How do we know old/ancient pronunciations?

[Derleth]

@Clothahump

You are quite welcome!

Bill Bryson’s book Mother Tongue is also quite fascinating.

It gets a lot wrong, though. We even have a thread on the topic:

@Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas

I enjoyed Bryson’s travelogue Lost Continent, so while at the library I picked up his book on the evolution of the English language, Mother Tongue. This book is utter crap. I found factual errors, urban myths, and folk etymologies on nearly every page. Some of the “wisdom” he imparts to layman readers who sadly might not know he’s full of crap:

• Russian has no words for “engagement ring”, “efficiency”, or “to have fun.” This one sent my Russian-speaking fiancee into lengthly laughter. <sigh>, if only could explain to her family what that thing is on her finger. :rolleyes:

• Finnish has no profanity whatsoever. Its only term of exasperation is bizarrely the phrase “in the restaurant!”

• Hardly one chapter into the book he pulls out the old great Eskimo vocabulary hoax and passes it off as gospel truth.

• And before the book’s end, he swears a British government official in 1989 said “If English is good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.” Of course, that story has been attributed to hundreds of people over the last hundred years, from the governor of Texas to an anonymous missionary in Africa.

• He repeatedly cites Mario Pei as a great linguist, though Pei is essentially the Bill Bryson of the 50’s whose works have been condemned by many linguists as craptacular pieces of myth and oversimplification.

• He asserts that Germans are naturally cruel because their language has the word “schadenfreude”.

A look at the biography page will show that Bryson has no formal training in linguistics (he doesn’t even have a university degree). He’s just a journalist who apparently loathes fact-checking.

Anyone else read this man’s language works. I hear he has another book about English called “Made in America”. Is that one just as bad?

UnuMondo

Everything2 has a good list of some of the errors in the book as well and they give page numbers.