By David Crystal

English is arguably the closest factor we need to a global language, and but it's a language with a wealth of sorts, dialects, and traditions, all constructing in several methods and at assorted speeds. This e-book is a perfectly written and illustrated exploration of the background, constitution, and use of English in the course of the international. World-renowned linguist and writer, David Crystal, explores the numerous points and kinds of the English language, bringing lifestyles to this huge and complicated topic. He starts off with the origins of English in Anglo-Saxon occasions and follows the expansion of the language to the current. each significant English-speaking state is integrated, and the booklet abounds with insights into how English developed and the way it really works. the writer can pay specific awareness to using language in literature and the way it permeates humor. He permits language to "speak for itself" by utilizing quotations, pictures, newspaper clippings, poems, ads, cartoons, and lots of different forms of illustrative fabric that vividly supplement his narrative. writer Crystal systematically covers the structural positive factors of English, and features a entire description of grammar, a precis of pronunciation and writing structures, and a radical remedy of the scale and complexity of vocabulary. He explains technical points in basic and obtainable phrases and contains a thesaurus to aid the reader with doubtful language terminology. hugely visible with awesome colour illustrations, panels and boxed good points all through, this booklet is interesting studying for the widest attainable viewers. David Crystal is the writer of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (CUP, 1987) and the editor of The Cambridge Encyclopedia (CUP, 1990, 1994).