Preface
1. English: the Ancestral Trail
William Jones and the Indo-European family of languages
2. Putting English on the Map
Alfred the Great and the establishment of English
Interlude 1 What OE was like: the nun, the devil, and a lettuce
3. Simplifying English
Samuel Moore and the case of the disappearing inflections
4. Standardising written English
Henry V and Chancery English
Interlude 2 What ME was like: a gat-toothed wife
5. Enriching English
Thomas Elyot, Thomas Wilson and a proliferation of new words
6. ‘Worshipping the English’
Richard Mulcaster and his Elementarie
Interlude 3 What EModE was like: hands red with blood
7. Fixing the language
Samuel Johnson and his Dictionary
8. Crossing the Atlantic
Noah Webster and American English
9. Going beyond the Standard
William Barnes and the Dorset dialect
10. A ‘dictionary of all English’
James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary
11. The spread of English
Braj Kachru and his concentric circles
12. What next?
David Crystal and the future of English
Index
Biography
Keith Johnson is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Language Education at Lancaster University, UK. He is author of The History of Early English and The History of Late Modern Englishes, both published by Routledge.
