On pages 1-44 of John McWhorter’s book, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, it briefly goes over the history and composition of the English language. It first speaks of the influence of Welsh on the earliest form of what we know as the English language, particularly the use of meaningless do and –ing(verb-noun present). It also goes on to tackle the long held, but incorrect assumptions most experts have about the history of English. The first assumption is that the Celts, the original inhabitants of England, where almost completely wiped out by Germanic invaders; the second assumption is that the development of meaningless do, the verb-noun present and other unique elements of English essentially “just happened”; the third assumption is that the written language that has survived is taken to be the language spoken at that time.
I find the most significant passage I found in these pages is the first paragraph on the first page. It essentially sums up the overall point of our class, albeit in a somewhat humerous way: that the English language, despite being a part of the same family tree as many other languages, is uniquely different in its structure and usage. The specific line where this is expressed: “English…is kinky. It has a predilection for dressing up like Welsh on lonely nights”. Although it took some reading over a few times, I did eventually understand what was being talked about in the pages that I read, so I don’t have any questions about the section that I read.
