Embedded Files
A History of the English Language Annotated Bibliography
by Dr. Joseph Taylor, University of Alabama in Huntsville
This bibliography is designed as a comprehensive list of relevant texts and websites related to the history of English. It is organized by historical period (Old English, Middle English, Early-Modern, and Present-Day). Within these broad historical headings, listings are divided into “online” for web-based references and “bibliography” for print sources. Further, within these sub-headings, listings are divided as necessary between various other categories including “general” materials that provide overviews of a particular historical moment, “grammar” materials that provide fundamental instruction in the operations of a particular English, “lexicon” materials or dictionaries, and so on.
Following these historical listings are sections of bibliography on English as a World Language and on specific Englishes such as “Australian English” or “Jamaican English.” These are followed by HEL “in general,” which includes practical teaching texts such as Baugh and Cable’s standard textbook, as well as listings for “created” languages such as Esperanto.
Some of these links may have expired. I update them as I am able.
Old English Online
General
A (Very) Brief History of the English Language: (500-1100AD)- http://www.wordorigins.org/histeng.htm#oldeng
Brief history of Old English language to the Norman Conquest.
Overview and Grammar
History of English Phonemes - http://alpha.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/
Course supplement site for Furman Professor William Roger’s English Language courses. Provides linguistic terminology and charts for phonology, consonants and vowels and dipthongs.sound changes, and spelling for each period of the English language including the Old English period.
Old English Pages – http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/oe/old_english.html
Professor Cathy Ball of Georgetown University offers several links of interests including history, art, coinage, texts, sound recordings, and language instruction.
Old English Language at Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English
Online encyclopedia offers hyperlinks to linguistic influences –Germanic, Latin, Viking, Celtic—dialects, phonology and orthography, and a concise grammar.
Omniglot: A Guide to Written Languages (Old English/Anglo-Saxon) – http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm
Includes a very brief history of Old English, an alphabet and pronunciation guide, a sample from the prologue of Beowulf, and some external links.
Verbix (Old English) – http://www.verbix.com/languages/oldenglish.shtml
Verbix, is a non-profit organization that promotes linguistic diversity, offers a basic overview of Old English grammar including an interactive verb conjugter.
Norton Anthology Topics Online: The Middle Ages - http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/middleages/topic_4/welcome.htm
Includes overview of Old English literature and audio recordings of Old English poetry read aloud.
Fulk, R.D., and Kari Ellen Gade, comp. “A Bibliography of Germanic Alliterative Meters.” Subsidia/ Old English Newsletter 28 (2000)- http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/saslc/fulk/oe.htm
Old English section of larger comparative work on Germanic languages contains substantial bibliography
Lexicon
The Dictionary of Old English: Old English Corpus - http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/o/oec/
This comprehensive online dictionary of English from the first centuries (600-1150AD), part of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto’s larger Dictionary of Old English project, defines vocabulary from 3047 Old English texts. Information is found through simple, boolean, proximity, and bibliography searches.. Access restrictions apply.
Old English Glossary for Beowulf - http://www.heorot.dk/glossary.html
Includes glossary available by clickable alphabet.
Wordgumbo (Old English) – http://www.wordgumbo.com/ie/ger/oen/
Offers both Modern English to Old English and Old-English to Modern English dictionaries online.
Old English Verb finder - http://66.8.254.108/cgi-bin/oeverb/oeverb.pl
Jeff Lyons’s creation, hosted by the University of Hawaii, allows a search by verb class, specific verb, or by general search using a verb form. It then displays the fully conjugated verb.
Source Studies
Fontes Anglo-Saxonici: A Register of Written Sources Used by Authors in Anglo-Saxon England - http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/
A database of over 28,000 records that provide a detailed analysis of the relationships of over 1000 sources and analogues to approximately 1143 Anglo-Saxon texts in Old English and Latin. The database demonstrates what texts were known in Anglo-Saxon England and how well these texts were known by Anglo-Saxon authors. Searches are performed using Anglo-Saxon author, source author, or through textual bibliographies. This collaborative project of several individuals from around the world is maintained at Oxford University.
Teaching and Instructional Sites
Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland (TOEBI) - http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/toebi/
Organization’s website offers links to various Old English resources including bibliographies, journals, e-texts, societies and conferences, and background links of history, archaeology, and manuscript studies. Further, the site offers teaching materials for Old English courses including online texts and sample syllabi.
Old English Lessons – http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Medieval_Studies/lessons/
Site provided by Medieval Studies at Brown University in which a user can test his/her knowledge of Old English vocabulary and grammar over the course of sixteen interactive lessons.
Hwaet! Old English in Context - http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/hwaet/hwaet06.html
Catherine Ball developed this site for those people interested in learning some basic Old English sans dictionary and grammar book. It is, as Ball describes, “based on the notion that at least some aspects of the language can be acquired simply by reading,” and, therefore, she provides Old English lines without translation under headings such as “Greetings,” “Naming,” “Months and Seasons,” etc.
Old English at the University of Virginia – http://www.engl.virginia.edu/OE/
Peter Baker’s site contains course information, a link to Electronic Introduction to Old English, and links to several Anglo-Saxon bibliographies, and further resource links.
Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Old English – http://www.kami.demon.co.uk/gesithas/OEsteps/index.html
Guide for both novice and serious student of Old English that attempts to avoid historicizing of the language in order to teach it, a shortcoming the author, Steve Pollington, sees in most Old English instructional texts. Each section is linked to a ‘Practice’ drills, vocabulary, and exercises, with the final sections including Old English texts to be read. This course is part of the website of Gesithas site, a historical society for the study of the Anglo-Saxon period.
Old English Made Easy – http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/index.htm
Private site that offers both a dictionary and grammar. Some texts are posted in Old English with several said to be forthcoming.
Murray McGillveray’s Online Old English Course-http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/info.htm
University of Calgary professor’s online course complete with fifteen lessons, hypertextual grammars and texts.
Toby Jebson’s Learning Old English – http://lonestar.texas.net/%7Ejebbo/learn-as/contents.htm
Instructional website for the novice that focuses on syntax throughout its chapters.
King Alfred’s Grammar Book -http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/mdrout/GrammarBook2005/KAGrammar.html
An online textbook developed by Michael Drout of Wheaton College, this grammar moves through sixteen chapters of Old English introduction and instruction, including translation exercises. It serves as a companion for the King Alfred translation program, a web-based tutoring program.
Reading Old English Aloud – http://www.kami.demon.co.uk/gesithas/readings/readings.html
Overview of the Anglo-Saxon scop, who performed poetry aloud, as well as audio recordings of Old English poetry readings. Part of the Gesithas website.
Listserves
AnsaxDat – http://www.mun.ca/Ansaxdat/
A searchable database, maintained at Memorial University, for the listserv discussion group ANSAXNET.
Awritan on Englisc: A Forum for Composition in Old English – http://www.rochester.edu/englisc/#inception
Listserve managed by Bill Schipper of Memorial University that, beyond questions concerning Old English grammar and vocabulary, encourages Old English composition, translation of both medieval and modern texts into Old English, and in which participants are encouraged to write their messages in Old English.
Texts
Brief Old English Texts Page- http://sps.k12.mo.us/khs/gmcling/oe.htm
Includes texts of “Dream of the Rood,” “Neorxnawang,” and “The Battle of Brunanburh.”
Old English Literature at the Labrynth (Georgetown University) – http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/oe/oe.html
Old English at Royal Holloway Texts and Translations –
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/English/Old-English/Texts.html
Online Medieval and Classical Library (University of California-Berkely) - http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/
MANCASS (Manchester Center for Anglo-Saxon Studies) Research Project – http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/mancass/data/index.htm
Project at the University of Manchester which houses a database of eleventh-century manuscripts and texts that offers specialized tools for spelling analysis and paleography.
Old English Bibliography
General
Godden, Malcolm, Douglas Gray, and Terry Hoad, eds. From Anglo-Saxon to Early Middle English: Studies Presented to E.G. Stanley. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Essays in this collection examines all facets of Old English poetry and prose including meter, vocabulary, archaisms and modernisms, as well as specific linguistic matter such as line-end hyphens and Old English weak-genitive plurals.
Tolkien, J.R.R. Beowulf and the Critics. Ed. by Michael D.C. Drout. Tempe, AR: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002.
Excellent reprinting and thorough look at Tolkien’s essay, considered the best on Beowulf. Includes two texts of the essay based on Tolkien’s manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Tolkien’s
“Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” appeared originally in Proceedings of the British Academy 22 (1937): 245-95.
Overview and Grammar
Allen, Cynthia. Case Marking and Reanalysis: Grammatical Relations from Old to Early Modern English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Examines related changes in morphology and syntax that occurred between Old English and Early Modern English.
Baker, Peter S. Introduction to Old English. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
Full text available online– http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/rawl/IOE/index.html
Accessible instructional text that combines traditional scholarship with new technologies in a cooperative print and web publication of the entire work between Blackwell’s and the Rawlinson Center. Chapters include ‘minitexts’ for reading practice and interact with online exercises of, what Baker terms, Old English Aerobics.”
Barney, Stephen. Word-Hoard: An Introduction to Old English Vocabulary. New Haven: Yale Univeristy Press, 1977.
Excellent vocabulary builder.
Blockley, Mary. Aspects of Old English Poetic Syntax: Where Clauses Begin. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001.
Sophisticated text that contributes new assertions concerning Old English syntax of both poetry and prose, regarding, for example, question formation and coordination of phrases and clauses, and termination. An Appendix of rules supplements the main text.
Campbell, Alistair. Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.
Originally printed in 1959, this detailed grammar examines the language and its development mostly chronologically.
Cameron, Angus, Allison Kingsmill, and Ashley Crandell Amos. Old English Word Studies: A Preliminary Author and Word Index. Centre for Medieval Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983.
A bibliography of Old English word studies.
Cassidy, Frederic G., and Richard N. Ringler. Bright’s Old English Grammar and Reader 3rd Edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971.
A standard text in Old English courses for a century, the first half of the text comprises a grammar, and the second half a reader of Old English poetry and prose. 1894 edition available online- http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/oe_bright_about.html. The online version of textbook available in TIFF and ONG scanned images. Made available by the Germanic Lexicon Project.
Donoghue, Daniel. “Language Matters.” Reading Old English Texts. Ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 59-78.
Discusses trends in Old English scholarship, the divide between philologists and linguists, Kuhn’s Law, and the future of the field of OE language study.
Hall, John R. Clark. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary 4th Edition. With supplement by Herbert D. Merritt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.
2nd edition (1916) available online– http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/oe_clarkhall_about.html. Online version is downloadable and searchable version made available by the Germanic Lexicon Project.
Kerling, Johan. “A Case of ‘Slipping’: Direct and Indirect Speech in Old English Prose.” Neuphilologus 66 (1982): 286-90.
Kuhn, Sherman M. Studies in the Language and Poetics of Anglo-Saxon England. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Publishers, Inc., 1984.
Collected essays on Old English by editor of the Middle English Dictionary. Examines, for instance, synonyms, syllabic and consonantal phonemes, and cursus in Old English texts.
Lass, Roger. Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Offers examination of Germanic background of Old English and a substantial explication of Old English grammar, more sophisticated than the elementary grammars but not unapproachable to the linguistic novice.
Mitchell, Bruce. Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.
Monumental work that attempts comprehensiveness while offering various interpretations and suggestions where certainty is impossible.
Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson. A Guide to Old English Revised 6th Edition. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
Book for beginners that contains a grammar and sample texts. A standard text in many classrooms.
Robinson, Orrin W. Old English and Its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992.
Examines Old English as part of a larger language group in the Germanic family that also includes Gothic, old Norse, Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old Low Franconian, and Old High German. Includes a brief grammar of Germanic.
Schwyter, J.R. Old English Legal Language: The Lexical Field of Theft. Denmark: Odense University Press, 1996.
Systematically examines the lexical sub-systems of Old English legal sources on the semantic and syntactic level.
Smith, C. Alphonso. An Old English Grammar and Exercise Book: With Inflections, Syntax, Selection for Reading, and Glossary. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1896.
Early popular textbook that provides a history, etymology and syntax, several Old English texts both prose and poetry, and a Old English-Modern English/Modern English-Old English glossary.
Smith, Jeremy. Essentials of Early English. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Aims at providing a practical guide—a description of characteristics, development and change—to the early stages of the English language: Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. Part One examines the languages separately. Part Two looks at texts from each period.
Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Primer. 1882. 9th edition. Rev. by Norman Davis. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953.
Old standard, pocket-sized grammar with texts and glossary.
Wright, Joseph, and Elizabeth Mary Wright. An Elementary Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.
Grammar for beginners for which the authors limit philological details.
Lexicon
Amos, Ashley Crandell, and Antonette Dipaolo Healey. “The Dictionary of Ole English: The Letter ‘D.’” Problems of Old English Lexicography: Studies in Memory of Angus Cameron. Ed. Alfred Bammesberger.Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1985. 13-38.
Discusses in detail the compilation of the Old English Dictionary. Includes sample entries.
Ball, C.J.E. “Homonymy and Polysemy in Old English: A Problem For Lexicographers.” Problems of Old English Lexicography: Studies in Memory of Angus Cameron. Ed. Alfred Bammesberger.Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1985. 39-46.
Questions the “security” of some traditional readings of texts including “Caedmon’s Hymn,” and discussed the problems in the borderline between homonymy and polysemy.
Borden, Arthur R. A Comprehensive Old-English Dictionary. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982.
Twenty-five year project that includes all words in Hall. Madden and Magoun, Bessinger, Jember, Bright, Sweet, and other grammars and lexicons.
Bosworth, Joseph. Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Ed. and enlarged by T. Northcote. Addenda and Corrigenda by Alistair Campbell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Most commonly used dictionary prior to recent new online projects. 1921 edition available online http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/language_resources.html. Online edition is downloadable and searchable version of the work. Made available by the Germanic Lexicon Project.
Butler, Sharon, and Bruce Mitchell. “Some Lexicographical Problems Posed By Old English Grammar Words.” Problems of Old English Lexicography: Studies in Memory of Angus Cameron. Ed. Alfred Bammesberger. Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1985. 79-90.
Examines various problems faced by lexicographers due to a lack of native informants including our ignorance of intonation patterns/ punctuation, confusion related to specific words such as OE don and the modern do, and sorting issues such as, for instance, frustration at attempts to compile a dictionary through modern categorizations when some of these categories had no bearing in the Old English period and language.
Harris, Mattie Anstice, Harvey W. Chapman, Loring Holmes Dodd, and Fred. C. Robinson. Word Indices to Old English Non-Poetic Texts. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1974.
Brings together three separate editions of Yale Studies in English, A Glossary of the West Saxon Gospels (YSE VI), An Index to the Old English Glosses of the Durham Hymnarium (YSE XXIV), and A Glossary of Wulfstan’s Homilies (YSE XXXV) to provide scholars with a comprehensive tool for examining non-poetic word usage in Old English.
Jember, Gregory K., ed. English-Old English, Old English-English Dictionary. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1975.
Brief grammar and dictionary.
Madden, John F., and Frances P. Magoun, Jr. A Grouped Frequency Word-List of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966.
Vocabulary of parent words (no compounds) ordered by frequency of appearance in the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records.
Roberts, Jane Annette, and Christian Kay, with Lynne Grundy. A Thesaurus of Old English. 2 vols. London: King's College London, Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies., 1995.
Meter
Donoghue, Daniel. Style in Old English Poetry: The Test of the Auxiliary. Yale Studies in English, vol. 196. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
“Tests whether auxiliaries can be used to pinpoint differences in poetic styles and whether these differences can be identified as ‘lay’ or ‘epic.’” Old English poets seem to demonstrate styles independent of any one classification though within the alliterative verse tradition.
Emerson, Oliver Farrar. “The Punctuation of Beowulf and Literary Interpretation.” Modern Philology 24.4 (1926): 393-405.
Attempts to point out interpretational problems that arise with editors’ subjective punctuation by looking, as an example, at five-hundred lines from the poem and comparing the differing punctuation of several editions.
Kendall, Calvin. The Metrical Grammar of Beowulf. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, no. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
A detailed examination of Beowulf’s meter which argues that the poet was bound by the restrictions of the language he spoke rather than imposing his own desires on language to craft his poem.
Russom, Geoffrey. Old English Meter and Linguistic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Examines and attempts to explain Old English meter, specifically the metrical restrictions of the Beowulf poet, through four general principles involving foot pattern, verse properties, alliterative patterns, and line properties.
Whitman, F.H. A Comparative Study of Old English Metre. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.
Argues that Classical verse was accentual and offers a comparative analysis of what can then be seen as related poetics, Germanic and Italic accentual verse, that aims to more clearly distinguish the characteristics of Old English verse.
Journals
Anglo-Saxon England - http://www.cambridge.org/uk/journals/journal_catalogue.asp?historylinks=ALPHA&mnemonic ASE
Annual, interdisciplinary refereed journal, published by Cambridge University Press, whose scope encompasses all aspects of Anglo-Saxon history and culture.
Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History - http://users.ox.ac.uk/~assah/index.html
Annual, refereed journal, published by the Oxford University School of Archaeology, focused on the history and archaeology of England and neighboring countries during the Anglo-Saxon period.
Old English Newsletter Online - http://www.oenewsletter.org/OEN/index.php
Quarterly, refereed periodical, published for the Old English Division of the MLA by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, that provides news on teaching and research in Anglo-Saxon studies, events and calls for papers, as well as scholarly essays. The OEN also provides an annual bibliography of Anglo-Saxon research publications.
Anthologies
Muir, Bernard, ed. The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry. Exeter, UK: University of Exxeter Press, 1994.
Will be made available in CD-Rom form in 2005.
Treharne, Elaine, ed. Old and Middle English c. 890-1400: An Anthology. 2nd edition. London: Blackwell, 2004.
Introduction includes brief overview of grammar before moving to a mixture of canonical and non-canonical Old and Middle English texts.
Text Editions
Chickering, Howell D., Jr. Beowulf: A Dual Language Edition. 1977. Third corrected printing. Garden City, NJ: Anchor, 1983.
Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred. C. Robinson. Beowulf: An Edition. Oxford: Blackwell’s, 1998.
Krapp, George Phillip, and E.V.K. Dobbie, eds. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records. 6 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1931-53.
Miscellaneous Books and Articles
Gneuss, Helmut. “The Study of Language in Anglo-Saxon England.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 72.1 (Spring 1990): 3-32.
Hogg, Richard M., gen. ed. The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. I: The Beginnings to 1066. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Jack, George. “Negative Contraction in Old English Verse.” RES n.s. 50 (1999): 133-54.
Argues that evidence does not support constrainment of the use of contracted verbs by specific syntactic conditions; that contracted forms occur more frequently in unstressed positions in verse; and that there are more specific conditions in which uncontracted forms are used rather than contracted forms. These conditions include some “in which more strongly marked expression of negation would be appropriate,” and which, therefore, may offer explanation of the origin of contraction in unstressed positions.
Orton, P.R. “Verbal Apposition, Coordination and Metrical Stress in Old English.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 86 (1985): 145-58.
Offers a new reading and punctuation of Beowulf 1117b-20a (opposing Klaeber’s). Further examines and offers an explanation on the “distribution of a species of apposition between finite verbs in Old English verse” as a stylistic element. Finally, assembles evidence of and attempts explanation for a connection between verbal apposition in a-verses and verbal stress in b-verses.
Parkes, M.B. “Raedon, Arrecan, Smeagan: How the Anglo-Saxons Read.” Anglo-Saxon England 26 (1997): 1-22.
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. “Syntax.” In The Beginnings to 1066, vol. I of The Cambridge History of the English Language, ed. Richard M. Hogg. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 168-289.
Middle English Online
General
A (Very) Brief History of the English Language: The Norman Conquest and Middle English (1100-1500) - http://www.wordorigins.org/histeng.htm#norman
Brief history of Middle English to the Early-Modern Period.
Internet Medieval Sourcebook - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
Fordham University’s Center for Medieval Studies website that offers links and databases to all facets of Medieval studies including language, history, and literature.
Labrynth (Resources for Medieval Studies) - http://labyrinth.georgetown.edu/
Georgetown University’s site for all fields of medieval studies including, for instance, architecture, medicine, and language. Further includes a customized search of the site’s holdings and links.
ORB (Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies) - http://www.the-orb.net/
Like IMS, ORB offers links, texts, and databases addressing medieval studies including, in addition to language, history, and literature, teaching materials for teachers of medieval studies, a textbook library, and encyclopedia.
Harvard Chaucer Pages: The English Language in the Fourteenth Century - http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~laa14/language.html
Brief online essay on the status of England and Middle English dialects in the fourteenth century.
Overview and Grammar
A Brief Introduction to Middle English Grammar- http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl381/MEmenu.htm
University of Calgary Linguistics course website provides introductions to inflexions of Middle English.
Chaucer Metapage Audio Files – http://academics.vmi.edu/english/audio_index.html
Audio clips of readings of Chaucer’s poetry in Middle English
Glossorial Database of Middle English- http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/tools/
Harvard University search tool that allows word searches in Chaucer’s and Gower’s works. Search engine then generates all occurrences of the word.
Harvard Chaucer Pages: Pronunciation, Grammar, and Vocabulary- http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/pronunciation/
Introduction to Middle English pronunciation, a brief grammar and vocabulary. The twelve sections of grammar each include audio recordings of Middle English pronunciation.
History of English Phonemes - http://alpha.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/
Course supplement site for Furman Professor William Roger’s English Language courses. Provides linguistic terminology and charts for phonology, consonants and vowels and diphthongs. sound changes, and spelling for each period of the English language including the Middle English period.
Middle English Compendium – http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/mec/
The University of Michigan’s Middle English Compendium consists of the online Middle English Dictionary, a hyperlinked bibliography of Middle English Prose and Verse, and a Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. The site is restricted to subscribers but a trial username and password is available at- http://www.press.umich.edu/webhome/mec/individual.html
The Middle English Grammar Project - http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLang/ihsl/projects/MEG/MEG.htm
International research program of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and Stavanger University College, Norway that seeks to provide up-to-date discussions of aspects of Middle English including writing-systems, phonology, grammar and lexicology. The project site is still under construction.
Middle English at Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English
Online encyclopedia offers hyperlinks to Middle English history, culture, scribal activity, and a concise grammar and phonology
NetSerf: The Internet Connection for Medieval Resources- http://www.netserf.org/
Site for medieval resources includes links to numerous topics of medieval study including “Culture,” “History,” “People,” “Law,” etc.
Verb Movement in Old and Middle English: Dialect Variation and Language Contact - http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kroch/omev2-html/omev2-html.html
Online article by Anthony Kroch and Ann Taylor of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania attempts to show that verb movement syntax differed substantially between northern and southern Middle English dialects.
Lexicon
Edwin Duncan’s Chaucer Glossary- http://www.towson.edu/~duncan/glossary.html
Useful brief glossary of Chaucerian Middle English.
Middle English Dictionary - http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/med/
Essential tool, and part of the Middle English Compendium, with 15,000 pages of vocabulary and lexical study. See the University of Michigan Press’ access restrictions and license availability here- http://www.press.umich.edu/webhome/mec/announce.html
Listserves
Edwin Duncan’s Medieval Academic Discussion Groups -http://www.towson.edu/~duncan/acalists.html
Comprehensive list of medieval discussion groups/ listserves. For instructions on subscribing to listserves go here- http://www.towson.edu/~duncan/subscrib.html
Chaucernet: What Is It? - http://www.towson.edu/~duncan/descchau.html
Chaucernet Archives - http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/chaucer.html
Laura Hodge’s Netiquette for Chaucernet - http://www.towson.edu/~duncan/laura.html
Explanation of uses of Chaucernet by Edwin Duncan, archive of previous Chaucernet postings, and general guidelines for posting to Chaucernet.
Texts
Luminarium’s Anthology of Middle English Literature (1350-1485) - http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/
SCETI (Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image) - http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/flash.cfm?CFID=1121638&CFTOKEN=62824031
University of Pennsylvania Library’s site provides digital images of manuscripts and books in their collections.
Texts of Chaucer’s Works Online at Chaucer Metapage - http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/chtexts.htm
TEAMS Texts - http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htm
Publications of the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University online.
University of Virginia Middle English Collection - http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/collections/languages/english/mideng.browse.html
Middle English Bibliography
Grammar
Hogg, Richard M., gen. ed. Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. II: 1066-1476. Ed. Norman Blake. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Thorough examination of Middle English phonology, morphology, dialectology, syntax, lexis, semantics, onomastics, literary language.
Brunner, Karl. An Outline of Middle English Grammar. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963.
Translations of Brunner’s standard German textbook, Abriss der mittelenglischen Grammatik (1962), contains detailed grammar.
Burrow, J.A. and Thorlac Turville-Petre. A Book of Middle English. 2nd edition. London: Blackwell, 1996.
Useful text with an excellent grammar and sample Middle English texts.
Fischer, Olga. “Syntax.” Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. II. Ed. Norman Blake. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Provides overview of Middle English syntax.
Fischer, Olga, Ans van Kemenade, Willem Koopman, and Wim van der Wurff. The Syntax of Early English. Cambridge Syntax Guides. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Detailed examination of change in syntax in Old and Middle English.
Jones, Charles. An introduction to Middle English. London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1972.
Text examines sources of the language, Middle English dialects, and morphology and syntax.
Jordan, Richard. Handbook of Middle English Grammar: Phonology. Trans. and rev. by Eugene Joseph Cook. Paris: Mouton, 1974.
Translation of Jordan’s 1925 Handbuch der mittelenglischen Grammatik provides a detailed grammar divided by Germanic and romance elements of Middle English to the end of the fourteenth century. Part three then examines the fifteenth century lexicon.
Moore, Samuel. Historical Outlines of English Sounds and Inflections. Rev. by Albert H Marckwardt. Ann Arbor, MI: George Wahr Publishing Co., 1969.
Begins with an explanation of Phonetics and Modern English sounds before moving through Old English sounds and dialects, Middle English sounds and dialect and the “Language of Chaucer,” and finally Modern English inflections.
Mosse, Fernand. A Handbook of Middle English .1952. 10th Printing. Trans. By James A. Walker. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Standard textbook with substantial grammar and sample Middle English texts. It is the second half to Mosse’s study of early English, Manuel de l’Anglais du Moyen Age. The first part, which addresses Old English, has not been translated.
Mustanoja, Tauno F. A Middle English Syntax. Helsinki: Societe Neophilologique, 1960.
Seminal work offers a substantial, oft-cited grammar of Middle English.
Roseborough, Margaret M. An Outline of Middle English Grammar. New York: Macmillan, 1938.
Contains substantial discussion of dialect and dialect maps. Illustrates Middle English distinctions from Old English, Middle English phonology and accidence,
Shanklin, Michael. The Grammar of Negation in Middle English. Dissertation Abstracts International Jan. 51 (1991) University of Southern California.
Applies contemporary linguistic theory to discuss syntactic constraints in Middle English.
Smith, Jeremy. Essentials of Early English. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Aims at providing a practical guide—a description of characteristics, development and change—to the early stages of the English language: Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. Part One examines the languages separately. Part Two looks at texts from each period.
Wright, Joseph, and Elizabeth Mary Wright. An Elementary Middle English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.
Substantial grammar that further outlines transition from Old English, as well as the Scandinavian and French elements left in Middle English.
Lexicon
Startmann, Francis Henry. A Middle-English Dictionary. Revised and enlarged by Henry Bradley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1891.
Incomplete but useful dictionary.
Dialect Study
McIntosh, Angus, M.L. Samuels, Michael Benskin, with the assistance of Margaret Laing and Keith Williamson. Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English. New York: Aberdeen University Press, 1986.
LALME is a monumental thirty year project of the Historical Institute of Dialectology at the University Edinburgh and a essential tool for dialectologist and linguists in general. Includes maps and indexes.
Laing, Margaret. Middle English Dialectology: Essays on Some Principles and Problems. New York: Aberdeen University Press, 1989
Important collection of essays written in the midst of the LALME’s completion that each examine aspects of Middle English dialects that can be observed in various Middle English texts..
Kristensson, Gillis. A Survey of Middle English Dialects 1290-1350. The Six Northern Counties and Lincolnshire. Lund Studies in English 35. Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press, 1967.
---A Survey of Middle English Dialects 1290-1350. The West-Midland Counties. Publications of the New Society of Letters at Lund 78. Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press, 1987.
--- A Survey of Middle English Dialects 1290-1350. The East Midland Counties. Publications of the New Society of Letters at Lund 88. Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press, 1995.
Thirty-five year project in three parts, which leads nearly to where the LALME picks up, examines phonological development of the various Middle English dialects by region. The fourth installment on South-Eastern and South-Western dialects is forthcoming.
Penhallurick, Robert, and Adrian Wilmott. “Dialect: ‘England’s Dreaming.‘” Debating Dialect: Essays on the Philosophy of Dialect Study. Robert Penhallurck, ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000.
Examines dialect awareness and linguistic divisions in medieval England as it is seen in various histories and literary texts.
Samuels, M.L. “Dialect and Grammar.” A Companion to Piers Plowman. Ed. John A. Alford. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988. 201-221.
Tolkien, J.R.R. “Chaucer As Philologist: The Reeve’s Tale.” Transactions of the Philological Society (1934): 1-70.
Provides a thorough and detailed analysis of linguistic matter, specifically the traces of northern dialect that appears in the Reeve’s Tale as found in the Ellesmere MS of the Canterbury Tales.
Wakelin, Martyn F. English Dialects: An Introduction. London: Athlone Press, 1977.
Introduction to the linguistic landscape of England.
Williams, Jeni. “Competing Spaces: Dialectology and the Place of Dialect in Chaucer’s Reve’s Tale.” Debating Dialect: Essays on the Philosophy of Dialect Study. Robert Penhallurck, ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000.
Examines the social implications pervading linguistic matters in medieval England, specifically as they pertain to Chaucer’s use of dialect in the tale.
Wright, Laura. Sources of London English: Medieval Thames Vocabulary. Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 1996.
Examines the development of London English through manuscripts between 1270 and 1500, specifically macaronic business records and other non-literary sources. Further discusses untreated evidence of London dialect, and mercantile technical vocabulary associated with business along the Thames.
Anthologies
Garbaty, Thomas J. Medieval English Literature. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press, 1984.
Friendly text with period introduction, summary of Middle English spelling and pronunciation, and nearly one-thousand pages of Middle English literature grouped by genre.
Treharne, Elaine, ed. Old and Middle English c. 890-1400: An Anthology. 2nd edition. London: Blackwell, 2004.
Introduction includes brief overview of grammar before moving to a mixture of canonical and non-canonical Old and Middle English texts.
Journals
Exemplaria - http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/exm
Journal of theory in medieval and renaissance studies published four times per year.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen- http://www.helsinki.fi/jarj/ufy/publics/publeng.html
Quarterly philological publication of the Modern Language Society.
Speculum - http://www.medievalacademy.org/speculum/speculum.htm
Quarterly journal of the Medieval Academy of America that addresses all facets of medieval studies. Includes book reviews.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer - http://artsci.wustl.edu/~chaucer/sac/index.htm
Annual journal of the New Chaucer Society whose articles examine writing in late-medieval Britain. Also includes an annual bibliography and book reviews.
Text Editions
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Ed. Larry Benson. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987.
Standard collected works of Chaucer with thorough textual and explanatory notes on each piece.
Clark, Cecily. The Peterborough Chronicle 1070-1154. 2nd edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.
Krishna, Valeria, ed. The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A Critical Edition. New York: Burt Franklin and Co., Inc., Publishers, 1976
Langland, William. Piers Plowman: The B Version. Eds. George Kane and E.Talbot Donaldson. London: Athlone Press, 1975.
Malory, Sir Thomas. The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. 3rd edition. 3 vols. Ed. Eugene Vinaver. Rev. by P.J.C. Field. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
Tolkien, J.R.R., and E.V. Gordon, eds. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 1926. 2nd edition. Ed. by Norman Davis. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.
Poem with thorough introduction, appendix, brief grammar, and glossary.
Miscellaneous Books Articles
Poster, Carol. “Discourses of Power: Grammar and Rhetoric in the Middle Ages.” Disputatio 4 (1999): 1- 151.
Tolkien, J.R.R. “Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meidhad.” Essays and Studies 14 (1929): 104-126.
Early-Modern English Online
General
A (Very) Brief History of the English Language: Early-Modern English (1500-1800) - http://www.wordorigins.org/histeng.htm#early
Brief historical overview of language evolution from the Middle-Ages to the Late-Modern Period.
Cambridge English Renaissance Electronic Resources - http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/
Cambridge University resource pages that offer several lists of electronic resources. Includes COPIA (CERES Online Publications Interactive) which consists on ongoing online projects in Renaissance studies.
Center For Reformation and Renaissance Studies Electronic Resources - http://www.crrs.ca/library/webresources/webresources.htm
Part of larger site for research center at Victoria College in the University of Toronto offers links to several other medieval and early-modern sites, as well as links to online texts and resources.
Eighteenth-Century Studies - http://eserver.org/18th/
Offers several links to eighteenth-century art, science, literature (includes several online texts), and general history.
History of English Phonemes - http://alpha.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/
Course supplement site for Furman Professor William Roger’s English Language courses. Provides linguistic terminology and charts for phonology, consonants and vowels and diphthongs. sound changes, and spelling for each period of the English language including the Early-Modern period.
Early-Modern English at Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English
Online encyclopedia offers hyperlinks to Early-Modern English history, culture, and, further, discusses grammatical distinctions of the period’s language including, for instance verb conjugations and T-V distinction.
Early-Modern England Source List- http://lists.quelle.org/mailman/listinfo/emeslist
Resource for students and teachers of Early-Modern British History
Everything 2: Early-Modern English Inflections or How To speak Like a Right Rakish Dandy– http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1441561
Provides a few examples of inflections in Early-Modern English as well as links to other Early-Modern language, history and literature pages.
Iter: Gateway to the Middle-Ages and Renaissance - http://www.itergateway.org/
Includes substantial bibliography of Medieval and Renaissance books and journal matter including articles, reviews, review articles, bibliographies, catalogues, abstracts and discographies. Further includes indexed journal and essay collections database.
Overview and Grammar
Harvard Chaucer Pages: The Great Vowel Shift – http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/vowels.html
Brief online essay explaining the Great Vowel Shift. Includes vowel charts to illustrate difference between Middle English and post-Shift English and links to audio files that demonstrate the Shif
Melinda Menzer’s The Great Vowel Shift - http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/
Substantial site that explains in detail the Great Vowel Shift and its affect in linguistic and literary history. Includes examinations for incremented historical periods affected by the Shift, linguistic charts, explanation of terminology, audio files, and hypertext bibliography of other sites and sources.
Michigan Earl-Modern English Materials - http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/memem/
Includes a search tool that allows the user to perform basic, boolean, quotation, and proximity searches of citations collected for modal verbs and other words for the Early-Modern English Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary.
Proper Elizabethan Accents - http://www.renfaire.com/Language/index.html
Includes brief grammar, sample vocabulary, pronunciation drills, contemporary songs, and fun phrases (forms of address, insults, etc.)
Silva Rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric- http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm
BYU Professor Gideon Burton’s online guide to the terms of classical and renaissance rhetoric. Includes hyperlinked tutorials for major rhetorical categories, hyperlinked individual rhetorical terms, and a search tool for the website.
Lexicons
A Brief History of Lexicography - http://angli02.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/bh.html
Offers charts that list the important publications in the history of dictionaries.
Early-Modern English Dictionaries Database – http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/english/emed/emedd.html
Massive dictionary project initiated decades ago by Charles Fries (see “The Early Modern English Dictionary.” University of Michigan: An Encyclopedia Survey. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1951) , now housed at the University of Toronto includes six bilingual dictionaries: John Palsgrave (1530; English-French), William Thomas (1550; Italian-English), Thomas Thomas (1587; Latin-English), John Florio (1598; Italian-English), John Minsheu (1599; Spanish-English), and Randle Cotgrave (1611; French-English); five English hard-word dictionaries: Edmund Coote (1596), Robert Cawdrey (1604, based on the transcription by Raymond Siemens; and 1617), John Bullokar (1616), and Henry Cockeram (1623); the first full English-only dictionary, by Thomas Blount (1656); three specialized lexicons: Bartholomew Traheron's translation of Vigon (1543), William Turner on herbal names (1548), and John Garfield on scientific terms in J. Renou's Dispensatory (1657); and the first full English word-list by Richard Mulcaster in his The first part of the Elementarie (1582).
Early Modern Literary Studies: New Scholarship From Old Renaissance Dictionaries - http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/emls/si-01/si-01toc.html
Early Modern Literary Studies Special Issue 1 from April 1997 includes articles derived from applying the Early Modern English Dictionary Database to studies that vary between, for instance, examination of Shakespeare’s use of archaisms and reinterpretations of some of Shakespeare’s plays including Love’s Labours Lost and The Tempest.
Texts
Early English Books Online - http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home
Essential source for studies in bibliography and lexicology that offers a collection of digital facsimile page images of nearly every work printed in Britain and North America from 1473-1700. Subscription or institution affiliation required.
Internet Shakespeare Editions - http://ise.uvic.ca/
Offers complete works, including complete works in original spelling.
Complete Works of William Shakespeare – http://www.tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html
Hosted by MIT Tech.
King James Bible - http://www.hti.umich.edu/k/kjv/browse.html
Online edition with apochrypha at the University of Michigan.
Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler - http://www.bartleby.com/105/
Oxford Clarendon Press edition (1921) online.
Milton Reading Room- http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/
Dartmouth’s site of Milton’s works
Renascence Editions: An Online Repository of Works Printed in English Between the Years 1477 and 1799– http://www.oregon.edu/~rbear/ren.htm
Renaissance Electronic Texts - http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/ret/ret.html
University of Toronto provides several English Renaissance books and manuscripts in old-spelling.
SCETI (Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image) - http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/flash.cfm?CFID=1121638&CFTOKEN=62824031
University of Pennsylvania Library’s site provides digital images of manuscripts and books in their collections.
Listserves
Penn Call For Papers: Renaissance- http://cfp.english.upenn.edu/archive/Renaissance/
University of Pennsylvania English Department’s Call for Papers Page lists various CFPs for Renaissance conferences, journals, and essay collections.
Renaissance Forum - http://www.hull.ac.uk/Hull/EL_Web/renforum/list.htm
Provides information, specifically content, for Renaissance Forum journal.
Early Modern English Bibliography
Overview and Grammar
Abbot, E.A. A Shakespearian Grammar. London: Macmillan and Co., 1871.
Old textbook that still carries useful exercises and instruction.
Alston, R.C. “A Bibliography of the English Language from the Introduction of Printing to the Year 1800: A Corrected Reprint of Volumes I-X: Reproduced from the Author’s Annotated Copy With Corrections and Additions to 1973, Including Cumulative Indices. Ilkley, UK: Janus Press, 1974.
Examines English grammars written in English and in other languages, the English dictionary, aspects of prosody, English language philosophy, non-standard English, and the teaching of languages.
Barber, Charles. Early Modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1976.
Provides substantial grammar and examines phonology and the expanding vocabulary of the period.
Gorlach, Manfred. Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Synchronic look at all aspects of Early Modern English including syntax, phonology, morphology, orthography, dialect, and vocabulary. Includes study questions at the end of each chapter.
Smith, Jeremy. Essentials of Early English. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Aims at providing a practical guide—a description of characteristics, development and change—to the early stages of the English language: Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. Part One examines the languages separately. Part Two looks at texts from each period.
Lexicon
Bailey, Richard W., ed. Early Modern English: Additions and Antedatings to the Record of English Vocabulary 1475-1700. New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1978.
Intentioned as a supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary that offers additional words (4400 entries) in use from 1475, as well as words omitted from the OED due to its not seeking words prior to 1800 for its supplements. Entries include modern and early-modern spellings.
Danielsson, Bror. “Proposal for DEMP: A Dictionary of Early Modern English.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 75 (1974): 492-500.
Original proposal for the 1976 publication of DEMP.
Kerling, J. “English Old-Word Glossaries 1553-1594.” Neuphilologus 62 (1979): 136-147.
Osselton, N. E. “The First English Dictionary? A Sixteenth-Century Compiler at Work.” The History of Lexicography. Ed. R.R.K. Hartmann. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins. 175-84.
Attempts to flesh out methodology of early lexicographers by specifically studying Bodleian MS Rawlinson Poet. 108 (c. 1570) and its compiler. The MS seems to be the initial draft of a dictionary replete with “false starts, gaps, corrections and duplications.”
Riddell, James A. “The Beginning: English Dictionaries of the First Half of the Seventeenth Century.” Leeds Studies in English 7 (1973-74): 117-53.
Critical and historical look at early lexicographers, both pioneers and plagiarists including Bullokar, Cockerham, and Cawdrey.
Ronberg, Gert. A Way With Words: The Language of English Renaissance Literature. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Schafer, Jurgen. Early Modern English Lexicography. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Starnes, DeWitt Talmage, and Gertrude E. Noyes. Renaissance Dictionaries: English-Latin and Latin-English. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1954.
Historical look at the several lexicons printed from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries.
---The English Dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson 1604-1755. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1946.
Standard text on the development of the English lexicon to Johnson’s Dictionary.
Dialect Study
Blank, Paula. Broken English: Dialects and the Politics of Language in Renaissance Writings. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Examines views of English by Renaissance authors, the literary representation of linguistic differences, and the ways by which they played out these views in their works.
Journals
Early Modern Literary Studies - http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/emlshome.html
Journal that examines English literature, literary culture, and language during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Includes scholarly articles and book reviews.
Electronic Sixteenth Century Journal - http://escj.truman.edu/home.html
Inter-disciplinary, quarterly journal with articles and book reviews.
Harvest - http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/archive.htm
Quarterly, electronic newsletter and review of CERES (Cambridge English Renaissance Electronic Sources) that provides updated summaries and reviews of online resources for early-modern English studies.
Renaissance Forum - http://www.hull.ac.uk/Hull/EL_Web/renforum/index.html
Inter-disciplinary, biannual, electronic journal examining the early-modern period in various `aspects. Includes article and book reviews.
Renaissance Studies - http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0269-1213
Quarterly journal that examines all aspects of Renaissance history and culture including art, language, literature, religion, and architecture.
Shakespeare Quarterly - http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=542
Journal dedicated to all facets of Shakespeare studies.
Text Editions
Donne, John. The Divine Poems. Ed. Helen Gardner. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1952.
Donne, John. The Elegies and The Songs and Sonnets. Ed. Helen Gardner. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1965.
Milton, John. The Riverside Milton. Ed. Roy Flannagan. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1998.
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd edition. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1997.
Spenser, Edmund. The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Edmund Spenser. 10 vols. Ed. Reverend Alexander B. Grosart, et. Al. Manchester, UK: Printed for the Spenser Society, 1882-1884.
Miscellaneous Books and Articles
Houston, R.A. Literacy in Early-Modern Europe Culture and Educations 1500-1800. New York: Longman, 1988.
Present-Day English Online
General
Modern Language Association Language Map - http://www.mla.org/census_main
Demographic map of the United States based on results from the 2000 census that illustrates the number of speakers of a language other than English.
World Wide Words - http://www.worldwidewords.org/index.htm
British author Michael Quinion’s free online newsletter includes Quinion’s articles on various aspects of language development, reviews of books and CD-Roms concerned with English, and a section on new words that have not yet reached dictionaries (Quinion vocation includes providing advice and citations for the Oxford English Dictionary).
U.S. English, Inc. - http://www.us-english.org/inc/
Homepage of action group dedicated to “preserving the unifying role of English in the United States.” Include resources of surveys, polls, facts and figures on English in America, links to information on legislation, and an e-newsletter.
Overview and Grammar
American Sign Language Linguistic Research Project- http://www.bu.edu/asllrp/
Project at Boston University that consists of several sub-projects that aim to investigate syntactic structures and their relations to semantics and prosody in American Sign Language, develop multimedia tools (SignStream) to facilitate access to and analysis of primary data for sign language research, and collaborate with computer scientists interested in problems involved in computer-based recognition and generation of signed languages.
American Heritage Book of English Usage Online at Bartleby.com- http://www.bartleby.com/64/
Bartleby.com makes available text that examines current problems in English usage. Looks at grammar, style, diction, and word formation, as well as gender and social groups.
Basic Description of English Sounds- http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/linguistics/russell/138/notes.htm
Kevin Russell of the University of Manitoba offers brief explanations of English phonetics.
The Evolution of Present-Day English - http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/hel/helmod/
Professor Daniel Mosser provides an extremely useful and detailed explanation of the evolution of English from its Indo-European beginnings through Old, Middle, and Early-Modern English forms. Includes grammatical and phonological charts, and several hypertextual, explanatory links to various aspects of his discussion.
Grammarian.com - http://www.grammarian.com/LINKS.html
Offers links to several sites addressing, for example, grammar discussion and instruction, style guides, writing centers, teaching exercises, and literary texts.
Morphological and Orthographic Tools For English - http://www.informatics.susx.ac.uk/research/nlp/carroll/morph.html
Tools for inflectional morphological analysis and generation, and for determining the orthography of the indefinite article.
Notes on American English - http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html
Peter Burden offers some discussion, charts, and examples of differences, both semantic and phonetic, between British and American English.
English Usage - http://www.yaelf.com/toc.shtml
Offers links to several essays, both light and serious, about various aspects of English usage.
Phthong- http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~rogers/phthong.html
Tutorial program, developed by Henry Rogers and Michael Stairs at the University of Toronto, for the phonemic description of English.
Resources for Studying Spoken English - http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/PhonResources/PhonResources.html
Offer links to several explanatory pages, program downloads, instructional sites, and tutorials associated with English phonology.
Stirling University’s Online Phonology Course – http://www.celt.stir.ac.uk/staff/HIGDOX/STEPHEN/PHONO/PHONOLG.HTM
Online course, developed by Stephen Luscombe, offers discussion on aspects of English phonology, a glossary, and bibliography.
Teaching
Daily Grammar - http://www.dailygrammar.com/
Bill Johanson offers online study course for English grammar. Site includes a glossary of grammatical terms and other grammar-related links.
Grammar Slammer - http://englishplus.com/grammar/
Site offers clickable links for grammar instruction and explanation.
Guide to Grammar and Writing - http://cctc.commnet.edu/grammar/
Site, sponsored by the Capital community College Foundation, offers several drop-down menusfor categories including word and sentence-level instruction, paragraph-level instruction, and instructional materials such as quizzes and question and answer logs.
Lexicon
British National Corpus - http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/
Over 100 million word collection of samples, written and spoken, designed to represent a “cross- section of current British English, both written and spoken.”
The Structure of English Words - http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~l150web/index.html
Online website for University of Oregon’s linguistics department course.
American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition Online at Bartleby.com– http://www.bartleby.com/61/
Includes over 90,000 entries with10,000 new words and senses, 70,000 audio word pronunciations, 900 full-page color illustrations, language notes and word-root appendixes.
Cambridge Dictionaries Online - http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
Allows search of seven different Cambridge dictionaries including Lerner’s, Lerner’s Advanced, Dictionary of American English, Dictionary of Idioms, Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs, and Spanish- to English and French-English dictionaries.
Dictionary of Liberian English Online - http://www.bong-town.com/Bong_Town/Links/Dictionary.html
Dictionary of Military and Associative Terms – http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/
Department of Defense provides this glossary.
Downeast/ Maritime Lexicon - http://www.quoddyloop.com/lexicon.htm
Short vocabulary of maritime terms.
General English Dictionaries Polysearch Engine - http://www2.hawaii.edu/~jacso/extra/egyeb/poly-eng-dic.htm
Allows search of more than twenty online English dictionaries at one time.
Glossary of Flying - http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com/glossary/glossary_A.htm
Glossary of aeronautical terms.
LDC American English Spoken Lexicon - http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/aesl/aesl
Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania provides database that contains pronunciations captured in audiofiles for more than 50,000 common English words. Users can set parameters and perform a search by word, or alphabetically.
Dialect Study
BritSpeak - http://englishclub.8m.com/ukus1.htm
Fun website that provides a British English-American English glossary of selective words.
Do You Speak American? - http://www.pbs.org/speak/
Accompanying site for PBS documentary on the state of American English. Site offers links to discussions of dialect, lexicology, and future expectations.
Fonetiks - http://fonetiks.org/
Online pronunciation guide to seven varieties of English.
Linguistic Geography of the Mainland United States - http://www.evolpub.com/Americandialects/AmDialMap.html
Evolution Publishing offers this brief discussion of American dialects; includes map.
Telsur Project and Atlas of North American English - http://ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/home.html
Linguistic Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania’s survey of linguistic changes in progress in North American English. Includes Atlas of North American English which offers regional maps with clickable links, by city, to demographic information for that particular area.
Slanguage - http://www.slanguage.com/
Comedic sight that offers local phonology and vocabulary for various cities in America and abroad.
Estuary English - http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/home.htm
Site of the Department of Phonetics and Linguistics at the University College London dedicated to compiling all work addressing or related to the study of Estuary English, “the name given to the form(s) of English widely spoken in and around London and, more generally, in the southeast of England—along the river Thames and its estuary.” Site includes several useful links.
Dictionary of American Regional English - http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html
Website for the Dictionary (available from Harvard University Press - http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html ) includes samples from the dictionary and index, audiofiles of selection read through the various dialects of America, links to its quarterly newsletter (full text in pdf), and other related links.
American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org/
Homepage of organization concerned with dialects of North American English.
English in West Africa - http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/angl/WAfr/wafr.html
Department of Linguistics at Humboldt University, Berlin attempts collection and description of “lexical peculiarities and, to some degree, specific phonetic and phonological features of the English” spoken in the six anglophone West African countries of Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria. Project aims to produce the first comprehensive and comparative dictionary of these various forms of English.
Scots Online - http://www.scots-online.org/
Offers various links to articles, grammars, texts, an online Scots dictionary, and other Scots related sites.
Listserves
Lowlands - http://www.lowlands-l.net/
Listserve concerned with discussion of language and culture of the Lowlands, the areas adjacent to the North and Baltic Seas. Lowland languages, which are Germanic, include, for example, Dutch, Zeelandic (Zeeuws, West Flemish), Frisian, Limburgish and Low Saxon (Low German).
Forensics - http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/forensic-linguistics.html
Listserve for discussion of language and the law.
The Linguist List - http://linguistlist.org/
Forum for academic discussion of language and linguistics with over 20,000 subscribers.
Present-Day English Bibliography
General
Aitchison, Jean. Language Change: Progress or Decay? 3rd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001
Andersson, Lars-Gunnar, and Peter Trudgill. Bad Language. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
Kachru, Braj B. "American English and Other Englishes." Language in the U.S.A. Eds. Charles A. Ferguson and Shirley B. Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. 21-43.
Mencken, H.L. The American Language. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1919.
Overview and Grammar
Barber, Charles. Linguistic Change in Present-Day English. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1964.
Book offers a more synchronic look at linguistic change in English over a twenty or so year period prior to the book’s publication. Barber provides a brief overview of linguistic changes before examining in some detail the changes in pronunciation, changes in word meaning, lexical growth, and other grammatical changes to Present-day English.
Baron, Dennis. Grammar and Good Taste: Reforming the American Language. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982.
Examines various attempts to improve English over the last three centuries.
Marchand, Hans. The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word Formation. 2nd edition. Munchen: Beck, 1969.
Essential work on English word formation offers a substantial and detailed examination.
Marckwardt, Albert H. American English. 2nd edition. Ed. J.L. Dillard. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Second edition of the 1958 work, updated by editor J.L. Dillard to better exist within contemporary linguistics, offers general examination of American English; its origins and development over the course of nearly four-hundred years.
Quirk, Randolph, et. al. A Grammar of Contemporary English. New York: Seminar Press, 1972.
Very comprehensive, over one-thousand page grammar of contemporary English.
Todd, Loreto, Modern Englishes. New York: 1984.
Examines the spread of English and the subsequent development of English pidgins and creoles in the world. Offers specific case studies of Cameroon Pidgin English and Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin. Further, discusses creoles as they affect and are brought into the classroom in Britain. Includes an index of various famous literary and Biblical passages in various creoles and pidgins.
Viereck, Wolfgang, Edgar W. Schneider, and Manfred Gorlach. A Bibliography of Writings on Varieties of English, 1965-1983. Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1984.
Offers three substantial bibliographies: 1) “Writings on varieties of English spoken in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland” 2) “Writings on American and Canadian English” 3) English as a world language.”
Dialect Study
Bailey, Richard W. , and Jay L. Robinson. Varieties of Present-Day English. New York: Macmillan, 1973.
Book puts forth a collection of essays, divided into sections (“English in the Modern World,” “English in America,” and “English in the Classroom”), that study the causes, structures, differences, and other aspects of the existence of varieties of English.
Brooks, G.L. Varieties of English. London: Macmillan, 1973.
Demonstrates and examines the varieties of English through chapters on dialects, idiolects, registers and slang.
Carver, Craig M. American Regional Dialects. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1987.
Relying much on research gathered for the Dictionary of American Regional English, this book, with chapters divided by large dialect groups, seeks to examine and describe, both historically and linguistically, the various dialects of the United States.
Dillard, J.L. Black English: Its History and Usage in the United States. New York: Random House, 1972.
Offers comprehensive examination of Black English historically and linguistically.
Gorlach, Manfred. Englishes: Studies in Varieties of English 1984-1988. Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1991.
Offers, in one collection, Gorlach’s most influential writings on varieties of English around the world.
Labov, William. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972.
Seminal work that offers sociolinguistic examination of urban Black English.
Lexicon
Cassidy, Frederic G., ed. Dictionary of American Regional English. 3 Vols. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985.
Nearly century-long project begun by the American Dialect Society includes maps, which illustrate regional distribution of words and phrases used in the projects survey, informant lists, survey reproductions, and the lexicon itself. Entries are listed in standard spelling and include definitions, variant forms, some etymology, geographic and usage labels.
Shipley, Joseph T. The Origins of English words: A Discursive Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.
Lists the most “productive” Indo-European roots. Each entry further lists samples of English words into which they have been formed.
Stockwell, Robert, and Donka Minkova. English Words: History and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Text, accompanied by a workbook, that examines the etymology and morphology of the subset of English words derived from both Latin and Greek through French.
Journals
American Speech - http://www.dukeupress.edu/americanspeech/
Quarterly journal of the American Dialect Society, published since 1925, addresses various aspects of usage of American and other forms of English, generally in the Western Hemisphere..
International Journal of American Linguistics - http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/IJAL/
Published since 1917, this quarterly journal focuses on study of languages native to North, Central, and South America.
Modern English Teacher - http://www.onlinemet.com/current.html
Quarterly magazine for teachers of English that offers articles and product reviews.
Wordways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics - http://wordways.com/
Website of the quarterly journal offers several articles from back issues.
English As A World Language Online
General
E.L. Easton’s English Around the World - http://eleaston.com/world-eng.html
Part of Easton’s English Online site. Offers links to hypertext bibliographies of several varieties of English around the world including, for example, Canadian English, Caribbean English, Nigerian English.
English As A World Language In The Long 18th Century- http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/C18thWorldEnglish.htm
Ann Croyle provides this extensive bibliography.
International Dialects of English Archive - http://www.ku.edu/~idea/index2.html
Remarkable archive of MP3 sound recordings of dialects and accents of English compiled by editors across the globe and hosted by the Department of Theater and Film at the University of Kansas.
The Routes of English - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/
BBC provides fun site with several interesting links to pages explaining or offering examples of various forms of English in the world. Site also includes fun links such as “Talking Posh” and “Humour and Cussing.”
Specific Englishes
Canadian English – http://canadianenglish.org/
Research website for studies on Canadian English includes links to current research at various universities in North America and abroad, courses being taught at Canadian universities, Canadian English web links, and a link to the conference “Canadian English in the Global Context” held at the University of Toronto.
Teaching and Instructional Sites
Dave’s ESL Café - http://www.eslcafe.com/
Dave Sperling’s award-winning website offers various teaching materials, forums for teachers of ESL, job posting boards, and other general matter.
EFLweb - http://www.eflweb.com/
Informational site, for new ESL/EFL teachers, that offers both teaching resources and job information for those seeking employment.
English Language Teaching - http://www.eltweb.com/liason/
Site offers links to articles, books, dictionaries, audio archives, and numerous other facets of teaching English.
Google Links For Teaching English - http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Education/Language_Arts/English/English_as_a_Second_Language/
Google offers list of links for teaching of English as a second language.
Grammar For English Language Learners - http://www.ohiou.edu/esl/english/grammar/
Ohio University site assembles collection of web links to aid instruction to non-native English speakers.
Learning English Electronically - http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/lee/index.php
Computer-based educational program, developed by Maricopa Center For Learning at Maricopa Community College, designed for ESL instruction.
Nonstop English - http://www.nonstopenglish.com/
Offers several exercises and interactive quizzes to aid in learning English grammar. Offers its content in six different languages.
Taiwan Teacher - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/1979/links.html
Extensive EFL site offers links to online course, teaching materials, articles, and other ESL sites.
TOEFL preparatory links - http://www.bu.edu/mfeldman/TOEFL/
Consists of several links to sites that offer explanation and preparation for the test. Official TOEFL page at Education Testing Service: http://www.ets.org/toefl/
English As A Second Language at the Yamada Language Center - http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/guides/esl.html
Offers links to several helpful ESL sites.
Journals
ELT- http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/
Quarterly journal offering articles that bring together the practical concerns of daily pedagogy and various related disciplines such as linguistics and sociologyon the teaching of English as a Second Language.
Teaching English As A Second Language Electronic Journal - http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/
Online, quarterly, refereed journal addressing all aspects of teaching English to non-native speakers.
English As A World Language Bibliography
General
Bailey, R.W., and Manfred Gorlach, eds. English as a World Language. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1982.
An impressive collection of chapters, by several contributors, that examine English in a socio-historical context as a native, second, minority and administrative language.
Chesire, Jenny, ed. English Around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Collection of essays that conduct rigorous sociolinguistic examinations of various Englishes around the world including several types of African English, English in the Pacific, and English in Southeast Asia. The essays further demonstrate attitudes towards English as well as the complications that arise in bi- and multilingual societies.
Kachru, Braj B. The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Function, and Models of Non-Native Englishes. Oxford: Pergamon, 1986.
Examines English as a world language in four parts, which look specifically at “institutionalized second-language varieties,” “educational and methodological questions” concerning international models and norms of English especially considering countries in which English is a major second or additional language, the impact of English on other languages, and the “creativity” of literature and English’s role as a medium for creative expression in countries in which English is not the official language.
— "Models of English for the Third World: White Man’s Linguistic Burden or Language Pragmatics?" TESOL Quarterly 10 (1976): 221-39.
Argues against the view of “linguistic intolerance” held by some TESL specialists. Suggests that Third-World English study should be viewed in “native sociolinguistic parameters.” These parameters must be considered with the formal and functional aspects of language to understand the “pragmatics of the Third World Englishes and their linguistic innovations and ‘deviations.’” The Article uses data from Indian English as an example.
Quirk, R., and H.G. Widdowson, eds. English in the World: Teaching and learning the language and literatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Papers from the international conference, “Progress in English Studies,” held in September 1984 examine English language and literature in a “global context,” look at the uses of new technologies in teaching, and discuss English language and literature teaching methodologies.
Todd, Loreto, and I.F. Hancock. International English Usage. London: Croom Helm, 1986.
Trudgill, Peter, and Jean Hannah. International English: A Guide to Varieties of Standard English. London: Edward Arnold, 1982.
Examines and explains Standard English as it is used in the world by native “educated” speakers and by second language speakers and learners.
Specific Englishes
Baker, Sidney J. The Australian Language. Sidney: Angus and Robertson, 1945.
---The Australian Language. Supplement. Sidney: Shakespeare Head Press, 1953.
Still the essential study of Australian English which offers several points of view on Australian English from the socio-historical to the grammatical including: its history, its diversification in the cities and rural areas, its socialization in leisure, crime, education, industry, its slang forms, pidgin forms, overseas influence, and literary idioms to name but a few.
Carr, Elizabeth Ball. Da Kine Talk: From Pidgin to Standard English in Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1972.
Examines the history, grammatical structure, and lexicon of the English of the Hawaiian Islands, which the author points out came in contact with more languages (Malayo-Polynesian, and several other Asian languages) in a small geographic place than most other varieties.
Cassidy, Frederic G. Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica. 2nd edition. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1982.
Substantial study that offers a grammar and pronunciation guide, but also a social and cultural language history and overview of Jamaican English, including a large lexicon.
Crewe, William J., ed. The English Language in Singapore. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1977.
Offers collection of papers that examine the role of English in Singapore “linguistically,” “educationally,” and “politically.”
De Villiers, Andre. English-Speaking South Africa Today. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Collection of papers from 1974 conference which examine the cultural identity of English-speaking South Africans.
Fishman, Joshua A., Robert L. Cooper, and Andrew W. Conrad. The Spread of English: The Sociology of English as an Additional Language. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1977.
Collection of essays that examine the role of English, and within this subject, “language maintenance” and language attitudes, in non-English communities. Essays are collected under five main headings: “International Perspective on English,” “English in Nation and Neighborhood,” “The Economic and Technological Power of English,” The Impact of English on Local Terminology, Planned and Unplanned,” and “Attitudes Toward English.”
Lanham, L.W. The Pronunciation of South African English. Cape Town: Ballkema, 1967.
Employs an American structuralist linguistics approach to describe characteristic features and pronunciation of South African English. Closes with a brief socio-historical look at this variety of English.
Llamzon, Teodoro A. Standard Filipino English. Manila: Ateneo University Press, 1969.
Mitchell, A.G. The Pronunciation of English in Australia. Sidney: Angus and Robertson, 1965.
Offers a succinct background, history of development, and linguistic characteristics of Australian English. Also, the book makes suggestions on its use (the author suggests the book be used as an auxiliary to English books on phonetics), discusses various opinions of Australian English, and examines problems of variant pronunciation.
Branford, Jean, with William Branford, eds. A Dictionary of South African English. 4th edition. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Entries include definition, pronunciation, and dated sample passages.
History of the English Language: General Online
General
Chronology of Events in the History of English - http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/chron.html
Professor Suzanne Kremmer of Rice University offers this timeline of events from the first speakers of the Proto-Indo European language to the twentieth century.
History of the English Language - http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/hel/hel.html
Virginia Tech professor Daniel Mosser’s website offers substantial site with numerous links to resources, texts, fun pages, course materials, and other English Language-related sites.
Resources For History of the English Language and English Historical Linguistics - http://www.ujaen.es/dep/filing/HEL_Resources/index.html
Alejandro Alcaraz Sintes of the Universidad de Jaen offers this useful links page.
University of Toronto’s History of the English Language site - http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/hell/
Substantial site that offers links to all aspects of English language study including grammar, historical periods, texts, lexicons, journals, etc.
Overview and Grammar
C.K. Ogden. Basic English and Grammatical Reform. Cambridge: R.I. Severs, 1937 (HTML by Eldritch Press) - http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/begr.html
Online text of 1930s text discusses and elaborates upon Basic English, a stripped down language proposed as a universal in the early 20th century.
Research Unit for Variation and Change in English - http://www.eng.helsinki.fi/varieng/
Site for project at the University of Helsinki that conducts diachronic study of regional and social variations in English. Project includes various sub-projects, explained on the site, including Early- English Text and Corpus Studies.
History of English Phonemes - http://alpha.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/
Course supplement site for Furman Professor William Roger’s English Language courses. Provides linguistic terminology and charts for phonology, consonants and vowels and dipthongs. sound changes, and spelling for each period of the English language including the Middle English period.
International Phonetic Alphabet - http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipachart.html
International Phonetic Association - http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipa.html
Website for the major organization of phonetic study in the world includes links to teaching materials, an electronic newspaper, Fonetiks, audiofiles, and several other material.
Research Guide to the History of English - http://www.wcsu.ctstateu.edu/library/gd_hist_english.html
The library at Western Connecticut State University offers bibliography of works that examine various aspects of English language development.
Constructed Languages
Constructed Human Languages - http://www.quetzal.com/conlang.html#alpha
Chris Bogart’s site offers links to several sites that explore and define various idiolects, dialects, and created languages including constructed languages such as Esperanto and Volapuk.
Esperanto at Babel - http://www.homunculus.com/babel/aesperanto.html
Offers introduction and grammar for Dr. Ludovic Zamenhof’s constructed language, proposed in 1880, that mixed Latin, French, Italian, German, Russian, and various other languages.
Don Harlow’s Esperanto Pages - http://donh.best.vwh.net/esperanto.php
Offer various links to Esperanto pages.
Esperanto League of North America - http://www.esperanto-usa.org/
Non profit education association promoting use of Esperanto.
Ido at Babel - http://www.homunculus.com/babel/aido.html
Offers introduction and grammar for Ido, one of several proposed international languages in the early 20th century.
Interlingua at Babel - http://www.homunculus.com/babel/ainterlingua.html
Offers history and grammar of scientifically based language, fostered by Alexander Gode and Clark Stillman, offered as a compromise between competing proposed international languages
Interlingua: A Dictionary of the International Language prepared by the staff at the International Auxiliary
Language Association 2nd edition online - http://www.interlingua.org/
Dictionary offers vocabulary for the study of interlinguistics, which seeks to construct a common international language.
Uniform English Society – http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/4012/
Group aims at uniform spelling and pronunciation of English. Site offers explanation of Uniform English and some associative links.
Volapuk at Babel- http://www.homunculus.com/babel/avolapuk.html
Offers introduction and grammar for the original constructed language, fostered in the late 19th century by Father Johann Martin Schleyer.
Lexicon
The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Online (subscription required) at: http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl
Essential tool for any scholar of the English language.
Listserves
HEL-L - http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/hel-l
Forum for various discussions on the history of the English.
History of the English Language: General Bibliography
General
Bailey, R.W. Images of English: A Cultural History of the Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.
Baugh, Albert C., and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language 5th edition. New York: Prentice Hall, 2001.
Regarded by many as the quintessential textbook on HEL includes helpful workbook.
Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Colorful text full of explanatory entries and both formal and fun examples of the development of English from the earliest speakers to present-day. Includes numerous linguistic tables, diagrams, and maps.
Culpeper, Jonathan. History of English. London: Routledge, 1997.
Fennell, Barbara A. A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
Exhaustive study that incorporates cultural and political history into discussion and scientific examination of the chronological development of English.
Leith, Dick. A Social History of English. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, 1997.
Examines the history of English, first in Britain and then abroad, and attempts to offer some new insights and questions by supplementing linguistic history with sociolinguistic thought.
MacArthur, Tom, ed. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Over one-thousand pages of entries organized alphabetically, but also cross-referenced based on twenty-two themes including language, history, writing, literature, education, and grammar.
Overview and Grammar
Gordon, Ian A. The Movement of English Prose. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1967.
A synchronic look at English stylistics from the Middle Ages to the present.
Pyles, Thomas, and John Algeo. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 4th edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.
Standard textbook that offers a substantial history of English viewed internally, through its grammar, phonology, and vocabulary.
Dialect Study
Brooks, G.L. English Dialects. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Examines standard examples of dialect in Old and Middle English before more interestingly moving to dialects of Present-day English, World English dialects, and dialects of class and other sociolects.
McArthur, Tom. The English Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Examines the “pluralism” of English, especially variant forms of the language discussed in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and questions whether the language, as a whole, can be lookedupon as its own language family.
Watts, Richard, and Peter Trudgill. Alternative Histories of English. London: Routledge, 2001.
Attempts to look at the history of English from perspectives other than what the authors perceive as the normal examination by “History of the English Language” texts, which typically involve discussion of the language only in Britain and the United States seen through phonology, grammar, and lexis, and associated mostly with men and majorities. The authors undertake a study more sociolinguistic in methodology that looks at non-standard varieties of English, those beyond Britain and the U.S., and which has been used by speakers and writers other than white males.
Teaching and Instructional Materials
Introduction to the English Language - http://www.wam.umd.edu/~lkc/engl280.html
Online syllabus for English 280 at the University of Maryland. Available through The Linguist website.
Strevens, Peter. Teaching English as an International Language. Oxford: Pergamon, 1980
Looks at English in three parts. First, chapters offer a discussion on pedagogy in the English classroom, the tendencies of the language learner, effective/ineffective teaching versus circumstances, and “practice” versus “theory” in teaching. Second, chapters look historically at the spread of English in the world, the various forms of English that have developed, local versus Standard English, and the “fiction” of a single English language. Third, chapters look at functional Englishes, technical and scientific English, and the “problems of learning and teaching science through a foreign language.”
Lexicon
Serjeanston, Mary S. A History of Foreign Words in English. London: K.Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd., 1935.
Book examines words used in English not of a Germanic stock (thus the author calls the title the “first thing that is wrong with this book”), but it offers a fairly comprehensive diachronic examination of the English language’s history of lexical borrowing. Chapters are arranged by foreign language or language family (“Scandinavian Element,” French, Italian, Spanish, “Malayo-Polynesian and Australian,” etc.), and provide a substantial lexicon and etymology.
Journals
Forum For Modern Language Studies - http://www.oxfordjournals.org/formod/about.html
Quarterly journal that publishes articles on all aspects of linguistic and literary studies from the Middle Ages to the present day.
Journal of the International Phonetic Association - http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/journal.html
Biannual journal published since 1886 provides forum for discussion of phonetic theory, pedagogy, and language description.
Journal of Semantics - http://jos.oxfordjournals.org/
Quarterly, interdisciplinary journal publishes articles, discussions, and notes on all aspects of the study of semantics.
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