This is the fully revised and expanded second edition of English - One Tongue, Many Voices, a book by three internationally distinguished English language scholars who tell the fascinating, improbable saga of English in time and space. Chapters trace the history of the language from its obscure beginnings over 1500 years ago as a collection of dialects spoken by marauding, illiterate tribes. They show how the geographical spread of the language in its increasing diversity has made English into an international language of unprecedented range and variety.
Half the world's population speaks a language that has evolved from a single, prehistoric mother tongue. First spoken in Stone Age times, on the steppes of central Eurasia 6,500 years ago, this mother tongue spread from the shores of the Black Sea across almost all of Europe and much of Asia. It is the genetic basis of everything we speak and write today-the DNA of language.
On the Tip of My Tongue: Questions, Facts, Curiosities and Games of a Quizzical Nature
An engaging and entertaining collection of trivia, On the Tip My Tongue is quiz book with a difference, published in time for the holiday season.
Trivia-phile David Gentle brings together the most tantalizing, brain-twisting questions that—honestly, no really—are just on the tip of your tongue. From historical events to Hitchcock to Hogwarts, On the Tip of My Tongue asks readers to name as many items as possible from a list, and to solve the hidden links between specific groups of questions. As the reader gets deeper into the book, the more difficult and arcane the questions and connections become.
More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to. It would be charitable to say that the results are sometimes mixed.
