The language that would become English arrived in these islands in the fifth century with Germanic tribes as the Roman empire began collapsing. Bragg describes it in almost Darwinian terms, a “subtle and ruthless” survivor that defeated competing tongues over the next three centuries, refusing to marry with the indigenous Celtic language (which has left us only about two dozen words).
Bragg tells the story of how this guttural Germanic dialect developed to be now understood by two thousand million people across the globe. This is an elegant and highly informative ‘biography’ of our language. Own a copy for your bookshelves.
Melvyn Bragg
369 pages in Sceptre paperback edition.
ISBN 978-0340829936