Ilan Stavans is the publisher of Restless Books and a passionate lover of dictionaries, with a collection of over three hundred now housed in his personal collection at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published an assortment of books about language, including Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language (2003), Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion (2005), Resurrecting Hebrew (2008), and How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish (2020). He serves as a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary and lives in Amherst, Mass.

Praise for The People’s Tongue:“From Noah Webster’s first American dictionary and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s rendering of African American vernacular English as a poetic diction, to the multiplicity of ‘Englishes’ registered on social media today, our national language is loud, disjointed, and comprised of irresistibly rhythmic polyphonic beats. Ilan Stavans’ extraordinary anthology invites us to see and reassess our reservoir of words that define the full range of American English, from countless disciplinary perspectives. This volume is destined to become an essential companion to future generations. Stavans, whose work on Spanglish has opened new scholarly paths, has made a major contribution to the vibrant, and still unfolding history of the English language.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.“All the contradictions and contests of American identity are right here, in American English. What a tremendous compendium this is, and what a story—the story, in word after word, of our glorious, polyglot democracy. Just fabulous!”—Gish Jen, author of The Resisters and Thank You, Mr. Nixon“After reading this incredible, historically deep, insightful collection The People’s Tongue, I want to run and forge a new poetry, a true all-encompassing, unabashed, language mural—heart-sharpened and nerve-inked—for all. I want to rhyme and stomp to the timbres and beats of Zora Neale Hurston, Natalie Diaz, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Chang-Rae Lee. I want to be the American I have always been, brother of all the Americans I have met on the Laureate road and heard singing in their own tongue on every soulful corner of every state of this nation. Bravo!”—Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus“What a treat—we get to listen in at a gathering where Anne Winthrop talks to Kendrick Lamar while Noah Webster chats with Jhumpa Lahiri about what it means to be American. Anyone who’s passionate about language will love this account of 450 years of American English in all its swaggering, poetic, rowdy, multi-ethnic, funny, touching, vulgar, beautiful, angry, silly, and profound glory.”—Jack Lynch, author of The Lexicographer’s Dilemma“The People’s Tongue is a vibrant, eclectic ride through the English language. This vital anthology, which brings together over 500 years of poems, speeches, and arguments as well as rap lyrics, tweets, and comedy routines, will spark many rich discussions about the power of language and the nature of democracy, but more importantly, will connect readers to diverse voices with something to say. The People’s Tongue belongs in writing and literature courses, reading groups, book clubs, and in the hands of any reader who wants to build the future by reflecting on the past.”—Grace Talusan, author of The Body Papers“There are few remaining threads that bind Americans to each other and to their past. The English language is one of them. That too is contested, and in this invaluable and timely anthology, Ilan Stavans has chosen powerful examples—from our Founding Fathers to our finest novelists to our latest pundits—that confirm how central our ever-changing language is to our national character.”—James Shapiro, Professor of English, Columbia University“Like Igor Stravinsky, Frank Zappa, and Charlie Parker, Ilan Stavans is a machine of endless innovation. Now he brings us a jazzy anthology that will delight, surprise, and unsettle readers. The People’s Tongue is an invaluable guide through the history and understanding of American English, a language that glues together this motley nation of 330-plus million souls. It confirms what we always knew: that our language exists through improvisation.”—Paquito D’Rivera, GRAMMY Award Winner and 2005 NEA Jazz Master

• Introduction: Language as Character, by Ilan StavansChronology Part I: Landing ModeAnne Winthrop: “Letter to Adam Winthrop” (1581)Robert Smith: from New England Primer (1687)John Adams: “Proposal for an American Language Academy” (1780)Thomas Jefferson: “Letter to John Waldo Monticello” (1813)Noah Webster: preface to An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)Alexis de Tocqueville: from Democracy in America (1835)Lydia Huntley Sigourney: “Indian Names” (1841)Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet: from “On the Natural Languages of Signs II” (1848)Sojourner Truth: “Ain’t I a Woman?” (1851)Abraham Lincoln: “Gettysburg Address” (1863)Bret Harte: “The Spelling Bee at Angels” (1878)Mark Twain: from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino: from English as She Is Spoke (1884)Walt Whitman: “Slang in America” (1885)Emily Dickinson: Poem #236 (1886)Richard Henry Pratt: from “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” (1892)Simon Pokagon: “On Naming the Indians” (1897)Paul Laurence Dunbar: “When Malindy Sings” (1903)Ambrose Bierce: “Two Definitions” (1906)Henry James: from The American Scene (1907)Mary Antin: from The Promised Land (1912)William L. Harding: “Babel Proclamation” (1918)Theodore Roosevelt Jr.: “The Last Message” (1919) Part II: Fly Me to the MoonH. L. Mencken: “The Characters of American” (1919)e e cummings: “next to of course god america i” (1926)Thomas Wolfe: “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn” (1935)Henry Roth: from Call It Sleep (1936)Zora Neale Hurston: from Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)Abel Meeropol and Billie Holiday: “Strange Fruit” (1939)Abbott and Costello: “Who’s on First?” (1944)Martin Minoru Iida: “Go for Broke” (1944)Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz: “Ough” (1953)William Faulkner: from “What’s the Good Word” (1958)Dr. Seuss: from Green Eggs and Ham (1960)Amiri Baraka: “Expressive Language” (1963)Bob Dylan: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (1963)Dwight McDonald: from “The String Untuned” (1963)Leo Rosten: from The Joys of Yiddish (1968)George Carlin: “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” (1972)Adrienne Rich “Transcendental Etude” (1978)James Baldwin: “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Tell Me What Is? (1979)Isaac Bashevis Singer: “On Translating My Books” (1979)Sugarhill Gang: from “Rapper’s Delight” (1979)E. B. White: Introduction to Oliver Strunk’s The Elements of Style (1979)John Ashbery: “Paradoxes and Oxymorons” (1980)Russell Hoban: from Riddley Walker (1980)Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa: “Speech on Language Amendment” (1982)Richard Rodríguez: “English, Sí” (1982) Part III: The Ruckus of PolyphonyGloria Anzaldúa: from “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (1987)Judith Ortiz Cofer: “Homework: Define Caliente” (1987)Julia Álvarez: “Bilingual Sestina” (1990)Amy Tan: “Mother Tongue” (1990)Tony Kushner: from Angels in America (1991)Toni Morrison: “Nobel Lecture” (1993)Chang-Rae Lee: “Mute in an English-Only World” (1996)Jamaica Kincaid: “In History” (1997)Robert F. Panara: “On His Deafness” (1997)Bill Clinton: “Memorandum on Plain Language in Government Writing” (1998)Louise Erdrich: “Two Languages in Mind, but Just One in the Heart” (2000)Joy Harjo: “A Map to the Next World” (2000)David Foster Wallace: “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars Over Usage” (2001)Susan Sontag: “The World as India” (2002)Ha Jin: from The Writer as Migrant (2008)Ammon Shea: “The Keypad Solution” (2010)Yusef Komunyakaa: “English” (2011)Peter Sokolowski: “New Words and the Dictionary” (2012)Jesse Sheidlower: “The Case for Profanity in Print” (2014)Ilan Stavans: “In Defense of Spanglish” (2014)Kendrick Lamar: “DNA” (2017)Natalie Diaz “Manhattan is a Lenape Word” (2020)Donald Trump: “CNN” (2021) Jhumpa Lahiri: “Lingua / Language” (2022)John McWorther: “English as a Living Language—Period” (2022) PermissionsIndex