The Mother Tongue | Bill Bryson | Amazingly Entertaining and Inspiring.

The Mother Tongue | Bill Bryson | Book Review of Bryson's The Mother Tongue

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The Mother Tongue

	The Mother Tongue Bill Bryson Harper Perennial, 1991 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 122 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Amazingly Entertaining and Inspiring.

For my best friend and me, this book became our basis of conversation for more than a year. We decided to start referring to it as "the Good Book." This book gave me fervent enthusiasm for learning English and its history that is still strong six years later.

Apparently, however, several "facts" are wrong. So you should take it with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, most of the facts are correct. Besides this book is so fun to read, I still recommend it.

I also take issue with some of the critisisms. The comments about chauvinism are ridiculous. So what if he's a chauvinist! So you're warned he's a chauvinist. That doesn't count as a "factual error." Nor does it dent scholarship. Those who say that Bryson is an idiot for calling "inuits" eskimos are idiots themselves. Regardless of who may consider the word "incorrect" or "offensive," two facts remain: (1) Everyone knows what an Eskimo is, and (2) the word suits Bryson's personable writing style much better than the stuffy "inuit." Picking at this issue is pure pedantry.

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Book Review of Bryson's The Mother Tongue

In The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way, Bill Bryson tries to solve the mysteries of the English language. He explains why the spelling and pronunciation of certain words don't match and why certain American words are different from their British counterpart. Bryson gives his readers a history lesson about English, complete with lessons about the different English dictionaries, a journey through England after the French left, and the propriety of Victorian England.
He writes about topics other than English's history, including its present dominance and its uncertain future. These topics serve to create a fuller picture of a language that Bryson claims has become "the lingua franca" of various areas of everyday life.
Throughout the book, Bryson entertains his reader with wit and humor. Bryson's jokes make reading the book a smooth process because their accurately demonstrate his topics. When writing about the difference between American words and English words he gives the example of the word "fanny" which has an innocent meaning in America, but a rather vulgar one in England.
The Mother Tongue is clearly entertaining, but Bryson also informs his readers well. He has covered the various topics of language thoroughly. Bryson is well versed on the topic. He draws on the writing of many worthy predecessors, including William Safire and H.L. Mencken. Readers will find Bryson's book to be educational and enlightening.

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Fun, but should have been fact-checked a bit more carefully

I really enjoyed reading the book. Lots of great stories. I especially enjoyed the history of various attempts at spelling reform in the English language. This is a subject I have often considered myself. I agree with Bryson that comprehensive spelling reform is impossible. However, I think that limited spelling reform based on changing just a few words--perhaps some of the most commonly misspelled ones where a clear commonsense alternative exists--could work.

Bryson's criticism of the movement to make English the official language of the U.S. struck me as shallow and wrongheaded. He too easily dismisses as irrelevant the serious problems caused by conflicts over language in Canada, Belgium, and similar multilingual countries. We don't need such problems here, and I think anything we can do to prevent them is all to the good. Bilingual education is expensive, and it has been shown repeatedly to provide no benefits over the immersion method of teaching English to children.

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