A note on texts and letter forms
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 an Ille a millere as 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
Appendix : English sounds and their representation
Glossary
References and further reading
Acknowledgments
Index.