Where does today\"s English come from? This new edition of the bestseller by Charles Barber tells the story of the language from its remote ancestry to the present day. In response to demand from readers, a brand new chapter on late modern English......

Adults tend to take language for granted - until they have to learn a new one. Then they realize how difficult it is to get the pronunciation right, to acquire the meaning of thousands of new words, and to learn how those words are put together to......

How and why do languages change? Where does the evidence of language change come from? How do languages begin and end? This introduction to language change explores these and other questions, considering changes through time. The central theme of this......