Book Review by Jane
English touches all people who speak it.  Everyone who reads this book will find something of interest.  Tracey picked this book, revealing her interest in how things develop over time.  There are several chapters on just that part of the development of the English language.  This book was witty.  A lot of humor was used in describing the ways words came about and pronunciation, etc.  The most interesting part of this book is the explanations of how the language got started.  Mr. Bryson claims that certain aspects of language are innate; this explains a lot of the universal properties of language, of which he explores.  
    
Some other chapters deal with the roots and origin of the actual words, as well as spelling and pronunciation.  An interesting fact here is that Shakespeare was actually responsible for many new words and phrases.  One tenth of all the words he used were new creations.  Other authors of words include Isaac Newton and the U.S. Army.  
    
The complexities of spelling and its roots leads nicely into a chapter about how complex our grammar is, with its many rules.  One chapter that was particularly interesting compared the Old English usage with the new English.  America's English is explored in this chapter.  There are people in America today, the Amish, who speak Pennsylvania Dutch.  Bryson uses other examples of people in America who speak different dialects in the Varieties of English chapter.  It is a good point he makes that any cataloging of dialects is incomplete if it leaves out certain ethnic groups.  He claims that with an even more thorough look into the question, time would have passed and the volumes written would be out of date.  So there may be no way of really cataloging the dialects in the U.S. because of our diversity. But even with our diversity, he points out that it is amazing we can understand each other from state to state and region to region.  
    
The book offers some fun also in the chapters, Names, Swearing and Wordplay.  Names often hold meaning and they are often pronounced differently then they are spelled.  In the Swearing chapter, it is interesting to find that some phrases we consider swearing now were not considered swearing in the past.  Bryson claims Queen Victoria was not the cause of the Victorian Age, but a product of it.  Then, many words were considered impolite, such as legs.  Wordplay is a chapter about the beginnings of the crossword puzzle and other word games.  Overall, The Mother Tongue has something for everyone who speaks English.  It was enjoyable to read.

Tracey.