This is a very handy little introduction to "English language" as a subject for academic study. There are a couple of chapters on the historical development of the language, chapters on particular variants (literary and religious, regional, slang, overseas, etc.), quick looks at syntax and at word-formation and pronunciation, and a very interesting survey of the history of academic attempts to catalogue and analyse the language by lexicographers and grammarians. Burchfield gives a reasonably neutral overview of the main controversies, without obviously pushing a particular point of view, although as editor of the Supplement to the OED his main interest is clearly in the historical side of the subject.

Although the treatment is selective and very condensed, it is backed-up by examples and references to more extensive treatments, and it is certainly not dumbed-down. Expect to be confronted with chunks of Anglo-Saxon poetry, phonetic symbols, and all manner of technical terms. Everything is explained nicely the first time you see it, and Burchfield's style is very readable and unintimidating.

The edition I have is from 1986 - some of the controversies covered in it are certainly no longer in the forefront of academic in-fighting, and others will have emerged to take their place. There is only a tantalisingly brief mention of the impact of computer spell-checkers, for example, and not surprisingly nothing about the effects of internet and email on the development of English.

As one of the other reviews here points out, the title is a bit misleading - the book won't give you enough information to read Beowulf in the original or to parse a modern English sentence, and it's unlikely to help you very much if you're a beginner learning English as a second language. But it would be very useful as a jumping-off point for anyone interested in making a more serious study of the subject, or as a quick introduction if you want to put yourself into a position to make intelligent conversation with a colleague from the English faculty. ( )

A fun read for any word maven. Burchfield does an exceptional job of writing in the space between a textbook and a fluff piece. This book provides a good overview into how English words, spelling, pronuciation, and usage changed with English history, starting with the Anglo-Saxons and ending in the mid-20th century. Though his focus is on British English (received pronunciation or RP), he does spice up the reading a bit with comparisons to American, Australian, Scots, Irish, and other well established forms of the 'mother tongue'.

Burchfield plainly and clearly walks the reader through the centuries as bits of the language appear, evolve, and, in some cases, disappear. Loaded with lots of fascinating examples, Burchfield explains many of the mysteries of the language, such as the silent 'e', the use of 's' and 'c' for the same sound, and what, after all, does the 'Ye' mean in 'Ye Olde Shoe Shoppe'?

The "English Language" is spiced up with the genius and foolishness of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Johnson, and many 19th and 20th century English writers. A mildly challenging but genuinely enjoyable read. ( )

I knew Robert Burchfield through his New Fowler's Modern English Usage which I'm devotedly reading from cover to cover day after day. But I was rather deceived by this other book. I thought I would learn at lot about the English language (after all, the title suggested it...), but finally I cannot remember much of it, which is rather bad omen.

To me the most interesting part was Chapter 2 From Runes to Printing, but it covers 14 pages only, and R. Burchfield's explanations are not sufficiently clear (at least to me). If the thorn character seems to be correctly explained (p. 7), there seems to be a typo concerning the wynn character, which is said to be 'closely ressembling the Roman p' (p. 8), and a typographical example is given, with a character which looks exactly as the thorn previously introduced. From the Futhorc alphabet given on p. 7, I can guess that the wynn is the 8th character, which indeed is rather close to the thorn, but it's only a guess. R. Burchfield completey lost me. ( )