Richard W. Bailey
History
As an English Lit major, I had to take a linguistics class in college. I was prepared not to enjoy it because I had no interest at all in linguistics, but to my surprise, I ended up loving that class. The study of dialect in America, how many different ways people speak the English language is really, really interesting. So when I saw this book, I immediately grabbed it.
Speaking American is about the history of English in America. Mr. Bailey begins his analysis in Chesapeake Bay before 1650 and ends in Los Angeles, 1950-2000. Over the course of these chapters he takes us all over the US—New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Chicago, just to name a few. He studies and describes the influence of different languages, such as French and Spanish, on English, and explains how they came to be part of our vocabulary today. As with a lot of historical non-fiction books, there’s not much dialogue and certain parts definitely drifted into academia territory (meaning I felt my eyes glaze over once or twice), but I still found the book compelling, especially the parts where he compares how one group of people say one word versus how the other group says it.
Anyone who enjoys linguistics will like this book, as will anyone looking for more insight on how American English came to be.
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