mother tongue
When one is served a dish that is essentially a history of the English Language and its proliferation throughout the world, one would expect it to be a little dry and bland. But Bill Bryson manages to give it a flavour and texture that is quite unexpected. Using humour and some tasty anecdotes, he makes the history lesson into a fascinating treatise that is both interesting and compelling.
This book was recommended to me by a friend who runs a language school. Being interested in languages myself I decided to follow his recommendation and I’m very glad that I did. The facts and figures that fill a great part of the book never detract from the story that is told: how English became the universal language, the English that we know today.