Congressional School – 2012 Gala and Auction
Auction Ends: Mar 8, 2012 09:00 PM EST

CDs, DVDs & Games

The Great Courses: History of the English Language, 2nd Edition

Item Number
420
Estimated Value
375 USD
Sold
65 USD to floydrturbo
Number of Bids
8  -  Bid History

Item Description

Sixteen centuries ago a wave of settlers from northern Europe came to the British Isles speaking a mix of Germanic dialects thick with consonants and complex grammatical forms. Today we call that dialect Old English, the ancestor of the language nearly one in five people in the world speaks every day.

How did this ancient tongue evolve into the elegant idiom of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Twain, Melville, and other great writers? What features of modern English spelling and vocabulary link it to its Old English roots? How did English grammar become so streamlined? Why did its pronunciation undergo such drastic changes? How do we even know what English sounded like in the distant past? And how does English continue to develop to the present day?

The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition, is Professor Seth Lerer's revised and updated investigation of the remarkable history of English, from the powerful prose of King Alfred in the Middle Ages to the modern-day sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Great Courses® History of the English Language, 2nd Edition

Taught By Professor Seth Lerer, Ph.D., University of Chicago, University of California, San Diego

Item Special Note

2 DVDs:  36 Lectures, 30 minutes per lecture

Shipping $8.00 will be added to the final bid for this item unless arrangements are made for pick up at The Congressional Schools of Virginia, Falls Church, VA.

Donated By:

Jason and Allison Smigel