The Long Journey of English

Peter Trudgill is Emeritus Professor of English Linguistics at Fribourg University and Honorary Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of East Anglia. He has honorary doctorates from the Universities of Uppsala, East Anglia, La Trobe, British Columbia, Patras, Murcia and Lublin. Recent publications include European Language Matters (2021), Millennia of Language Change (2020) and Dialect Matters (2016).

• Prologue: a view from the birthplace; 1. Where it all started: the language which became English; 2. The journey begins: the first movement south; 3. Interlude: a view from the Celtic island; 4. Heading west again: the North Sea crossing 400–600; 5. Anglo-Saxons and Celts in the English highlands 600–800; 6. And further west: across the Irish Sea 800–1200; 7. Atlantic crossing: on to the Americas 1600–1800; 8. Onwards to the Pacific shore; 9. Across the Equator: into the Southern Hemisphere 1800–1900; 10. Some turning back: English in retreat; 11. Meanwhile… Britain and the British Isles from 1600; 12. Transcultural diffusion: the New Native Englishes; Epilogue: sixteen hundred years on.

'Here is an original and eminently enjoyable book detailing the origins of our language and the millennia-long geographical spread of earlier stages of what was to become English in all its varieties.' Robert Fulks, Professor Emeritus of English, Indiana University