Seth Lerer is Distinguished Professor of Literature and the former Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of California, San Diego. He is known nationally for his audio and videotape series, The History of the English Language, for the Teaching Company.

"A personal, selective, and impassioned journey through the history of English."-Times Higher Education Supplement"An invigorating read for the mind and the mouth."-Bloomsbury Review"Lerer not only navigates the shifting currents and boiling rapids of English, but also explores its secret coves."-Advocate"[A] remarkable linguistic investigation."-Booklist"Written with real authority, enthusiasm, and love for our unruly and exquisite language."-Washington Post"The book percolates with creative energy and will please anyone intrigued by how our richly variegated language came to be."-Publishers Weekly"Erudite and accessible."-Globe & Mail"An unusual linguistic and literary feast."-Michigan Quarterly Review

• A Note on Texts and Letter Forms Preface to the Revised Edition Introduction: Finding English, Finding Us 1. Caedmon Learns to Sing: Old English and the Origins of Poetry 2. From Beowulf to Wulfstan: The Language of Old English Literature 3. In This Year: The Politics of Language and the End of Old English 4. From Kingdom to Realm: Middle English in a French World 5. Lord of This Langage: Chaucer's English 6. I Is as Ille as a Millere Are Ye: Middle English Dialects 7. The Great Vowel Shift and the Changing Character of English 8. Chancery, Caxton, and the Making of English Prose 9. I Do, I Will: Shakespeare's English 10. A Universal Hubbub Wild: New Words and Worlds in Early Modern English 11. Visible Speech: The Orthoepists and the Origins of Standard English 12. A Harmless Drudge: Samuel Johnson and the Making of the Dictionary 13. Horrid, Hooting Stanzas: Lexicography and Literature in American English 14. Antses in the Sugar: Dialect and Regionalism in American English 15. Hello, Dude: Mark Twain and the Making of the American Idiom 16. Ready for the Funk: African American English and Its Impact 17. Pioneers Through an Untrodden Forest: The Oxford English Dictionary and Its Readers 18. Listening to Private Ryan: War and Language 19. He Speaks in Your Voice: Everybody's English 20. Faith in English: Vernacular Devotion and Biblical Translation Epilogue: The Talk and the Text Appendix: English Sounds and Their Representation Glossary References and Further Reading Acknowledgments Acknowledgments to the Revised Edition Index