Publisher and date are given where a book is first referred to, unless the book is a classic or is included in the Selected Bibliography. All Shakespeare quotations are from two volumes of The Complete Pelican Shakespeare: The Comedies and the Romances and The Tragedies (London: Penguin, 1969). I have relied extensively on the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, and The Oxford Companion to English Literature.
The early history of Britain and the English language is still in dispute, and sources often differ. I have tried to speak generally where details are contested.
The epigraph is from Thorndale.
Introduction: The Puzzle of English
Bilbo’s speech is from Chapter 1 of The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, by J.R.R. Tolkien (London: Unwin, 1970). Bryson notes in The Mother Tongue that the number of English words depends on whether mouse and mice are two words, whether computer mouse and field mouse are one word, and so on. The homophonic spelling quizzes are based on The Story of English, by McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil, and Alpha Beta, by John Man.
Chapter 1 The Mother Tongue
The table of numbers is drawn partly from Inventing English, by Lerer.
Chapter 2 The Glory That Was Greece
Thanks to Roberta Shaw at the Royal Ontario Museum for correcting the caption about the priest Khenu’s tomb at Sakkara, Egypt. The Plato quotes are from Phaedrus, sec. 271, and Apologia of Socrates, sec. 18, respectively.
Chapter 5 Amicus, Amice, Amicum
The magic spells are from chapter 12 of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling (Vancouver: Raincoast, 1999).
Chapter 6 Angles and Saxons and Vikings
The quotes “ivories and jewelled crucifixes” and “‘From the fury’” are from Set in a Silver Sea, by Bryant.
Chapter 7 Alfred and the Vikings
“There will be more wisdom” is from the prose preface of King Alfred’s translation of Pope Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care. The comparison of English and Norse words is from The Year 1000, by Lacey and Danziger.
Chapter 8 Riddles, Hymns, and Tales of Battle
The riddle-verses are numbers 23 and 65 in The Exeter Book Riddles, translated by Crossley-Holland. The Beowulf translation has been tweaked to emphasize resemblances to English words, for the sake of comprehension. (The meaning of fagne is closer to “decorated” – in this context, probably with blood!) The quote for the year 871 in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles is based on a translation by Professor Harvey De Roo.
Chapter 9 The Defeat of the English
The thesaurus referred to is Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (revised), by Peter Mark Roget (London: Longman’s, 1959).
Chapter 10 Tales of Cnihts and Fair Ladies
The story of kohl is drawn from The Meaning of Tingo, by Jacot de Boinod. The quote “high and low” is from Professor Nevill Coghill, cited in English Life in Chaucer’s Day, by Hart. The quote “cursed and complained” is from The Meaning of Everything, by Winchester.
Chapter 11 How to Spell It? How to Say It?
The remarks on Caxton, and the Caxton quote, are drawn from The Story of English, by McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil. The Mother Tongue, by Bryson, attributes Caxton’s story to Caxton’s preface to Eneydos (1490), and is also the source of the comment on Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae.
Chapter 12 Making the “Good Book” Better
The Ruth quote is from Ruth, 1:16.
Chapter 13 Gloriana and the Bard
The bishop advocating “gothroughsome” was Reginald Pecock. Some details about Shakespeare are drawn from Shakespeare, by Bryson. Petruchio’s words are from Act II Scene i. Lear’s words are from Act II Scene iv. Richard’s words are from Act V Scene iii. References to Macbeth’s “weird” witches are in Act II Scene i, Act III Scene i, and Act IV Scene i. The number of different words used by Shakespeare is disputed.
Chapter 14 Greener Pastures
Native American words could be similar across several languages, so it’s often not clear which version was adapted into English. Much of the Newfoundland section is from The Dictionary of Newfoundland English, edited by G.M. Story and others (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982). The Mather quote is from Decennium Luctuosum, cited in Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675-1699, edited by Charles H. Lincoln (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1913). All Franklin quotes are from Benjamin Franklin: A Biography in His Own Words, edited by Joseph L. Gardner, in the Founding Fathers series (New York: Newsweek/ Harper & Row, 1972). Some of the Tok Pisin is drawn from Pidgin Phrasebook: Pidgin Languages of Oceania, by Trevor Balzer and others (Hawthorn, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1999). Tok Pisin is now gaining a place as a first language, becoming a creole rather than a pidgin language.
Chapter 15 The War between English and English
The Webster quotes, “There iz no alternativ,” from an essay, and “A national language,” from a 1786 letter, are cited in The Long Journey of Noah Webster, by Rollins. The Swift quote is from A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue…, addressed to the Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (London: Benj. Tooke, 1712). The Johnson quote, “barbarous corruptions, …” is cited in Blooming English, by Burridge. Some remarks on the Oxford English Dictionary, including the quote “fat, heavy,” are from The Meaning of Everything, by Winchester. The Humpty Dumpty quote is from chapter 6 of Alice through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll.
chapter 16 Britannia’s Heyday
“Our tongue is known” is from “Old England Is Our Home,” by Mary Howitt. The Humpty Dumpty quote is from chapter 6 of Alice through the Looking-Glass. The example of rhyming slang is from “The New Pig’s Ears,” by Soraya Roberts, in the National Post, January 4, 2007.
Chapter 17 Words, Words, Words
The statistics on new words per year are extrapolated from The New York Times, April 3, 1989, cited in The Mother Tongue, by Bryson. The origin of “googol” and “googolplex” is from Wikipedia; Milton Sirotta was the nephew of Edward Kasner. The King of Hearts quote is from chapter 12 of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.
Chapter 18 Looking Forward
Remarks on the dominance of English are based partly on Empires of the Word, by Ostler. Much of the Jamaican material is drawn from The Story of English, by McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil. The Johnson quote is from his Lives of the Poets: Cowper. The quote from German novelist Thomas Mann is cited in The Miracle of Language, by Lederer, as are those from “another writer,” Aubrey A. Douglas, and British scientist H.C. Lonquet-Higgins. Professor Higgins’s speech is from Act I of Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, and is also in the film My Fair Lady.
More about Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Old English
All these languages evolved over many centuries, across their various regions. The Julius Caesar quote is from Commentaries of Caesar on the Gallic War, Book V (New York: David McKay, 1963), author’s translation.