The History of the English Language

Course Number 80036 lectures (30 minutes/lecture)

Taught by: Professor Seth LererStanford University
"Surprisingly comprehensive content; very clear presentation. [Professor Lerer'
s] enthusiasm for the subject matter is contagious."
Robert Aug, Nicholasville, KY
"Thank you for this unique opportunity for my husband and I to go "back to schoo
l" together for a wonderful, in-depth look at a subject that has always fascinat
ed me. I never dreamed such a thing was possible until I received your catalog.
I'm so happy I ordered the course [The History of the English Language], and w
e looked forward to every session. I loved every minute of itTHANKS!" Michelle A.
Green, Portola Valley, CA
As a well-read and intelligent person, you probably have an understanding of how
the art form of Impressionism came to be, and who its foremost practitioners we
re. More than likely, you are also familiar with the contribution a composer lik
e Aaron Copland made to the world of music (and dance).
But do you know where English, the language you communicate in each and every da
y, came from? Do you know how it evolved? Why we spell the way we do? Why we pro
nounce words the way we do? Why we use the very words we do?
Yes, English has certain commonalities with such Romance languages as French and
Spanish, but do you realize what languageor, more properly, mix of languagesspawn
ed English? Do you know when and why the British developed British accents? Or w
hat accent Shakespeare had? (It wasn t British.) Do you fully understand the roles
William Shakespeare, the King James Bible, Samuel Johnson and, more recently, N
oam Chomsky, played in the evolution and understanding of English as we know it
today? One last question: You love ideas and the experience of understanding, so
wouldn t it be wonderful if every sentence you heard, read, or thought might have
a pearl of insight nestled in it?
You will delight in The History of the English Language. These 36 stimulating le
ctures will give you a thorough understanding of the history of the English lang
uagefrom its origins as a dialect of the Germanic-speaking peoples, through the l
iterary and cultural documents of its 1,500-year span, to the state of American
speech today.
In addition to examining how English evolved over time in both the written and s
poken form, The History of the English Language also delves into a set of larger
and provocative social concerns, such as the relationship between spelling and
pronunciation, how certain words denote social class, the emergence of (and vari
eties among) dialects, the role the dictionary played in prescribing "correct" u
sage, and the intriguing ways in which new words came to be formed and older wor
ds changed. Each of these issuesstill charged with meaning todayhave fascinating h
istories, as Dr. Seth Lerer will make clear.
Professor Lerer chairs the Comparative Literature Department at Stanford Univers
ity. He has published books on Chaucer, Anglo-Saxon literature, and English in t
he age of Henry VIII. He also has published scores of articles and reviews on th
e history of English and some of its greatest writers. He is thus eminently qual
ified to teach a fascinating overview of the history of our languagefrom its earl
iest Indo-European roots to its current status as the premier world language.

What s more, after years of teaching and awards from every quarter, Professor Lere
r has developed an engaging, listener-friendly approach to learning. He defines
concepts well, illustrates with copious examples, is passionate about his subjec
t, and is a particularly clear, articulate speaker. He is among the best we have
heard at The Teaching Company.
Aside from his own extraordinary gifts as a speaker, Professor Lerer will amaze
you by actually speaking in the dialect appropriate to each lecturebe it Old Engl
ish, Chaucer s Middle English, or even the colloquial style of Mark Twain s unforget
table character Huck Finn.
What s more, Professor Lerer has created a course with uncommonly broad appeal. Sh
ould you, for example, have a strong literary bent, you will be fascinated by Dr
. Lerer s discussion of Chaucer s multilingual mastery, Shakespeare s linguistic innov
ations, and Walt Whitman s particular genius for employing poetry to change the la
nguage. Works by these renowned authors, and many others, will be read aloud by
Professor Lerer to illustrate his lecture points and ensure that you understand
the author s contribution to the evolution of the language. Professor Lerer also e
xplains in engaging detail the impact the Bible, the great Dictionary of Samuel
Johnson, and the development of the Oxford English Dictionary had on the growth
and change of English.
Or, if you re a history buff, you ll be stimulated by Professor Lerer s insightful dis
cussions of the Anglo-Saxon world and the consequences of the Norman invasion of
England. You ll learn why the issue of spelling came to be a major headache for s
choolmasters during the Renaissance. You ll examine the genesis of American politi
cal rhetoric, brought to the fore by the likes of Jefferson and Lincoln. And you l
l explore the origins and development of American regional dialects, as well as
the impact of class and education on dialects.
The History of the English Language also has an intellectually stimulating techn
ical component. Professor Lerer elucidates a number of key linguistic concepts,
among them Grimm s Law, the Great Vowel Shift, and the stimulating intellectual th
eories of Noam Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics. In addition, Professor
Lerer defines and illustrates terms like etymology, lexis, morphology, philolog
y, pidgin, and dialect, giving you a basic technical proficiency in linguistics.
In a more familiar vein, Dr. Lerer sheds light on the derivation of scores of e
veryday words"knight" and "marriage," for examplewhose histories are little-known,
even by those of us who commonly use them.
Finally, Professor Lerer demonstrates how contemporary issuessuch as multicultura
lism, dialect variation, and the ongoing debate regarding English as an official
languageare not peculiar to this century, but were first discussed literally hun
dreds of years ago, even in the courts of English kings!
Professor Lerer s stimulating course might best be described, then, as an engaging
"mosaic" of the language you and I use daily. It is a literary, historical, cul
tural, political, and scientific treatment. It tells us about the distant pastbut
also about how the past informs the present. And the course is about language a
s a living thing, constantly changing according to time, place, and the innovati
ons of human genius. In fact, near the close of his lectures, Professor Lerer ra
ises intriguing questions about the status of English in the world our children
and grandchildren will inherit.
All this is to say that, by the time you conclude The History of the English Lan
guage, you will be able to recognize why we spell and speak the way we do today.
You will know how to use a dictionary (and other resources) to learn the etymol
ogies of words and chart their changes in meaning and use. You will be able to s
ummarize the differences among the three major periods of English: Old English,
Middle English, and Modern English. You will know exactly how major English and

American authors ingeniously used the resources of their language. You will be a
ble to describe the differences among today s American and English dialects.

Part I - The Origins of English

Lecture 1: Introduction to the Study of Language
Lecture 2: The Historical Study of LanguageMethods and Approaches
Lecture 3: The Prehistory of EnglishThe Indo-European Context
Lecture 4: Reconstructing Meaning and Sound
Lecture 5: Words and WorldsHistorical Linguistics and the Study of Culture
Lecture 6: The Beginnings of English
Lecture 7: Old EnglishThe Anglo-Saxon World View
Lecture 8: Changing LanguageDid the Normans Really Conquer English?
Lecture 9: Conquering LanguageWhat Did the Normans Do to English?
Lecture 10: Chaucer s English
Lecture 11: Dialect Jokes and Literary Representation in Middle English
Lecture 12: A Multilingual WorldMedieval Attitudes toward Language Change and Va
riation

Part II - Making Modern English

Lecture 13: The Return of English as a Standard
Lecture 14: How We SpeakThe Great Vowel Shift and the Making of Modern English
Lecture 15: What We SayThe Expanding English Vocabulary
Lecture 16: The Shape of Modern EnglishChanges in Syntax and Grammar
Lecture 17: Renaissance Attitudes Toward Teaching English
Lecture 18: The Language of Shakespeare (Part 1)Drama, Grammar, and Pronunciatio
n
Lecture 19: The Language of Shakespeare (Part 2)Poetry, Sound, and Sense
Lecture 20: The Bible in English
Lecture 21: Samuel Johnson and His Dictionary
Lecture 22: New Standards in English
Lecture 23: Semantic ChangeDictionaries and the Histories of Words

Lecture 24: Values and Words in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Part III - English in America and Beyond
Lecture 25: The Beginnings of American English
Lecture 26: Making the American LanguageFrom Noah Webster to H. L. Mencken
Lecture 27: The Rhetoric of Independence from Jefferson to Lincoln
Lecture 28: The Language of the American Self
Lecture 29: American Regionalism
Lecture 30: American Dialects in Literature
Lecture 31: The Impact of African-American English
Lecture 32: An Anglophone World
Lecture 33: The Language of ScienceThe Changing Nature of Twentieth-Century Engl
ish
Lecture 34: The Science of LanguageThe Study of Language in the Twentieth Centur
y
Lecture 35: Modern Linguistics and the Politics of Language Study
Lecture 36: Conclusions and Provocations