Aboriginals
Académie Française
Act of Union (1536)
Act of Union (1542)
Act of Union (1707)
Adams, John
Addison, Thomas
African Americans. See black English
African languages
Age of Enlightenment
agriculture
Aidan
alcoholic beverages
Alfred the Great, King
Ælfric
alliterative verse
alphabets
American English
black English (see black English)
cities and
Declaration of Independence
democratic ideal and
Dutch and
education and
English dialects and
French and
gangster culture and
German and
Irish and
as key to success of English
movies and
Native Americans and
Pilgrims
place names from England
Scots and
southern
Spanish and
vs. English English
Webster’s spelling book
western (see American western frontier)
World War II
American Revolution
American Spelling Book (Webster)
American Western frontier
city names
cowboys
Crockett and Tall Talk
drink and drunkenness terms
French language
gambling terms
gold rush terms
Lewis and Clark expedition
Native Americans
Spanish language and
Tall Talk
Angles
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
Anne, Queen
Anon
Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare)
Arabic language
Arawaks
Arnold, John
The Arte of English Poesie (Puttenham)
The Arte of Rhetorique (Wilson)
Arthur, King
Ascham, Roger
Asiatick Society of Bengal
Æthelred, King
Athenaeum
Atkinson, E. F.
Attwood, Scott
Augustine, St.
Austen, Jane
Australian English
Aboriginal languages
“bloody,” use of
convict speech
English dialects in
Macquarie Dictionary
nineteenth-century slang
place names
pronunciation
“Waltzing Matilda,”
word endings and abbreviations
Awdely, John
The Awful Australian (Desmond)
Aztec
Babu English
Bacon, Francis
Ball, John
“Bans a Killin” (Miss Lou)
Bantam (Java)
Barton, John
Bayeux Tapestry
Bay Psalm Book
BBC English
Beatitudes
Beaufort, Louis de
Bede
Beeton, Isabella
Beowulf
Bermuda
Bertrand de Born
Bestiary
Bibles
Beatitudes
Bishops’
black English and
Creation Story
Douai-Rheims
Geneva
Great
King James Version
Latin
Matthew
Pilgrims and
Shakespeare and
Tyndale’s translation
Wycliffe’s translation
biology
Bishops’ Bible
Bismarck, Prince Otto von
Black Death
black English
Gullah
pidgin
segregation
and southern white English
spirituals
Twain and
Uncle Remus stories
in the urban north
Blackwoods’ Edinburgh Magazine (Lockhart)
“bloody,”
Bloom, Harold
The Boke Named The Governour (Elyot)
book-burning
boosters
Boswell, James
Bowdler, Thomas
“boy,”
Boyse, Samuel
Bradford, William
Brazil
Britain. See also England
British Education (Sheridan)
Britons
Brooke, Rupert
Bryson, Bill
Bulletin (Bushman’s Bible)
bullies
Burns, Robert
Burridge, Kate
Bushman’s Bible (Bulletin)
Butler English
Cædmon
The Cambridge History of the English Language
Cambridge University
Campion, Thomas
cant
The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
dialects in
the Knight
Miller’s Tale
Nun’s Priest’s Tale
opening lines
Pardoner’s Tale
pilgrims, introduction of
printing of
Reeve’s Tale
swear words in
Capote, Truman
Carib language
Carlyle, Thomas
Cawdrey, Robert
Caxton, William
Celts/Celtic
Chambers Dictionary
Chancery (Chancellery) English
Chandler, Raymond
Charles, the Prince of Wales
Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales
life of
Troilus and Criseyde
Chaudhuri, Amit
Cheke, John
chemistry
Chesterfield, Lord
Chinese language
“chip,”
chivalry
Chrétien de Troyes
Christian Brethren
Christianity. See also Roman Catholic Church
arrival in England
the Bestiary
in India
Pilgrims
Churchill, Winston
Civil War
Clark, William
class
clock making
“coach,”
Cockney
Cody, William F. “Buffalo Bill,”
coffee houses
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Columbus
convict speech
“cooee,”
Cook, James
Cooper, James Fenimore
Cornwall, John
Coronation Street (television)
Council of Constance (1414)
courtier-poet
Coverdale, Miles
cowboys
Cranmer, Thomas
Creation Story
creoles
Critical Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language (Walker)
Crockett, Davy
Cromwell, Oliver
Crystal, David
Culloden, Battle of (1746)
Cumbria (England)
Curll, Edmund
“Curry and Rice” (Atkinson)
Curzon, Lord
Dalrymple, Alexander
Danelaw
Danes
Darwin, Erasmus
David Copperfield (Dickens)
Declaration of Independence
A Defence of Poesy (Sidney)
Defoe, Daniel
Desmond, Valerie
Devenish, Hubert
Dharuk language
dialects and accents
Chaucer’s use of
class and
Cockney
Cumbrian
London
pronunciation police
Renaissance and
Shakespeare and
Standard English and
television and
theater and
in West Indies
Dickens, Charles
Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres
dictionaries
Australian
first
Grose’s
Johnson’s
recent additions to
Webster’s
Dictionary (Johnson)
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (Grose)
diphthongs
Dissertations in the English Language (Webster)
Domesday Book
Donne, John
Douai-Rheims Bible
double negatives
Douglas, Sylvester
Drayton, Michael
drink and drunkenness terms
Dryden, John
Duncan-Jones, Katherine
Dutch language
EastEnders (television)
East India Company
The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (Bede)
Edward I, King
Eleanor of Aquitaine
elements
Elizabeth I, Queen
Ellis, Alexander
Ellis Island
Elyot, Thomas
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Encyclopaedia of the English Language (Crystal)
England. See also Middle English; Old English; Standard English
Chaucer
Enlightenment
Germanic invasion (see Germanic invasion)
Industrial Revolution
Norman Conquest (see Norman Conquest)
Renaissance (see Renaissance)
Shakespeare
standardization for courts and documents
Tyndale’s Bible
Viking invasion
World War I,
World War II,
Wycliffe’s Bible
English as a Global Language (Crystal)
English as a second language
Enlightenment, Age of
Esperanto
Essay on Criticism (Pope)
Essay on Human Understanding (Locke)
An Essay Toward a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (Wilkins)
Estuary English
Ethandune, Battle of
Evelyn, John
Exeter Book
falconry
The Fatal Shore (Hughes)
Faulkner, William
feudalism
Fielding, Henry
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
fixed English
Fragments of Ancient Poetry (Macpherson)
France. See also French language
Franklin, Benjamin
The Fraternyte of Vacabondes (Awdely)
French creoles
French language
American English and
in Canterbury Tales
dictionary
Norman (see Norman French)
Renaissance and
words from
Friesland (Frisian language)
futhorc
Gaelic
gambling
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand
gay slang
Geneva Bible
geology
Germanic invasion
Celtic and
Christianity and
origins of English
runes
Germanic languages
German language
global language
Globe Theatre
Gordon, Lord
Graddol, David
Grainger, James
grammar
Great Bible
Great Exhibition (London, 1851)
Great Vowel Shift (GVS)
Greek
Greene, Richard
Gregory, Pope
Grimm, Jakob
Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Grimm)
Grose, Francis
Grub Street
Guardian
Gullah
Gulliver (Swift)
GVS (Great Vowel Shift)
Hackney, Iscariot (Richard Savage)
hacks
Haiti
Hakluyt, Richard
Hamlet (Shakespeare)
Hard Words Made Easy
Harold, King
Harris, George
Harris, Joel Chandler
Hastings, Battle of (1066)
Hastings, Warren
Hawkins, John
Heaney, Seamus
Hebrew
Henry II, King
Henry III, King
Henry IV, King
Henry V (Shakespeare)
Henry V, King
Henry VIII, King
Herbert, George
Hereford, Nicholas
Higden, Ranulf
Hindi
Historia Regum Brittaniae (Geoffrey of Monmouth)
Hobson-Jobson
Hokun
Hood, Thomas
Hopkins, Gerard Manley
Horton, George Moses
“hotel,”
Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey
“h,” pronunciation of
Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
Hughes, Robert
Hughes, Ted
Ido
The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde)
India
absorption of English
Babu English
Butler English
Hindi
Hobson-Jobson
imposition of English
independence
Sanskrit
trade with
words from
Indo-European
Industrial Revolution
“industry,”
Inkhorn Controversy
“The Integrated Adjective” (O’Grady)
Interlingua
international language
Internet
intoxication
Ireland/Irish
Italian
Jackson, Andrew
Jamaica
James VI, King
Japan
jeans (Levis)
Jefferson, Thomas
Jenkins, Jennifer
Jespersen, Otto
John, King
Johnson, Samuel
Jones, Charles C., Jr.
Jones, William
Jonson, Ben
journalism
Jutes
“kangaroo,”
Keats, John
King James Bible
Kipling, Rudyard
“knave,”
knights
Knox, Alfred
Kolkata (Calcutta)
Ku Klux Klan
Lake District (England)
Langland, William
language
disappearance of
evolution of
international/global
as means to end all disputes
original
as product of all types of people
universal
written (see writing)
Latin
Alfred’s translations
Black Death, effects of
as international language
language of the Church
Normans and
Renaissance and
science and
words from
Wycliffe’s Bible translation and
Lauder, Afferbeck
Lavoisier, Antoine
Lawrence, D. H.
Le Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française
Let Stalk Strine (Lauder)
Lewis, Meriwether
Lewis and Clark expedition
Lindisfarne Gospels
Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English
lions
Little Dorrit (Dickens)
Lloyds Coffee House
Locke, John
Lockhart, John
Lollards
London (England)
London Labour and the London Poor (Mayhew)
Lord’s Prayer
Lou, Miss
Louisiana Purchase
Lowe, Katie
Lowth, Robert
lullaby
Luther, Martin
Lyell, Charles
Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth)
Macaulay, Thomas Babington
Macmillan, Harold
Macpherson, James
Macquarie Dictionary
Made in America (Bryson)
Magna Carta
malapropisms
Malay
Maldon, Battle of (991)
Malory, Thomas
Mandarin Chinese
Manning, Harold
Marie de France
Marshall, William, Earl of Pembroke
Masters of Chancery
Matthew Bible
Matthews, Samuel
Mayflower Compact
Mayhew, Henry
McCoy, Joseph
McCrum, Robert
medicine
The Memoirs of John Ker of Kersland
The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare)
Mexican language
Middle English
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare)
Mill, John Stuart
Mind Your Hs, Harry Hawkins’ H Book
Modern English
Mohocks
Monboddo, Lord
More, Thomas
Morrison, Toni
Mother Tongue (Bryson)
movies
Mugglestone, Linda
Mulcaster, Richard
My Fair Lady (movie)
The Myrrour of the Worlde
Mystery Plays
Nahautl
Native Americans
Indian pidgin
Pilgrims and
words from
Netherlands
New England Primer
New England’s Prospect (Wood)
Newton, Isaac
A New Voyage to Guinea (Smith)
Nicholas of Guildford
Nicolini, Marquis
Niger-Congo language family
“nigger,”
Nixon, Richard
Norman Conquest
assimilation
Black Death and
Edward I
Eleanor of Aquitaine
feudalism
Henry II, King
Henry IV, King
Peasant’s Revolt (1381)
Richard II
survival of English
William the Conqueror
Norman French
almost synonyms
English resistance to
imposition of
as language of trade
poetic tradition
Renaissance and
as threat to English
words from
Northanger Abbey (Austen)
Norwegians
novels
Novial
Of English Verse (Waller)
O’Grady, John
“OK/okay,”
Old English
Alfred’s translations from Latin
alphabet
American western frontier and
Battle of Maldon, story of
Beowulf
Christianity and
Churchill’s speech
common words from
Cumbrian dialect and
Exeter Book
Inkhorn Controversy
lullaby
Norman Conquest and
plurals
prepositions
Shakespeare and
word order
written
Oldmixon, John
Old Norse
Oliver Twist (Dickens)
Omeros (Walcott)
On the Dialect of the Craven (Anon)
Oregon trail
Orm
Ormulum (Orm)
Orwell, George
Ossian Poems
Othello (Shakespeare)
Our Mutual Friend (Dickens)
Ovington, John
“The Owl and the Nightingale” (Nicholas of Guildford)
Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford University
Paine, Thomas
Paston Letters
Pastoral Care (Pope Gregory)
Patterson, Banjo
Patwa
Peano, Giuseppe
Peasants’ Revolt (1381)
Penkridge, Richard
Penn, William
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Dutch
Persian
Peru
Peterborough Chronicle
Pettie, George
Pevensey Castle (England)
Philip II, King
Philip IV, King
physics
pidgin
Piers Plowman (Langland)
Pinker, Stephen
piracy
plague
plain English
planets
Plimouth Plantation (Massachusetts)
plurals
Poems — Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Burns)
poetry
alliterative verse
Beowulf
Burns, Robert
fixed language and
Keats, John
Langland’s Piers Plowman
Norman Conquest and
Ossian Poems
Renaissance
runes and
Scotland
Wordsworth, William
Polychronicon (Higden)
Poor LittleH — Its Use and Abuse
Pope, Alexander
Porter, Roy
Portugal
prefixes
prepositions
Priestley, Joseph
printing press
Pronouncing Dictionary (Walker)
pronouns
pronunciation
Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (Swift)
Protestantism
Protocollum books
Puttenham, George
Pygmalion (Shaw)
Queen’s Men
racism
Raj
Raleigh, Walter
Ralph Roister Doister
Rasta
The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye (Caxton translation)
Renaissance. See also Shakespeare, William
dialects and
dictionaries
imported vocabulary
Inkhorn Controversy
poetry
theater
Richard II,
Richardson, Samuel
The Rights of Man (Paine)
The Rivals (Sheridan)
Robinson Crusoe (Defoe)
Robison, John
Roget, Peter Mark
Roman alphabet
Roman Catholic Church
Alfred’s Latin-English translations
arrival in England
book-burning
Council of Constance (1414)
English and
power of
Tyndale and
Wycliffe and
Romance languages
Roman Empire
Romany words
The Routes of English (radio)
Roy, Rammohan
Royal Society
rude words
The Rudiments of English Grammar (Priestley)
Rules to be Observed by the Natives of Scotland for attaining a just Pronunciation of English (Walker)
runes
Russian
Sabir
St. Kitts
Sanskrit
Santa Fe trail
Savage, Richard (Iscariot Hackney)
Saxons
Schleyer, Johann Martin
science
Scotland
Scots in America
Select Society (Edinburgh)
“Sermo Lupi” (Wulfstan)
Shakespeare, William
Antony and Cleopatra
censorship of
education
Hamlet
Henry V
knave insults
life of
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Othello
sonnets
The Tempest
use of dialects
use of swear words
words from
Shaw, George Bernard
Shepherd’s Play
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, Thomas
Sherwood, Martha
Short Introduction to English Grammar (Lowth)
Sidney, Philip
Sigismund, Emperor, King of Hungary
Signet Office
Singapore/Singlish
slang
slavery
Smellie, William
Smith, Adam
Smith, William
Smith, William (captain)
soaps (television)
sonnets
South Africa
Spain
Spanish Armada
spelling
spelling bees
Spenser, Edmund
spirituals
Squanto
Standard English
black English vs.
Chancery and
dialects
Great Vowel Shift (GVS)
Henry V and
plurals
printing press and
spelling
Tamperers and
Stratford-upon-Avon (England)
Strauss, Levi
stress
“subject-matter,”
sugar
Sullivan’s Island (South Carolina)
“Sumer is icumen in” (song)
surnames
swear words. See also rude words
Swift, Jonathan
syllables
synonyms
The Table Alphabeticall (Cawdrey)
Tall Talk
Tamil
Tamperers
technology
television
The Tempest (Shakespeare)
1066 and All That
Text English
Thanksgiving
theater
The Times (London, India)
Todd, Mike
Tooke, John Horne
Tower of Babel
trade
French and
India
slave
and spread of English
Vikings and
Treatise on the Lowland Dialect of Scotland (Douglas)
Trevisa, John
Tristram Shandy (Sterne)
Troilus and Criseyde (Chaucer)
Troyes, Treaty of (1420)
Twain, Mark
Tyler, Wat
Tyndale, William
Ulstermen
Uncle Remus stories
Uranus
van Buren, Martin
Vaux, James Hardy
verb-to-noun conversions
Victoria, Queen
Vikings
Danes
influence on English place and family names
Norwegians
Old Norse
words from
“virtue,”
Volapuk
Voyages (Hakluyt)
Wace (poet)
Walcott, Derek
Wales/Welsh
Walker, John
Waller, Edmund
“Waltzing Matilda” (Patterson)
Warner, Thomas
Watt, James
Webster, Noah
Weever, John
Welsh. See Wales/Welsh
West African languages
western frontier. See American western frontier
West Indies
African languages in
creole
English dialects in
pidgin
sugar
words from
White Tower (London)
Whitman, Walt
Wigton (England)
Wilberforce, William
Wilde, Oscar
Wilkins, John
William I, King, the Conqueror
William of Malmesbury
William of Nassington
Wilson, Thomas
Wilson, Woodrow
Witherspoon, John
Wodehouse, P. G.
Wolsey, Cardinal
Wood, William
word order
Wordsworth, William
World War I
writing
alphabets
importance of
and speech, gap between
spelling
Wulfstan, Archbishop
Wyatt, Thomas
Wycliffe, John
Yiddish
Yorkshire English
Zamenhof, L. L.