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You Should Read This: A Biography of the English Language by C.M. Millward

The cover of A Biography of the English Language by C.M. Millward, recommended by speculative fiction writer Cat Rambo
Our language is nuanced with a thousand historical references, even when we think it at its most innocent.
What:There’s a t-shirt that reads “English is a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary.” In A Biography of the English Language, Millward presents some of this complicated history of the English language, first talking about what a language is, along with basics of phonology and writing before moving into Indo-European, Old English (the sage of the arrival of the English, the Christianization of England, and various Viking invasions), Middle English, Early Modern English, and then the array of recent forces shaping our language: the printing press, the industrial revolution, colonization, the codification of grammar, and more. It finishes up with present day English, at least as present day as a book written in 1989 can be. I should note that, looking at Amazon, the book is expensive as heck. I suspect any thorough history of the English language will do as well, but this book is VERY thorough. I bet it’s also available through libraries.

Who:Read this if you are a writer who likes to know what’s built into the words you’re using, what they say about their circumstances as well as what resonances they add for the knowledgeable. Read it if you love the minutiae of language, all the little “who would have thought” and “Although unlikely” facts that get seeded into long and drifty conversations, like the fact that Indo-European had three numbers: singular, plural, and dual.

Why: Read this so you can use words both more efficiently and more artfully. SO you know how the literary tradition you are working for and against, bound inextricably within, has been affected by linguistic change and created its own pressures to change in turn.

When: Read this when going among bores, for it will arm you with facts with which any recitation of X-Files plots or sports trivia can be met. Read this when you want something a little academic, with that cleansing flavor of self-improvement that the scrub of dry details can bring. Read it when you’re cramming for a test that involves volcabulary.

Where and how: Read this sporadically, tucking facts away, or with a notebook in hand. Read it for a class that takes you through centuries of linguistic change, showing you how history is tucked into every Vocabulary lesson.

#sfwapro

6 Responses

    1. I know. Book prices are unfathomable to me, particularly when it’s an older book list this. I recommended a book to someone the other day and he found it on Amazon, but used since it was out of print, for $163, which he was understandably reluctant to pay.

      Reply

    2. I know. Book prices flummox me, particularly when it’s a book that’s been in print for a long time. I recommended a favorite SF book to someone the other day and when we investigated, found it on Amazon but out of print — for 160 bucks! Yikes.

      Reply

  2. On a similar tho somewhat different theme, may I also recommend “The Lexicographer’s Dilemma,” which is a history of the efforts to standardize English.

    Reply

    1. I read that and really enjoyed it. Someone on Twitter suggested I would also like The Stories of English by David Crystal.

      Reply
  3. Pingback: Speculative Reminiscences: Weekly Recap for 2/2/2014 | The World Remains Mysterious

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You Should Read This: The True Game Trilogy by Sherri S. Tepper

Cover for Sheri S. Tepper's science fiction trilogy, The True GameI first encountered this series in the late 70s, while a teen, and it hooked me to the point where I’ll always note a Sheri S. Tepper book coming out, even though some have gotten a little didactic. But this series? Not only is it is awesome, but it interlocks with two other trilogies set in the same world and with many of the same characters.

While The True Game Trilogy starts in what seems to be a fantasy world, where different people manifest different Talents that play off each other in a massive societal game. Protagonist Peter is part of a school that teaches its students how to play the game, and part of the joy of the book is the detail with which the game is worked out:

“Talisman,” I blurted. “Talisman to King’s Blood Four.”

“Good.” Gervaise actually smiled. “Now, tell me why?”

“Because our side can’t see what pieces may be hiding behind the King. Because Talisman is an absorptive piece, that is, it will soak up the King’s play. Totem is reflective. Totem would splash it around, we’d maybe lost some pieces…”

“Exactly. Now, students, visualize if you please. We have King, most durable of the adamants, whose ‘blood,’ that is, essence, is red light.Demons, most powerful of the ephemera, whose essence is shadow. Tragamors making barriers at the sides of the Demesne. The player is a student, without power, so he plays Talisman, an absorptive piece of the lesser ephemera. Talisman is lost in play, ‘sacrificed’ as we say. THe player gains nothing by this,but neither does he lose much, for with this play the Demesne is changed, and the game moves elsewhere in the purlieu.”

Peter thinks himself Talent-less but when it does emerge, it leads to danger connected to the secrets around Peter’s birth.

The magic system is lovely, there’s two strong female characters in the form of Jillian and Mavin Manyshaped,ach of whom gets her own later trilogy (with its own version of earlier events), the characters are engaging and/or often disturbing, and the plot is nicely put together, slowly shifting over to reveal itself to actually be science fiction.

There are others of Tepper’s works that I’d recommend — I adore the Marianne series, for one, and I reread Grass on a regular basis, as well as The Gate to Women’s Country. But this series was my gateway to Tepper and as such it has a pull for me above all the rest. If you want to know more about Tepper hereself, here’s an interview she did with Neal Szpatura for Strange Horizons in 2008 and an interview with John Scalzi.

#sfwapro

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