Jamie's review
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
Another helping from the Bill Bryson smorgasboard. This book definitely has a different flavor to it, though, as it's about linguistics, philology, and all things language. This area has actually been a secret interest of mine, as I've always found it fascinating how we learn language, how languages change over time, and how they change across regions. It's one of the many great things about having a kid --you get to watch them learn to think and speak using language, and the natural, organic, and ultimately mysterious way that they go about it completely fascinates me.
Bryson goes into that a little bit, but the majority of the book focuses on the quirks of the English language and how it developed and emerged in its present form out of the mists of history. The point that I took from all this is just how absurd a language English is. Why is "know" spelled with a "k" at the beginning? Why is something "aural" or "urban" instead of "sound...more
Bryson goes into that a little bit, but the majority of the book focuses on the quirks of the English language and how it developed and emerged in its present form out of the mists of history. The point that I took from all this is just how absurd a language English is. Why is "know" spelled with a "k" at the beginning? Why is something "aural" or "urban" instead of "sound...more
