Publisher's Synopsis
The English language is considered to be the world language of today. It has an extensive amount of words not found in other languages and its rich vocabulary may sufficiently accommodate all the situations of a social and technical nature. But, even at the maximum height of its evolution (which took a full 1,500 years since the arrival of the Germanic people in England in the 5th century AD) could you be sure of the spellings of the names of people or their pronunciations unless you are told? Isn't it a dilemma that the vowels have no fixed sound or phonetic value, like, father, eye, now, son, sun, where a, e, o and u, all of them sound as a, (long or short), and o is either o or a as in Joan, John, Johnny? It is because the basic alphabetic structure was scientifically wrong from the very beginning; and this is the case with all other languages of the world. The Development of Modern English focuses on the facts of language rather than on any of the various contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of those facts. The presentation is that of fairly traditional grammar and philology, so as not to require students to master a new theoretical approach at the same time they are exploring the intricacies of language history. 1660 to 1700 is called the Restoration period because the Parliament, on the public urge, restored the monarchy under Charles II. The period between 1700 and 1750 is called the 'Augustan Age of English literature' because the English writers of this period tried to capture the soul of the Latin literature of the period of King Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), which was considered the peak of the development of Latin literature when Virgil, Horace and Ovid produced their masterpieces. In fact, since the 13th century, every century had its reformers of the English language. The vocabulary of English language is a mixture of Germanic (Old English and Scandinavian), Greek, Latin and French where almost half of it is Germanic and Greek and half is Latin and French with some of the words from almost all of the notable languages of the world as it had taken free admission from everywhere. The grammarians of the 18th century like Robert Lowth and James Buchanan etc. took a critical view and spent a lot of time in correcting the shortcomings and the improprieties of the English language that were commonly in use. The English language is considered to be the world language of today. It has an extensive amount of words not found in other languages and its rich vocabulary may sufficiently accommodate all the situations of a social and technical nature. But, even at the maximum height of its evolution (which took a full 1,500 years since the arrival of the Germanic people in England in the 5th century AD) could you be sure of the spellings of the names of people or their pronunciations unless you are told? Isn't it a dilemma that the vowels have no fixed sound or phonetic value, like, father, eye, now, son, sun, where a, e, o and u, all of them sound as a, (long or short), and o is either o or a as in Joan, John, Johnny? It is because the basic alphabetic structure was scientifically wrong from the very beginning; and this is the case with all other languages of the world. The Development of Modern English focuses on the facts of language rather than on any of the various contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of those facts. The presentation is that of fairly traditional grammar and philology, so as not to require students to master a new theoretical approach at the same time they are exploring the intricacies of language history. 1660 to 1700 is called the Restoration period because the Parliament, on the public urge, restored the monarchy under Charles II. The period between 1700 and 1750 is called the 'Augustan Age of English literature' because the English writers of this period tried to capture the soul of the Latin literature of the period of King Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), which was considered the peak of the development of Latin literature when Virgil, Horace and Ovid produced their masterpieces. In fact, since the 13th century, every century had its reformers of the English language. The vocabulary of English language is a mixture of Germanic (Old English and Scandinavian), Greek, Latin and French where almost half of it is Germanic and Greek and half is Latin and French with some of the words from almost all of the notable languages of the world as it had taken free admission from everywhere. The grammarians of the 18th century like Robert Lowth and James Buchanan etc. took a critical view and spent a lot of time in correcting the shortcomings and the improprieties of the English language that were commonly in use. The English language is considered to be the world language of today. It has an extensive amount of words not found in other languages and its rich vocabulary may sufficiently accommodate all the situations of a social and technical nature. But, even at the maximum height of its evolution (which took a full 1,500 years since the arrival of the Germanic people in England in the 5th century AD) could you be sure of the spellings of the names of people or their pronunciations unless you are told? Isn't it a dilemma that the vowels have no fixed sound or phonetic value, like, father, eye, now, son, sun, where a, e, o and u, all of them sound as a, (long or short), and o is either o or a as in Joan, John, Johnny? It is because the basic alphabetic structure was scientifically wrong from the very beginning; and this is the case with all other languages of the world. The Development of Modern English focuses on the facts of language rather than on any of the various contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of those facts. The presentation is that of fairly traditional grammar and philology, so as not to require students to master a new theoretical approach at the same time they are exploring the intricacies of language history. 1660 to 1700 is called the Restoration period because the Parliament, on the public urge, restored the monarchy under Charles II. The period between 1700 and 1750 is called the 'Augustan Age of English literature' because the English writers of this period tried to capture the soul of the Latin literature of the period of King Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), which was considered the peak of the development of Latin literature when Virgil, Horace and Ovid produced their masterpieces. In fact, since the 13th century, every century had its reformers of the English language. The vocabulary of English language is a mixture of Germanic (Old English and Scandinavian), Greek, Latin and French where almost half of it is Germanic and Greek and half is Latin and French with some of the words from almost all of the notable languages of the world as it had taken free admission from everywhere. The grammarians of the 18th century like Robert Lowth and James Buchanan etc. took a critical view and spent a lot of time in correcting the shortcomings and the improprieties of the English language that were commonly in use. The English language is considered to be the world language of today. It has an extensive amount of words not found in other languages and its rich vocabulary may sufficiently accommodate all the situations of a social and technical nature. But, even at the maximum height of its evolution (which took a full 1,500 years since the arrival of the Germanic people in England in the 5th century AD) could you be sure of the spellings of the names of people or their pronunciations unless you are told? Isn't it a dilemma that the vowels have no fixed sound or phonetic value, like, father, eye, now, son, sun, where a, e, o and u, all of them sound as a, (long or short), and o is either o or a as in Joan, John, Johnny? It is because the basic alphabetic structure was scientifically wrong from the very beginning; and this is the case with all other languages of the world. The Development of Modern English focuses on the facts of language rather than on any of the various contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of those facts. The presentation is that of fairly traditional grammar and philology, so as not to require students to master a new theoretical approach at the same time they are exploring the intricacies of language history. 1660 to 1700 is called the Restoration period because the Parliament, on the public urge, restored the monarchy under Charles II. The period between 1700 and 1750 is called the 'Augustan Age of English literature' because the English writers of this period tried to capture the soul of the Latin literature of the period of King Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), which was considered the peak of the development of Latin literature when Virgil, Horace and Ovid produced their masterpieces. In fact, since the 13th century, every century had its reformers of the English language. The vocabulary of English language is a mixture of Germanic (Old English and Scandinavian), Greek, Latin and French where almost half of it is Germanic and Greek and half is Latin and French with some of the words from almost all of the notable languages of the world as it had taken free admission from everywhere. The grammarians of the 18th century like Robert Lowth and James Buchanan etc. took a critical view and spent a lot of time in correcting the shortcomings and the improprieties of the English language that were commonly in use.