Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue is a name lovingly attributed by author John McWhorter to the nigh-universal, surprisingly graspable brew of a language that is English. Has anyone ever told you that English was easier to learn than other European languages? (McWhorter argues that, technically, they were right.) Have you ever heard that English is quite the cosmopolitan language, with all those “foreigner” words implanted into its vocabulary? (Although whoever said that may be correct about the many connections of English to other languages, they are lacking in the historical reasoning for its roots—and, likely, the sheer magnitude of borrowed, bastardized words and grammatical systems utilized in Modern English). And have you ever read or listened to a stuffy, high-and-mighty, and near-incomprehensible explanation of English linguistics and the “purity” of the language? (If that frustrated you, then this book is for you.)
The breaking with convention displayed in this account of the English’s history and why English is what it is today is presented here to a multitude of readers; for linguists, it will likely be an enlightening reconfiguration of the reason for the state of Modern English. For casual readers, it could be an exciting entrance into a largely unknown world of fluid language, where change is made not by professors but by common-folk adapting to a second language as they move from country to country, only sometimes raping and pillaging along the way (as bands of Europeans both pre-and post-Roman Empire were known to do).
Although you may never have wondered why Anglophones seem to be the only people in the world to use “do” before actions (e.g., “Do you like potatoes?” “No, I definitely do not dig potatoes” instead of “Like you potatoes?”), you will nonetheless find answers while reading this book. Essentially, McWhorter reveals and then richly explains these intricacies about English that make it one of the most unique languages in the world and, paradoxically, one of the most influenced ones as well. (The only other language to use “do” in such a way is Celtic, and their immediate proximity to those old Anglo-Saxons and their resulting influence on English grammar is one aspect of our language that McWhorter uses to highlight English’s lovely bastardization.) Oh, and for all readers bored to tears by history, have no fear, McWhorter has a section designed strictly for you, one that criticizes he grammatical “elite” and those who would lead you to believe that history has left us with a proper, unmoving English to be unwaveringly obeyed by the masses. McWhorter proves--citing the changes English underwent as illiterate Vikings had to learn Britain’s Saxon-Celt-Cornish tongue to buy things, sell things, and procreate with suitably attractive locals--that English HAS no set, unchangeable rules! Prepositions at the end of sentences? Go ahead! Language adapts, and it’s the power of the young, the succeeding generations, that steers the development of how we ought to “properly” speak.
The rules we break in common speech that English teachers cringe at upon hearing are myriad, and McWhorter addresses and uses them all. In fact, he surrenders himself so openly to this type of commoner speech that, at times, his train of thought requires patience and an acceptance of organic language to tolerate and understand; he once made obvious the jarring but common linguistic change of “p” to “f” by writing “fopcorn” and then asking the reader to soak it in, to understand what it was to be a speaker of Proto-Germanic hearing his/her language being butchered (173). Although he quickly went onto a new idea, he brings up the fopcorn example again on page 193. The mind has moved on by then, but like a speaker of casual, almost conversational English, he delivers with the hope and expectation that you’re along for the ride, NOT with the mathematical, repetitive, and stuffy style frequently encountered in linguistic journals.
If you’re not interested in language at all, do not read this book. But if you have to learn about linguistics or have been forced through miles of conventionally oppressive papers on the subject, this is a refreshing and divergent view to be appreciated by commoners and scholars alike. Language as thought, the mobility of language, improper vs. proper English, and many other subjects are covered in this work; and some are both respectful and blatant rejections of what is commonly accepted within the linguistic community. If you have some time to sit down and read an enriching work and are in any way interested in just how strongly you relate to the foreign world around you while still being a speaker of one of the most unique—and easy-to-learn—languages on the planet, then “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue” is the untold history for you.
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