The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition

By: Seth Lerer, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Seth Lerer

This course offers an overview of the English language that is literary, historical, cultural, political, and scientific in its scope and designed to give you greater insight into the written and spoken word.The lectures provide a thorough understanding of the history of the English language - from its origins as a dialect of the Germanic-speaking peoples through the literary and cultural documents of its 1,500-year span to the state of American speech today.

Professor Lerer defines concepts by illustrating them with copious examples. He often speaks in the dialect appropriate to each lecture - be it Old English, Chaucer’s Middle English, or the colloquial style of Mark Twain’s most unforgettable characters.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©1998 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)1998 The Great Courses

Overall Good

Overall I enjoyed the course. I didn't care for the professor's voice/accent but still learned from the course.

Excellent Coverage of the History of our Language

I enjoyed listening to this lecture series. It was comprehensive from Old English through modern effects of electronic communication. Obviously it couldn’t cover every aspect in detail but it provides a great basis on which to understand the major changes in the language, the trends in study of English and issues arising from various points of view.

Excellent

It was great. I loved every bit of it. It was professional and thorough. Highly recommend it.

English by great courses

Study of English, I did learn from Course but wish for something more. Good.

Loved it

I love the great courses series and this one was so good. I learned a lot and the professor was great

Very detailed

Would you listen to The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition again? Why?

I listened to the entire course. Professor Lerer is very learned and prepares well, but it was more information than I really wanted to learn. This is a very detailed history.

Would you be willing to try another book from The Great Courses? Why or why not?

Yes. This was my third course.

Wrestling the Wind, and Losing

As an IT professional I have been studying information theory and language for about a year now. This book and topic ties directly with some of the changes that we are seeing in our language in the early 2020s as well as interest in things like AI and natural language processing. Understanding language is simple. Understanding what someone meant when they used language is not as simple as one would expect.

This book takes the listener back to the very beginning of English. The lecturer does a fantastic job of bringing in various elements and approaches to the study of language that I had never considered or been exposed to. I found this lecture series to be interesting and useful and I'm sure I will be referencing it in future study.

Rather interesting treatment

it's not the best of the courses, but it's not bad at all. I was disappointed by the shoehorning at the end.

Excellent Lecture Series

His very frequent use of the conditional clause “if you like” might get on your nerves. However, the content, quality, and presentation is excellent. These lectures sing. I look forward to listening to them again probably in a year or so.

Great

Professor Lerer's Jack is fascinating. Not just the history of the English language but also the way in which great writers have interacted with and shaped the language.he talks about the effects of global history and politics on the spread and change of language. And he even discusses, in accessible terms, complexmodern linguistic theories