history.
How can Lerer ignore the meaning and just praise the writing? I suppose there are different schools of thought with African-Americans teaching one thing and the Mormons another and everyone else....? How do modern Americans think on this Declaration?
_____
This is a different level entirely from Prof. Anne Curzan's The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins, a Great Course that I've just finished. It's the difference between school and university. I didn't want to listen to this course straight after hers as she'd pissed me off somewhat using words like 'the F word' and 'the C word' and saying she blushed when she said 'cock' even though it had two meanings. I just didn't want any more of that, I want something a lot less precious and more serious bout English and it's development. If I didn't love words and good writing, I couldn't love books and reading as I do. As all of us GR do.
I'm up to chapter 7 and have so far been fascinated by learning just why it is known that English is an Indo-European language. We owe this in part to the Brothers Grimm, who are as famous for their research into linguistics as they are for writing up folk tales, just to different groups of people. They discovered many cognates, words that have the same meaning in two or more different languages and this shows which languages are related.
This language, Indo-European, or rather family of languages has two distinct branches called kentum and satem, both mean a 'hundred' and depending on which one your language uses, it will fall into that group. We are in kentum - kent - cent, hundred.
It is interesting to see how if you make known substitutions like substituting the English H for the Norse K, you could understand modern language more easily. For instance, we say 'ship', in Norse this was 'skip'. We still say 'ship' but we say 'skipper' for the captain.
Then there is the strange 'h' in 'what', 'where' etc. Originally what was hwat, hwere, probably it was just easier to miss of the original h when speaking, but it survived in the spelling just not in first place.
It is becoming obvious to me that as soon as I finish reading it, I will have to immediately reread it as what comes first makes better sense the more I go along.
I've got up to the chapter on the Declaration of Independence which Lehrer things is written in a very erudite manner by Jefferson who would have chosen the words knowing their Latin, or otherwise roots. Well I'm not so sure about that. But Im sure Jefferson meant exactly what he said.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" etc.
It is a beautifully written piece of self-superiority enshrouding racism and sexism as the natural order that God Himself created. One look at a slave* tells you that s/he is human in looks, thoughts and ability and therefore should be entitled to human rights. The only way to continue with this free labour was to keep them subjugated by denying them their 'unalienable rights' and by saying that it is in the Bible, so it is perfectly justified. *Woman can be substituted here. How was this justified by Jefferson who disapproved of slavery whilst keeping and even selling slaves? Cognitive dissonance assuaged by money and power?
I can't believe all this passed me by. Oh the ignorance of a British education that we learn so little about American history.
How can Lerer ignore the meaning and just praise the writing? I suppose there are different schools of thought with African-Americans teaching one thing and the Mormons another and everyone else....? How do modern Americans think on this Declaration?
_____
This is a different level entirely from Prof. Anne Curzan's The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins, a Great Course that I've just finished. It's the difference between school and university. I didn't want to listen to this course straight after hers as she'd pissed me off somewhat using words like 'the F word' and 'the C word' and saying she blushed when she said 'cock' even though it had two meanings. I just didn't want any more of that, I want something a lot less precious and more serious bout English and it's development. If I didn't love words and good writing, I couldn't love books and reading as I do. As all of us GR do.
I'm up to chapter 7 and have so far been fascinated by learning just why it is known that English is an Indo-European language. We owe this in part to the Brothers Grimm, who are as famous for their research into linguistics as they are for writing up folk tales, just to different groups of people. They discovered many cognates, words that have the same meaning in two or more different languages and this shows which languages are related.
This language, Indo-European, or rather family of languages has two distinct branches called kentum and satem, both mean a 'hundred' and depending on which one your language uses, it will fall into that group. We are in kentum - kent - cent, hundred.
It is interesting to see how if you make known substitutions like substituting the English H for the Norse K, you could understand modern language more easily. For instance, we say 'ship', in Norse this was 'skip'. We still say 'ship' but we say 'skipper' for the captain.
Then there is the strange 'h' in 'what', 'where' etc. Originally what was hwat, hwere, probably it was just easier to miss of the original h when speaking, but it survived in the spelling just not in first place.
It is becoming obvious to me that as soon as I finish reading it, I will have to immediately reread it as what comes first makes better sense the more I go along.
September 6, 2013
This was one of my most favorite books ever. I have listened to it in Audio format 2 times and found it to be very enlightening. Topics such as Indo european .. How we know how dead languages were probably pronounced, the great vowel shift just prior to Shakespeare's time and why the dialect of poor southern blacks in the USA is a very sophisticated language that follows the rules of good grammar... are all covered in an historical context. I found my self coming away with much enlightenment and with ongoing questions that kept pulling me back to listen to this or that part again and again. This is a perfect example of education at its best.
April 8, 2013
I love these lectures. I've listened to them all at least once, and many of the others three or four times. They are very informative, as well as interesting, which is sometimes hard to accomplish in this subject, even for people who love it, like me.
September 20, 2017
This subject is a so interesting it's getting me all freaky and reverent. In point of fact, I'm quite literally awe struck. I'm agog as it were.
Professor Seth Lerer is wizardly. He is a warlock. He's a shaman. He's Gandalf the white. He hath one eye open to the other realm.
This course is clearly his master work. It seems like that anyway. It's so brilliant, developed and rich that I am left to assume that it took a lifetime of hard work to create.
If not (like if it's just one of his many) than I give up on life.
My main takeaways from the course are 1. historical linguistics is an amazing field of study, and 2. English is an amazing subject of study for a historical linguist.
The Mother Tongue:
Historical linguistics has reconstructed the older forms of English pronunciation and meaning (morphology).
And Dr. Lerer can (and does) speakith that shit aloud.
You have to hear it to feel me when it say, that it is spellbinding to hear Chaucer and Shakespeare performed in approximate pronunciation of the period.
So how (tha fuck) do historical linguists reconstruct accents and pronunciations from 680-AD?
They do so by employing the following methods:
* atrticulatory phonetics
* sociolinguistics
* comparative philology
* historical pronunciation
* historical grammar (word morphology)
* historical word meaning (semantics).
Get the course to find out what those are. But suffice it to say, that it's really, really, really cool when Lerer speaks in Old English.
Historical Linguistics unlocks the world of history and deep language meaning contained in the collective word vault (an archaic idiomatic fraise for what we moderns refer to as the mind).
Every word in English is a narrative onto itself.
The history of English (both actual and apocryphal) is embedded in the language. It's contained in the odd spelling conventions of English words.
* Knight; pronounced - nīt -in modern English, is pronounced close to phonetically - kenisht - in Old English.
The History of the English language and people is embedded in the antique letters of correspondence, and in the literature of old, middle and modern English.
* Chaucer writes in Old English, in the conjoined languages of German, Norman French and Old Latin all smashed up together.
* Shakespear writes in a nearly Modern English. With the great vowel shift, English idiom and polysemy on full display.
Id·i·om: referring to a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light ).
Po·ly·se·my: referring to the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase.
The Great Vowel Shift: referring to a period of linguistic change in the style of spoken English, occurring in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, in which the long vowels sounds of English shifted upward (i.e. pronounced in a place, higher up in the mouth) producing the modern vowel sounds ay, ee, ey, ow, ew (and sometimes wy).
Throw in some really nice wooden ships, awesome cartography (the highest technology of the day) and a few centuries of subsequent colonial domination, and we arrive the hegemony the English language currently 'enjoys'.
WARNING: the brilliant Lerer stumbles (just a little) when discussing colonialism, slavery and in particular; African American English (AAE). Lerer clearly intends to be respectful but, let's just say, the outcome is awkward.
Please don't mistake me for a SJW snowflake. I'm pretty thick skinned when it comes to such things. If you don't find these passages awkward well good. But consider yourself an informed consumer.
So·cial jus·tice war·ri·or (SJW): an informal derogatory fraise referring to person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views.
Ok. By that definition I am definitely one of those. But I'm not like a dick about it.
King James's Bible:
Lerer discusses the watershed moment when the Vulgate Bible was translated into English in the King James translation.
* The King James Bible and the Oxford English Dictionary (the Wikipedia of the day) are the towering monuments of modern English cultural and linguistic differentiation from the dominance of invading cultures.
Apparently this transformed the language by creating a prestigious, high/sacred biblical idiomatic from of English.
Vulgar: apparently Vulgate is related to vulgar, the original meaning of which was simply common or original, it only recently came to mean profane (which actually also simply meant earthly), so the Vulgate bible refers to the translation of the Latin bible into a more common tongue.
Brick By Brick:
Lerer deconstructs the common myths regarding linguistic change:
Universality - There is no original or universal language. There is no living evidence of a universal language.
Simplicity - No language is easier or harder to learn and master for native speakers.
Teleology - Language change is not directional i.e. does not evolve in a direction of simplicity or complexity.
Gradualism - Language does not change at a steady rate. It changes in fits and starts, at different rates at different times.
Oral Incorporation:
Lerer discusses the English penchant for incorporation of words from other languages e.g. Spanish and Portuguese words from the new world e.g. (tobacco). French and Italian prestige words; for legal (courtly) and high culture (cuisine and sonnet). And later old Latin word coinage for the sciences and mathematics (sphere, cube, loci).
Old English relied on Latin and French for its prestige speech, and primarily utilized English words for common expressions.
Prestige Speech: referring to vocabulary, pronunciation and inflection that is generally considered by to be the most correct, educated or otherwise superior.
In an attempt to create a home grown prestige speech, Lerer explains that English 'coined' thousands of 'Ink Horn Words', a term for fancy 'high falutin pretty talk'.
These posh neologisms, plus the adaptation of the vast lexicographies of colonialism catalyzed the creation of the early English dictionaries.
The rest is how you say?
History.
In Sum:
This course was so good. I finished it (all 18 hours of it) in the span of 48 hours. I was laying in bed with the flu so that helped. But still this thing is great.
5 (thousand) Stars.
Professor Seth Lerer is wizardly. He is a warlock. He's a shaman. He's Gandalf the white. He hath one eye open to the other realm.
This course is clearly his master work. It seems like that anyway. It's so brilliant, developed and rich that I am left to assume that it took a lifetime of hard work to create.
If not (like if it's just one of his many) than I give up on life.
My main takeaways from the course are 1. historical linguistics is an amazing field of study, and 2. English is an amazing subject of study for a historical linguist.
The Mother Tongue:
Historical linguistics has reconstructed the older forms of English pronunciation and meaning (morphology).
And Dr. Lerer can (and does) speakith that shit aloud.
You have to hear it to feel me when it say, that it is spellbinding to hear Chaucer and Shakespeare performed in approximate pronunciation of the period.
So how (tha fuck) do historical linguists reconstruct accents and pronunciations from 680-AD?
They do so by employing the following methods:
* atrticulatory phonetics
* sociolinguistics
* comparative philology
* historical pronunciation
* historical grammar (word morphology)
* historical word meaning (semantics).
Get the course to find out what those are. But suffice it to say, that it's really, really, really cool when Lerer speaks in Old English.
Historical Linguistics unlocks the world of history and deep language meaning contained in the collective word vault (an archaic idiomatic fraise for what we moderns refer to as the mind).
Every word in English is a narrative onto itself.
The history of English (both actual and apocryphal) is embedded in the language. It's contained in the odd spelling conventions of English words.
* Knight; pronounced - nīt -in modern English, is pronounced close to phonetically - kenisht - in Old English.
The History of the English language and people is embedded in the antique letters of correspondence, and in the literature of old, middle and modern English.
* Chaucer writes in Old English, in the conjoined languages of German, Norman French and Old Latin all smashed up together.
* Shakespear writes in a nearly Modern English. With the great vowel shift, English idiom and polysemy on full display.
Id·i·om: referring to a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light ).
Po·ly·se·my: referring to the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase.
The Great Vowel Shift: referring to a period of linguistic change in the style of spoken English, occurring in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, in which the long vowels sounds of English shifted upward (i.e. pronounced in a place, higher up in the mouth) producing the modern vowel sounds ay, ee, ey, ow, ew (and sometimes wy).
Throw in some really nice wooden ships, awesome cartography (the highest technology of the day) and a few centuries of subsequent colonial domination, and we arrive the hegemony the English language currently 'enjoys'.
WARNING: the brilliant Lerer stumbles (just a little) when discussing colonialism, slavery and in particular; African American English (AAE). Lerer clearly intends to be respectful but, let's just say, the outcome is awkward.
Please don't mistake me for a SJW snowflake. I'm pretty thick skinned when it comes to such things. If you don't find these passages awkward well good. But consider yourself an informed consumer.
So·cial jus·tice war·ri·or (SJW): an informal derogatory fraise referring to person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views.
Ok. By that definition I am definitely one of those. But I'm not like a dick about it.
King James's Bible:
Lerer discusses the watershed moment when the Vulgate Bible was translated into English in the King James translation.
* The King James Bible and the Oxford English Dictionary (the Wikipedia of the day) are the towering monuments of modern English cultural and linguistic differentiation from the dominance of invading cultures.
Apparently this transformed the language by creating a prestigious, high/sacred biblical idiomatic from of English.
Vulgar: apparently Vulgate is related to vulgar, the original meaning of which was simply common or original, it only recently came to mean profane (which actually also simply meant earthly), so the Vulgate bible refers to the translation of the Latin bible into a more common tongue.
Brick By Brick:
Lerer deconstructs the common myths regarding linguistic change:
Universality - There is no original or universal language. There is no living evidence of a universal language.
Simplicity - No language is easier or harder to learn and master for native speakers.
Teleology - Language change is not directional i.e. does not evolve in a direction of simplicity or complexity.
Gradualism - Language does not change at a steady rate. It changes in fits and starts, at different rates at different times.
Oral Incorporation:
Lerer discusses the English penchant for incorporation of words from other languages e.g. Spanish and Portuguese words from the new world e.g. (tobacco). French and Italian prestige words; for legal (courtly) and high culture (cuisine and sonnet). And later old Latin word coinage for the sciences and mathematics (sphere, cube, loci).
Old English relied on Latin and French for its prestige speech, and primarily utilized English words for common expressions.
Prestige Speech: referring to vocabulary, pronunciation and inflection that is generally considered by to be the most correct, educated or otherwise superior.
In an attempt to create a home grown prestige speech, Lerer explains that English 'coined' thousands of 'Ink Horn Words', a term for fancy 'high falutin pretty talk'.
These posh neologisms, plus the adaptation of the vast lexicographies of colonialism catalyzed the creation of the early English dictionaries.
The rest is how you say?
History.
In Sum:
This course was so good. I finished it (all 18 hours of it) in the span of 48 hours. I was laying in bed with the flu so that helped. But still this thing is great.
5 (thousand) Stars.
February 9, 2015
This is truly a masterpiece.
Delivered by a gifted lecturer with a pipe-tobacco-and-scotch voice for pronouncing ancient tongues and a unique and enjoyable pentameter in speaking. He is able to take the arcane and ancient and make it curious and alive, which is an important skill when one is speaking about the syntax of ancient french.
I have successfully delivered many tidbits from this lecture to friends and students, and continue to productively reflect on the content to this day.
Delivered by a gifted lecturer with a pipe-tobacco-and-scotch voice for pronouncing ancient tongues and a unique and enjoyable pentameter in speaking. He is able to take the arcane and ancient and make it curious and alive, which is an important skill when one is speaking about the syntax of ancient french.
I have successfully delivered many tidbits from this lecture to friends and students, and continue to productively reflect on the content to this day.
October 2, 2020
My father obviously bought this set - 18 discs, each with 2 lectures, about the origins and development of the English language - because he was always trying to learn more. This is subject I have been interested in since I was in college. I took a class on the subject during my undergrad years and again when I was woking on my MA in English Language Development and I loved both classes. This was just an interesting. The lecturer is at Stanford and his course was both thorough and well-explained.
March 1, 2017
Great, great book!
I cannot stress enough how great this book is. Nor do I think I'm capable to do justice for this book with my mediocre review.
This book is exactly what it says it is. It's a history of the English language. Where it came from, how it'd formed. All grouped in 'lectures' from the author.
An absolute MUST read!
Peace,
A.
I cannot stress enough how great this book is. Nor do I think I'm capable to do justice for this book with my mediocre review.
This book is exactly what it says it is. It's a history of the English language. Where it came from, how it'd formed. All grouped in 'lectures' from the author.
An absolute MUST read!
Peace,
A.
July 10, 2020
What a fun series of lectures. Prof. Lerer explains the history of his language with deep knowledge, clarity, and telling examples. This is a lot of fun.
February 22, 2025
I learned so much and thoroughly enjoyed listening to these lectures.
April 17, 2018
Part One:
This course began in such a way that I was left pretty encouraged about how it would turn out. Admittedly, this is a course designed for those who are not amateur philologists [1], but it is still an enjoyable course if one brings some background knowledge to the table. Indeed, even with background knowledge and a considerable interest in the origins of English as a language there are some excellent details the instructor includes that demonstrate his grasp of the material and his obvious love of languages. It is quite delightful to hear the instructor jump between Old and Middle English, between ancient Indo-European reconstructions and more modern languages to show the development of philology as a research project as well as the development of English as a language during its first few centuries. Included are some deeply intriguing questions about identity and about influence that are worth pondering even if the course so far has focused (understandably) on the development of English in the British Isles and only a little bit about the distinctions of American English thus far.
As is common among the Great Courses, this part of the course consists of twelve lectures of half an hour or so apiece. First the instructor introduces the listener to the study of language, giving some basics in philology (1). After this there is a lecture on the historical study of language and its beginnings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries along with some of its characteristic myths (2). From here the instructor moves to a look at Indo-European as a language family and the preshistory of English when it was part of the general proto-Germanic languages (3). A deeply enjoyable lecture on the reconstruction of meaning and sound (4) along with a lecture on historical linguistics and the study of culture (5) close the introductory section of this course. After this point the author focuses his attention on English as a language and its change over time. First the instructor looks at the beginnings of English with its closeness to the continental West German languages it sprang from (6), after which there is a look at the Old English worldview and how we know this from the melancholy early poetry of the English (7). After this the author answers the question of whether the Normans conquered English with a no (8) before looking at how the Norman conquest occurred a time when dramatic change was already occurring to English (9), so that they are not entirely to blame. The first part of the course then comes to an end with an examination of Chaucer's rich English (10) along with the representation of dialect in Middle English (11) and Medieval attitudes towards language (12) that emphasized the alienation between God and man that took place at the fall and also the alienation between people that took place at the Tower of Babel.
There are at least a few deeper matters that this course invites listeners to understand. One of these is the way that languages can change in attitude depending on questions of prestige, such as the distinction between Germanic languages as a whole being resistant to the addition of new words and the voracious tendency of English to add new words based in large part on its survival as a non-prestige language during the Early Middle English period under Norman rule. Another question that this course invites listeners to wrestle with is the question of how much the Normans are to blame for the changes that divide Old from Middle English. Finally, the course wrestles with questions of sin and alienation as a way pointing out the way that dialect and language difference served to alienate people from those who spoke a different form of English, comically brought to mind when a Kentish farm woman thought that the desire on the part of metropolitan London merchants for eggys in the fifteenth century was some sort of Frenchified expression, much to the anger of the London merchants.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
Part Two:
I must admit that I found this particular set of lectures to be pretty fascinating, but that is not a surprise given my fondness for the author's previous work [1] as well as the subject matters the author speaks about [2]. In examining the history of the English language, the instructor is attuned to at least a few different angles of this process. On the one hand, he has a great interest in the nuts and bolts of how words are coined or imported into a language to handle the conceptual demands of a people at a given time, and yet at the same time this series of lectures has a lot to say about the larger political aspects involved in language. And make no mistake, this book discusses the politics of language in a variety of different ways that certainly demonstrate what is at stake when it comes to teaching and defining and describing language. The author even demonstrates the moral judgments that come from people who shape the language through their use as well as through their research.
This course is divided into twelve lectures of 30 minutes apiece like most of the Great Courses series. These lectures begin with a look at the return of English as a standard during the late Middle English period as the politics of English nationalism and the need of the late Plantagenet rulers for a larger cultural consensus behind their empire building plans led to increased prestige for chancery English (13). After this the author discusses the great vowel shift and its effect on forming early modern English (14) and the expanding English vocabulary resulting from coinage and importation from French and Latin and other sources (15). The author then looks at early modern English syntax and grammar (16) as well as Renaissance attitudes on teaching English (17). The next two lectures focus on Shakespeare, first on drama, grammar, and pronunciation (18) and then on poetry, sound, and sense (19). The instructor then spends some time looking at the impact of the Tyndale and King James Bibles on the English language (20) before looking at importance of Samuel Johnson's dictionary (21). This focus on the divide between descriptivism and prescriptivism in the standards of English (22) carries on to the end of this series of lectures with a look at dictionaries and word histories (23) and the value judgments of words as their meanings and usage changes over time (24).
What struck me as being particularly interested is the fact that it is impossible to escape political and moral concerns when dealing with languages. The rise of English towards the end of the Middle Ages was deeply connected with the politics of French-born rulers needing the informed consent of English-speaking nobles in order to provide tax money for armies and the like. Likewise, to describe what was going on in history and to provide the history of where words were coined and how they entered into language itself served as a sort of judgment of words that were considered to affected because of French origin or to be low and disreputable because of their origin in colonial backwaters (like Ireland) or disreputable sources (like the theater). And so in uncovering the history of language we are also brought face to face with our own use of words and our own awareness, or lack thereof, of the controversies and pedigree of the words in our disposal and how we use them to communicate with others. Of course, the course benefits from not being all heaviness but also contains some light and humorous stories, including one about some London merchants who were stranded in 16th century Kent and unable to convey to a Kentish farmer their need for some eggs. The English were divided by a common language long before the English and Americans were.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
[2] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
Part Three:
A course that began with a great deal of interest and promise ends in a somewhat strange place. I do not say that this course ends in a bad place, because its ending is not a bad one, but although I am an American speaker of English and have a great deal of interest in linguistics as both a humanity and as a science, this book was not very personally satisfying for me, and I think it is worth trying to get a handle on why this is the case [1]. There are some aspects of linguistics I am not very fond of, and these areas I am not very fond of are similar to areas I am not fond of across the board. For example, I love reading books about birds and gardening until the author starts bringing in contemporary political worldviews I dislike, and it was that political aspect of language that I found to be the most disappointing about this set of lectures as a whole. If it did not dim my enjoyment of the series as a whole, it did make the ending less pleasant than the rest of the material was.
The twelve lectures of this part take up six hours of discussion. The author begins by talking about the beginnings of American English (25), which were already noticeable from the 17th century, long before American independence, where a greater egalitarianism and a lessening of the difference between regional dialects was noted early. After this there are lectures on the American language from Webster to Mencken (26) and American (political) rhetoric from Jefferson to Lincoln (27), where the author notes approvingly the importance of political rhetoric in the formation of the American form of English. After this comes a look at the language of the American self in such diverse ways as Frederick Douglass' slave narrative as well as the writing of Melville (28) before the author turns to questions of American regionalism (29) and American dialects in literature like Huckleberry Finn, the Uncle Reamus stories, and a Maine regional writer I was unfamiliar with (30). The instructor spends an entire lecture looking at the issue of African-American English (31) and another lecture examining the Anglophone World by looking at Indian writers in English (32). The author then spends a couple of lectures seeking to untangle the language of science (33) and the science of language (34) by looking at Chomsky and others who seek to posit deep structures for language competence in the brain. After this the course closes with a look at linguistics and politics in language study (35) and some of the professor's conclusions and attempts at provocation (36).
To appreciate the first two parts of this course, one need only appreciate, for example, linguistics as a broad field as well as history and literature. When one is looking at Indo-European roots and the influence of Latin and Norman French on Middle English, one may be aware that there are politics involved, but the politics of the Roman Empire and of Plantagenet England are not the sort of politics that get (most) people bent out of shape. In this course, though, the politics are contemporary and the author and I just do not think the same way. In particular, the author shows himself to spend a great deal of time and effort trying to legitimize bad English in the names of cultural politics, and as a result I found this particular part of the course way less enjoyable as a listener. This world has enough bad politics in it that these lectures were for the most part not very essential and not very enjoyable even where there is occasional agreement about the desirability of understanding linguistics in the context of literature and broader questions of culture and society. Still, stay clear of these lectures unless you really like a lot of discussion about politics.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
This course began in such a way that I was left pretty encouraged about how it would turn out. Admittedly, this is a course designed for those who are not amateur philologists [1], but it is still an enjoyable course if one brings some background knowledge to the table. Indeed, even with background knowledge and a considerable interest in the origins of English as a language there are some excellent details the instructor includes that demonstrate his grasp of the material and his obvious love of languages. It is quite delightful to hear the instructor jump between Old and Middle English, between ancient Indo-European reconstructions and more modern languages to show the development of philology as a research project as well as the development of English as a language during its first few centuries. Included are some deeply intriguing questions about identity and about influence that are worth pondering even if the course so far has focused (understandably) on the development of English in the British Isles and only a little bit about the distinctions of American English thus far.
As is common among the Great Courses, this part of the course consists of twelve lectures of half an hour or so apiece. First the instructor introduces the listener to the study of language, giving some basics in philology (1). After this there is a lecture on the historical study of language and its beginnings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries along with some of its characteristic myths (2). From here the instructor moves to a look at Indo-European as a language family and the preshistory of English when it was part of the general proto-Germanic languages (3). A deeply enjoyable lecture on the reconstruction of meaning and sound (4) along with a lecture on historical linguistics and the study of culture (5) close the introductory section of this course. After this point the author focuses his attention on English as a language and its change over time. First the instructor looks at the beginnings of English with its closeness to the continental West German languages it sprang from (6), after which there is a look at the Old English worldview and how we know this from the melancholy early poetry of the English (7). After this the author answers the question of whether the Normans conquered English with a no (8) before looking at how the Norman conquest occurred a time when dramatic change was already occurring to English (9), so that they are not entirely to blame. The first part of the course then comes to an end with an examination of Chaucer's rich English (10) along with the representation of dialect in Middle English (11) and Medieval attitudes towards language (12) that emphasized the alienation between God and man that took place at the fall and also the alienation between people that took place at the Tower of Babel.
There are at least a few deeper matters that this course invites listeners to understand. One of these is the way that languages can change in attitude depending on questions of prestige, such as the distinction between Germanic languages as a whole being resistant to the addition of new words and the voracious tendency of English to add new words based in large part on its survival as a non-prestige language during the Early Middle English period under Norman rule. Another question that this course invites listeners to wrestle with is the question of how much the Normans are to blame for the changes that divide Old from Middle English. Finally, the course wrestles with questions of sin and alienation as a way pointing out the way that dialect and language difference served to alienate people from those who spoke a different form of English, comically brought to mind when a Kentish farm woman thought that the desire on the part of metropolitan London merchants for eggys in the fifteenth century was some sort of Frenchified expression, much to the anger of the London merchants.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
Part Two:
I must admit that I found this particular set of lectures to be pretty fascinating, but that is not a surprise given my fondness for the author's previous work [1] as well as the subject matters the author speaks about [2]. In examining the history of the English language, the instructor is attuned to at least a few different angles of this process. On the one hand, he has a great interest in the nuts and bolts of how words are coined or imported into a language to handle the conceptual demands of a people at a given time, and yet at the same time this series of lectures has a lot to say about the larger political aspects involved in language. And make no mistake, this book discusses the politics of language in a variety of different ways that certainly demonstrate what is at stake when it comes to teaching and defining and describing language. The author even demonstrates the moral judgments that come from people who shape the language through their use as well as through their research.
This course is divided into twelve lectures of 30 minutes apiece like most of the Great Courses series. These lectures begin with a look at the return of English as a standard during the late Middle English period as the politics of English nationalism and the need of the late Plantagenet rulers for a larger cultural consensus behind their empire building plans led to increased prestige for chancery English (13). After this the author discusses the great vowel shift and its effect on forming early modern English (14) and the expanding English vocabulary resulting from coinage and importation from French and Latin and other sources (15). The author then looks at early modern English syntax and grammar (16) as well as Renaissance attitudes on teaching English (17). The next two lectures focus on Shakespeare, first on drama, grammar, and pronunciation (18) and then on poetry, sound, and sense (19). The instructor then spends some time looking at the impact of the Tyndale and King James Bibles on the English language (20) before looking at importance of Samuel Johnson's dictionary (21). This focus on the divide between descriptivism and prescriptivism in the standards of English (22) carries on to the end of this series of lectures with a look at dictionaries and word histories (23) and the value judgments of words as their meanings and usage changes over time (24).
What struck me as being particularly interested is the fact that it is impossible to escape political and moral concerns when dealing with languages. The rise of English towards the end of the Middle Ages was deeply connected with the politics of French-born rulers needing the informed consent of English-speaking nobles in order to provide tax money for armies and the like. Likewise, to describe what was going on in history and to provide the history of where words were coined and how they entered into language itself served as a sort of judgment of words that were considered to affected because of French origin or to be low and disreputable because of their origin in colonial backwaters (like Ireland) or disreputable sources (like the theater). And so in uncovering the history of language we are also brought face to face with our own use of words and our own awareness, or lack thereof, of the controversies and pedigree of the words in our disposal and how we use them to communicate with others. Of course, the course benefits from not being all heaviness but also contains some light and humorous stories, including one about some London merchants who were stranded in 16th century Kent and unable to convey to a Kentish farmer their need for some eggs. The English were divided by a common language long before the English and Americans were.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
[2] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
Part Three:
A course that began with a great deal of interest and promise ends in a somewhat strange place. I do not say that this course ends in a bad place, because its ending is not a bad one, but although I am an American speaker of English and have a great deal of interest in linguistics as both a humanity and as a science, this book was not very personally satisfying for me, and I think it is worth trying to get a handle on why this is the case [1]. There are some aspects of linguistics I am not very fond of, and these areas I am not very fond of are similar to areas I am not fond of across the board. For example, I love reading books about birds and gardening until the author starts bringing in contemporary political worldviews I dislike, and it was that political aspect of language that I found to be the most disappointing about this set of lectures as a whole. If it did not dim my enjoyment of the series as a whole, it did make the ending less pleasant than the rest of the material was.
The twelve lectures of this part take up six hours of discussion. The author begins by talking about the beginnings of American English (25), which were already noticeable from the 17th century, long before American independence, where a greater egalitarianism and a lessening of the difference between regional dialects was noted early. After this there are lectures on the American language from Webster to Mencken (26) and American (political) rhetoric from Jefferson to Lincoln (27), where the author notes approvingly the importance of political rhetoric in the formation of the American form of English. After this comes a look at the language of the American self in such diverse ways as Frederick Douglass' slave narrative as well as the writing of Melville (28) before the author turns to questions of American regionalism (29) and American dialects in literature like Huckleberry Finn, the Uncle Reamus stories, and a Maine regional writer I was unfamiliar with (30). The instructor spends an entire lecture looking at the issue of African-American English (31) and another lecture examining the Anglophone World by looking at Indian writers in English (32). The author then spends a couple of lectures seeking to untangle the language of science (33) and the science of language (34) by looking at Chomsky and others who seek to posit deep structures for language competence in the brain. After this the course closes with a look at linguistics and politics in language study (35) and some of the professor's conclusions and attempts at provocation (36).
To appreciate the first two parts of this course, one need only appreciate, for example, linguistics as a broad field as well as history and literature. When one is looking at Indo-European roots and the influence of Latin and Norman French on Middle English, one may be aware that there are politics involved, but the politics of the Roman Empire and of Plantagenet England are not the sort of politics that get (most) people bent out of shape. In this course, though, the politics are contemporary and the author and I just do not think the same way. In particular, the author shows himself to spend a great deal of time and effort trying to legitimize bad English in the names of cultural politics, and as a result I found this particular part of the course way less enjoyable as a listener. This world has enough bad politics in it that these lectures were for the most part not very essential and not very enjoyable even where there is occasional agreement about the desirability of understanding linguistics in the context of literature and broader questions of culture and society. Still, stay clear of these lectures unless you really like a lot of discussion about politics.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
May 1, 2011
Lerer's knowledge and affection for his subject is impressive, and particularly impressive is his ability to read various dialects as if he were the native speaker. Lerer has a good way in driving home his points (e.g., vowels are 'continuously produced sounds that can go on forever' whereas consonants break the sound). After a description of English's indo-European roots, Lerer breaks down the history of the language into Old English (Anglo-Saxon, 7th to 11th Century), Middle English (from the Norman conquest to the 16th century, where the language was French for culture, Latin for administration, and English for street people), to modern English (16th Century on, where 'the great vowel shift' occurred that separated English pronunciation from European languages).
The main takeaway from these lectures is how much of the history of English reflects status and class. This is seen in the tension between regional English and dialect and 'standard' English, and between descriptive approaches that attempt to describe actual English use and prescriptive approaches that push language into someone's view of what it ought to be. This tension gets played out among various arbiters of culture and among the dictionary writers and their attempts to standardize use, and the tension is seen today, for example, in black English that challenges what is standard yet infuses English with new life.
At the end of his lectures, Lerer briefly describes the theories of language and the division between those students who see language as a reflection of culture and those (Chomsky) who see language as a product of mind (universal innate structures). In contrast to the former view where individuals are born with blank slates that culture fills with language, Lerer aligns Chomsky's theory (which he calls 'radical universalism')with Descartes and Plato's views about innate ideas. For Chomsky, according to Lerer, 'Deep Structure' (the innate, universal capacity to 'do language' and to do it in certain ways) is the substratum for surface structures (actual language of specific cultures that fill the deep structure). From the perspective of evolutionary development, a question is whether is there a conflict at all between these two approaches. Deep structures, which give us the capacity for language because of the evolutionary advantages language gave humankind, underlie surface structures that is the language specific to each culture. The underlying form, in other words is universal but the specific content that fills the form varies by culture. Seen this way, biological and cultural structures would work in tandem, rather than an either/or sort of way as Lerer presents it.
Lerer is overly detailed in this long series of lectures (36 audio tapes, 1998 edition) and this, along with a propensity to share the arcane terminology of his profession with the audience, tends to overrun some of his main themes. Overall, however, this is a good series of lectures for those interested in the history of our language.
The main takeaway from these lectures is how much of the history of English reflects status and class. This is seen in the tension between regional English and dialect and 'standard' English, and between descriptive approaches that attempt to describe actual English use and prescriptive approaches that push language into someone's view of what it ought to be. This tension gets played out among various arbiters of culture and among the dictionary writers and their attempts to standardize use, and the tension is seen today, for example, in black English that challenges what is standard yet infuses English with new life.
At the end of his lectures, Lerer briefly describes the theories of language and the division between those students who see language as a reflection of culture and those (Chomsky) who see language as a product of mind (universal innate structures). In contrast to the former view where individuals are born with blank slates that culture fills with language, Lerer aligns Chomsky's theory (which he calls 'radical universalism')with Descartes and Plato's views about innate ideas. For Chomsky, according to Lerer, 'Deep Structure' (the innate, universal capacity to 'do language' and to do it in certain ways) is the substratum for surface structures (actual language of specific cultures that fill the deep structure). From the perspective of evolutionary development, a question is whether is there a conflict at all between these two approaches. Deep structures, which give us the capacity for language because of the evolutionary advantages language gave humankind, underlie surface structures that is the language specific to each culture. The underlying form, in other words is universal but the specific content that fills the form varies by culture. Seen this way, biological and cultural structures would work in tandem, rather than an either/or sort of way as Lerer presents it.
Lerer is overly detailed in this long series of lectures (36 audio tapes, 1998 edition) and this, along with a propensity to share the arcane terminology of his profession with the audience, tends to overrun some of his main themes. Overall, however, this is a good series of lectures for those interested in the history of our language.
June 4, 2015
This is a series of lectures done by Seth Lerer for The Great Courses and it's all about how language comes to us by way of the Middle Ages and the many influences from Latin, French and Olde English. As a writer I was really fascinated and I think had I studied this when I was younger, I might have been better at learning new languages.
A tip: Don't be intimidate by the deep scholastic content. If you are not catching every single fact or concept, just shrug it off and keep going. There are things that are going to stick and that is one more thing that you didn't know before. You can always go back when the curiosity hits and listen to it again.
Seth delivers this topic to us in person and I really enjoyed listening to him. There are a couple of other Great Courses where the lecturer starts that sing song sleep inducing syntax that used to drive me crazy in school and unsurprisingly, it had the same effect on me now as it did then. Seth kept me awake and if I was bored with what he was saying at the time, I just soldiered on. Now I know a LOT about how the language and words I speak and read now came to me.
A tip: Don't be intimidate by the deep scholastic content. If you are not catching every single fact or concept, just shrug it off and keep going. There are things that are going to stick and that is one more thing that you didn't know before. You can always go back when the curiosity hits and listen to it again.
Seth delivers this topic to us in person and I really enjoyed listening to him. There are a couple of other Great Courses where the lecturer starts that sing song sleep inducing syntax that used to drive me crazy in school and unsurprisingly, it had the same effect on me now as it did then. Seth kept me awake and if I was bored with what he was saying at the time, I just soldiered on. Now I know a LOT about how the language and words I speak and read now came to me.
March 22, 2015
One of the best series I have ever heard. It's SO good that, time permitting, I would listen to again IMMEDIATELY and I recommend it FULLY to EVERYONE. There is NO FILLER to force the course to meet its total of 36 excellent lectures and plenty for, even a language devotee, to learn afresh.
It was fascinating to hear variants of the "To be or not to be" soliloquy.
Great delivery generally, although, as a native Brit', I may have been a little over-sensitive about "Northern English" being rendered with a SCOTTISH accent. Nevertheless, the spirited speech was VERY welcome.
There is nothing bland, boring or dispassionate here.
I love it. YOU might too so DO try it if you get a chance.
It was fascinating to hear variants of the "To be or not to be" soliloquy.
Great delivery generally, although, as a native Brit', I may have been a little over-sensitive about "Northern English" being rendered with a SCOTTISH accent. Nevertheless, the spirited speech was VERY welcome.
There is nothing bland, boring or dispassionate here.
I love it. YOU might too so DO try it if you get a chance.
October 14, 2016
Still another great course from The Teaching Company. Five Stars! Also another one that I am going to have to listen to several more times, since there is so much to absorb.
The forty-third, albeit audio, book that I have finished this year. Normally I do not mind including a very occasional audio book in my count, but this year is different. The transition to Durham has, since early June, been so consuming that my reading program has basically stopped. I feel like I am starving intellectually. One more project to complete here and perhaps I can get back to something more like normal life next week.
The forty-third, albeit audio, book that I have finished this year. Normally I do not mind including a very occasional audio book in my count, but this year is different. The transition to Durham has, since early June, been so consuming that my reading program has basically stopped. I feel like I am starving intellectually. One more project to complete here and perhaps I can get back to something more like normal life next week.
September 10, 2015
This was an absolutely fascinating series of lectures which, despite knowing the topic rather well, I learned new things in every lecture. Prof. Lerer's idiosyncratic style took a little while to get used to, but his obvious and infectious enthusiasm for wordsmithery and the malleability of English was clear from the get-go and overruled any misgivings I may have had. I can't say I'd recommend it to everyone, but to practically anyone with an interest in history, linguistics or literature, I'd advise this book as a must-read.
May 20, 2025
This is probably my favorite teach company course yet! It help up for a second time through.
5/20/25: I abandoned the re-listen with Lisa.
5/20/25: I abandoned the re-listen with Lisa.
March 12, 2015
Like that cake sitting in the fridge -- you keep coming back for tiny bites and occasionally a big, fat piece. A language nerd's delight. Audio.
September 9, 2019
If you want a more technical treatment of English history and language development in general then this is the course for you. The professor give examples in Old English and Middle English, vocalizing the words to give the listener an idea of what those words might have sounded like. (Obviously there are no recordings to compare them to.) He also vocalizes how Shakespeare's sonnets and plays might have sounded like. English vowels had not as yet completed their change to modern sounds after the Great Vowel Change (circa 1400). He also goes into the theories of where language came from. Was there an original language? Apparently we can know a lot about previous languages by how the languages we know about developed.
After a while I found this deep dive into language tiresome. Objectively speaking, I think the professor did a good job so I gave him an extra star for that. It was simply not what I was looking for. (It's me! Not you! :-) )
Note: I am comparing this lecture series to Ann Curzan's series "The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins". I liked Ann Curzan's series more although the goals of her series are slightly different. They are closer to what I was looking for... that is... the history of words and not the history/theory of language in general.
Somewhere toward the end of the lectures the professor becomes politically correct. I found it tolerable.
I doubt I will listen to these lectures again, but I'm glad I went through them the first time.
After a while I found this deep dive into language tiresome. Objectively speaking, I think the professor did a good job so I gave him an extra star for that. It was simply not what I was looking for. (It's me! Not you! :-) )
Note: I am comparing this lecture series to Ann Curzan's series "The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins". I liked Ann Curzan's series more although the goals of her series are slightly different. They are closer to what I was looking for... that is... the history of words and not the history/theory of language in general.
Somewhere toward the end of the lectures the professor becomes politically correct. I found it tolerable.
I doubt I will listen to these lectures again, but I'm glad I went through them the first time.
August 18, 2018
Would if I could give it 7 stars. Very well delivered, thoughtful, and not-one-whit superficial tour-de-force. I learned an immense amount about English: its evolution over time: how it was in old English, what caused changes (cultural factors, cognitive factors, well-meaning grammar purists, the need for standardization when producing books, as well as linguistic forces such as word stresses), how we know of these changes, and copious amounts of examples demonstrating the change. Along the way, one is also left with a cornucopia of word trivia (the "corn" in "cornucopia" is the same as (i.e., cognate with), "horn", and this c-h mapping is systematic (also seen in, for example, "heart" and "cardia"); that both "wiley" and "guile" come from the same word in French to English, but the former from the Norman french and the latter from Parisian french).
January 14, 2023
Very good information, but what prevented me from enjoying it more was the HEAVY emphasis on the importance and the diversity of American English in the latter half of the “course.” American English is just one (important, sure) version of English, and that it was dwelled upon with such stereotypical passion, at the expense of Australian, South African, Irish, Scottish, Canadian, Indian, etc shows that this is a course for and by Americans. Not downplaying the significance of American English and literature in the world, but it is not merely the inheritor and continuer of British English, but one of many. Much of this is highly insular thinking.
The first half of the course is exceptional, however.
The first half of the course is exceptional, however.
March 14, 2019
Professor Lerer is well-versed in the various aspects of the history of English, from the linguistic side to the literary, from historical shifts to theory of language, and from individual linguistic identity to macrolinguistic sets of grammar and pronunciation. This series is for linguists, literary scholars, historians, translators, poets, language-learners, readers, speakers, thespians, and anyone even vaguely interested in the topic. Lectures are easy to understand for the layman but engaging for the academic, and Professor Lerer is a talented speaker who will never put you to sleep. 10/10
November 4, 2021
A very thorough history of English. Starting with three lectures on Indo-European and finishing with a couple of lectures on late 20th century linguistics. His linguistic analysis of Chaucer and Shakespeare was a whole new way of looking at them. He emphasizes the cultural influences. My only regret is that it was published in 1998m as s doesn't get into the Internet influence on English. I wonder what he would say.
January 14, 2017
This is a great course - very interesting and informative. It took me almost 1.5 years to complete it, but it was well worth the time and effort. Professor Lerer has such a way of explaining even complex concepts that they seem accessible even to a person like me, who has only a very basic knowledge of linguistics. Highly recommended.
February 8, 2023
Excellent coverage nearly equal to a first year course, covering many important points such as the indo European origins, the evolution through old English to middle, to Early Modern English with explanations about how to reconstruct the sounds, all the way to generativism/Chomsky and programming ai to generative language.
April 28, 2023
The History of the English Language by The Teaching Company is a series of lectures by Professor Seth Lerer, a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. Though a bit lengthy, I thought the course was well organized and informative and benefited from the audio format since you could hear Lerer's verbal interpretations of earlier forms of the English language.
July 29, 2018
I enjoyed part two the most, with my favorite lecture probably being 14, on the Great Vowel Shift. The discussion of Shakespeare, attitudes about prescriptive spelling, philosophy of dictionary writing, and dialects were all interesting.
June 7, 2019
This was an amazing lecture series. Professor Seth Lerer begins with the dawn of the English language and gradually moves forward to modern English. I enjoyed listening to Lerer pronouncing Old and Middle English works.
It was interesting to see how different languages and words were adopted to the English language. There are lectures on the vowel shift, syntax, vocabulary, and grammar. I discovered that going towards modern times there were groups trying to get their desired changes to English set as a standard. It seems to me that these attitudes still exist today because some people have trouble going with the flow of modern English changes.
The lectures on dictionaries were enlightening. Specific lectures that I found educational were: The “Impact of African American English;” “The Language of Science;” and “ American Regionalism.”
It was interesting to see how different languages and words were adopted to the English language. There are lectures on the vowel shift, syntax, vocabulary, and grammar. I discovered that going towards modern times there were groups trying to get their desired changes to English set as a standard. It seems to me that these attitudes still exist today because some people have trouble going with the flow of modern English changes.
The lectures on dictionaries were enlightening. Specific lectures that I found educational were: The “Impact of African American English;” “The Language of Science;” and “ American Regionalism.”
January 13, 2024
Not bad. The lecturer has a lot of knowledge regarding British literature and Chauncer, which was both fascinating and probably went more in depth than I cared about. Some things were things I already knew, and others were interesting lessons. Overall, a very solid course.
June 19, 2017
First third was captivating, second third was so-so, final third was rubbish.
June 21, 2018
Erudite and fascinating. I loved listening to Prof. Lerer's lectures; his enthusiasm sparked my own, especially for the Anglo-Saxon/Norman period. Fun!
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