A Companion to Baugh & Cable's A History of the English Language

ISBN: 020523075X

Author: Cable, Thomas

Condition: New

In the spirit of the main text, the Companion pays attention to the linguistic effects ofsocial, political, and literary events. The maps are designed to set the geographical contexts forthese cultural influences during the Indo-European period, the Middle Ages, and the eras of theBritish Empire and of American ascendancy. The pre-chapter on The Sounds of Englishcontains phonetic information and exercises that should be helpful in most of the chapters thatfollow. The Questions for Review that begin each chapter give an overview of the mostimportant topics in each period and serve as a checklist of items that should be familiar in anydiscussion of the history of English. Now that we are into the second decade of the twenty-firstcentury, a twelfth chapter has been added to the main text. Because English as a global languageis a central issue in its history at this point, the questions for review in Chapter 12 raise topics fordiscussion concerning the major languages of the world, prospects for the future, and lessobvious issues such as the relative complexity of languages.The headings for most sections are followed by a corresponding section number in theHistory. On many topics the amount of exposition preceding the exercises varies more or lessinversely with the amount in the History, the idea being to have a full discussion of importanttopics without a duplication between the two books.