Mother Tongue [Paperback]

I never thought a book on English (and languages, in general) would get me to laugh out loud, but this one did many times. For example, Bryson writes that "some languages have words that we may be pleased to do without," such as the German word "schadenfreude" (which means "taking delight in the misfortune of others") or how about "sgiomlaireachd" (meaning "dropping in at mealtimes" in Scottish Gaelic)? The delight that Bryson takes in languages is, well, simply wonderful: He writes that strozzapreti is a pasta in Italy and means "strangled priests" and that vermicelli means "little worms." Or how about that "A ydycg wedi talu a dodi eich tocyn yn y golwg?" is Welsh for "Did you remember to pay?" Bryson is also quick to give opinions, such as: "There is no logical reason not to split an infinitive" and "Sentences [can] end with a preposition." Then he tell us the sources of these "dubious" strictures.

Bryson is intrigued about where English words come from, and they come from many other languages: Scandinavian (skull, leg, husband, rotten, their), Norman French (jury, traitor, marriage, govern), native American ("hoochinoo" became hooch!), Mexican-Spanish (rancher), German (dollar), etc. In fact, only about 1% of our words are Old English ones (but they include man, wife, and love) we discover. Where do our words come from? Well, about 1,700 were invented by Shakespeare alone, including the following words: critical, monumental, castigate, majestic, obscene, excellent, and lonely. Also quite interesting is how English words have changed in the last millennium: For example, to Chaucer a "girl" meant any young person, "brave" implied cowardice (which "bravado" still does), and that "knight" was pronounced something like "kuh-nee-guh-tuh.". And new words keep coming ("apolitical" is only 50 years old)! And, of course, we learn that English has influenced other languages greatly: in China, conversations occur on the "te le fung," a Ukrainian goes to the barber for a "herkot," and a Japanese commuter is crammed into a subway car during "rushawa" (rush hour)!

And where else would I have discovered such facts as these?: that there are 176 names for dust balls under the bed; that there are 17 different pronunciations for the word "house" in Northern England; that there are no Chinese crossword puzzles (because there is no alphabet); that Kennedy means "ugly head" in Gaelic; that the Japanese, Malayans, and American Indians do not have have any swear words in their native languages; that an anagram for "The Morse Code" is "Here come dots"; that a couple of centuries ago, many words could be spelled two or more ways, but today there are only three such words in North America (ax/axe, gray/grey, and inquire/enquire); that the Pilgrims were among the first generation in England who said "has" rather than "hath" and "runs" instead of "runneth"; and that "O.K." is "arguably America's single greatest gift to international discourse, able to serve as an adjective, verb, noun, interjection, and adverb," with obscure origins that may be someone's initials (Martin Van Buren's nickname, "Old Kinderhook"), a popular snack (Orrins-Kendall crackers), or words in Finnish ("oikea"), Haitian ("Aux Cayes," a source of rum), or Choctaw ("okeh"), or perhaps a contraction of "oll korrect" (which is how Andrew Jackson spelled this expression)!

This is a book to treasure!

Bryson writes charming travelogues - THE LOST CONTINENT is a book I'd recommend to any foreigner wanting to learn about rural America - but he is an amateur with an interest in wordplay and not a professional linguist. Much of the book appears to have been thrown together from older books on language for the popular reader, especially those of Otto Jespersen, Mario Pei, and Montagu, which themselves have been criticised for errors and oversimplications.

The errors of the book astound from the start any reader with the slighest knowledge of language. Bryson speaks of the Eskimos having a multitude of words for snow, though this urban myth causes linguists to shudder and has been soundly debunked in THE GREAT ESKIMO VOCABULARY HOAX. Bryson goes on to say that Russian has no words for "efficiency", "engagement ring", or "have fun", a preposterous statement that can be proved wrong by any Russian speaker. His knowledge of British history is also shaky, as he asserts that the Saxon invaders eliminated entirely the former Celtic inhabitants, but in reality they merely imposed their language and Britons now remain essentially the same people genetically as 4,000 years ago.

Every reader who speaks another language besides English will find a most annoying mistake in THE MOTHER TONGUE. For me, a speaker of Esperanto, it was Bryson's ridiculous summary of the language. He begans by mispelling the name of the language's initiator. Then he asserts that the language has no definite articles - it does - but then gives a sample of the language in which this definite article he just denied is used twiced (and mispelled once).

These are only a few examples, the book is filled with multitudes more.

While the birth and growth of the English language is a fascinating subject, it's a shame that it is spoiled in MOTHER TONGUE by an abundance of errors. If you are interested about how English got the way it is today, I'd recommend trying another book, one preferably written by someone with a degree in linguistics.