This text is a thorough and comprehensive history of the English language. Comprised of sixteen chapters, Hitchings compartmentalizes the development of the English language in important historical periods of England (and later the U.S.), and in languages that have made important contributions to English. Each chapter is also headed by an English word with its etymology. The first chapter is an introduction, explaining that this is essentially a book about the way in which English has borrowed vocabulary throughout its history; its external influences; and important people who have played a part in creating or improving English. The last chapter reflects upon the present status of English worldwide and its future prospects. The chapters are also structured to show readers how English was shaped by external factors and how English became a global process.

Chapters 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, and 13 covers the internal processes of language development. Beginning with Celts, the Romans, the Germanic tribes (Angles, Jutes, Frisians, and Saxons), the Vikings, and finally, the Normans, Hitchings begins a detailed account of the origins of the English language. The fourth chapter shows how English becomes moder: it gains preeminence among intellectuals; Chaucer aids it by using it in his famous Canterbury Tales; and then, the printing press comes along, helping to standardize English for the first time and spread literacy among the English. In chapter 6, readers witness the rise of English as part of England's national consciousness. As Hitchings covers the 16th and early 17th century, English and literacy go hand in hand. A habit of borrowing, largely from Latin, is seen as healthy, while some purists denounce it in what is historically called the "Inkhorn Controversy," an ongoing debate between purists and language innovators. Readers get to see further expansions in the English vocabulary during the 17th century, contributed by philosophy, religious conflicts, scientific innovations, the development of universities, and political turmoil. Chapter 10 covers the 18th century, the stability of the English or British empire; the first attempts to standardize the language through grammar books; and written language completely replaces the oral language. Chapter 13 covers the tumultuous 19th century: the influences of the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Romantic and the Victorian age, the Decadent period in the arts, and the population shift from rural/agrarianism to urban/industrialization. In chapter 15, the influences of modern technology and world wars have the greatest impact on the English language.

The other chapters focus on the expansion of English abroad or from abroad: the great influences of Arabic through English trade with European and Asian countries (chapter 3), the beginnings of the English empire in America (chapter 5), colonization of the New World between the 1580s to the 1640s (chapter 7), close encounters with Japan (chapter 8), the expansion of the British empire in India and China (chapter 11), the birth of American English (chapter 12), and the influences from Africa (chapter 14).

Inevitably, Hitchings shares his own reflections about English and its future. He states that contrary to other languages, English is no longer a language of a particular nationality or country, but it is global. He predicts that its destiny lies in countries such as China and India, not in England or the U.S. Furthermore, he predicts conflicts between different types of English.

His narratives are detailed and well-documented. Although a young scholar, he demonstrates his expertise in language that goes beyond telling funny anecdotes about language. His work is serious scholarship, constantly citing the OED (the Oxford English Dictionary), documenting the first appearance of borrowed words, and offering competing theories of a word's etymology when necessary. I have seen for the first time in this text words such as the verb Englishing (p. 93), the adverb jazzily (p. 166), and logorrheic (p. 185). I understood be Englishing (which Hitchings capitalize) the act of translating from Latin to English or making Latin words as part of English. For the aforementioned reasons, I highly recommend this text to anyone interested in the history of the English language.

Although it is fairly obvious that the "strong language" position that states we can only think because we have grammer and vocabulary is wrong, it is however true that the grammar and vocabulary of our native language does influence the way in which we think. And this simple fact means that the way in which our language works is not only interesting of itself but also revealing of our unregarded cultural psychology.

Some quick facts: the average Briton, German, or Norwegian uses about 3,700 words daily. The average American uses about 500 words. Yet Americans are no less intelligent or capable than their European counterparts, so what is going on? The answer lies in the history of British English versus American English. The former has evolved over 1,500 years and has enjoyed a relatively stable population in which each speaker comes from approximately the same linguistic background. The former, on the other hand, has evolved largely over the last 200 years and has never enjoyed a linguistically stable population. To borrow a simile from the world of computing, American English is the RISC version of the language: a Reduced Instruction Set Chip that allows for very rapid assimilation and communication - perfect for a nation that is perpetually being renewed by waves of immigration from all across the globe. In a country where someone from Ukraine needs to communicate with a native of Chile and a refugee from Darfur must talk with a shopkeeper born in Canton, a standard lexicon of 500 words and a much-simplified grammar (no adverbs, no perfect tenses, no subjunctives) is just what is required. The cost, however, is a lack of expressive range in American English which results in the speakers sounding simplistic and cliched. But once the population settles down, American English will begin to add unique richnesses of its own, most probably heavily influenced by the Hispanic dialect of Spanish that is common to much of the USA.

What has all this to do with The Secret Life of Words? Simply that Hitchings sets off on a voyage of exploration, and his terra incognita is the English Language. We think we know it, but how many of us are really aware of the meaning of the words we use? Words, when you really know them, are like fish: alive in the mouth, wriggling, subtly shifting shape while remaining essentially whole, but often ready to slip away if left unguarded.

Back in 1954 J. A Sheard published through Andre Deutsch a marvellous little book entitled "The Words We Use." In it he explores the history of the English language and shows clearly how it evolved from the Indo-European language group and kept being re-fertilized by branches of that same family over a 3,000 year period. He was also alive to the effects of trade and conquest, showing how English has picked up words as diverse as amok (Malay) and pyjama (Hindi) from around the globe - a result of British ships plying the trade routes for over 400 years.

Hitchings takes the same basic theme - a history of the English language, centering on vocabulary - and like Sheard explores where words came from and what they reveal about our language and culture. He is not as strong as Sheard on formal analysis (for example, he doesn't really demonstrate how Old English, as a result of the Norse invasions and settlements around the north-east of England led to the shift from English being a largely synthetic language to becoming a largely analytic language (e.g. one in which meaning is determined by word order rather than by suffixes as is the case with Russian, Latin, Greek, etc.). Nor does he really bring alive the great movement of tribes that spread out from the Kafkas, some going west to become the descendants of today's Slavs, Scandinavians, and Latins, while others went east to give rise to today's speakers of Hindi. A few judicious diagrams would really help bring the text alive, but sadly Hitchings doesn't provide them.

Likewise, whereas Sheard enables us to see how language works to reinforce social circumstances (for example, after the Norman invasion of England in 1066, the Anglo-Saxon peasants sat on Old English stools while the Norman aristocracy reclined on chairs, and the peasants tended the cows while their masters ate the beef) Hitchings just presents lists of new words. Likewise, whereas Sheard shows how some words re-enter the language multiple times throughout history (by example, the Latin word "capital" yields in English not only capital but also chattel and cattle), Hitchings seldom illustrates the odd yet revealing quirks of language in this way. There is, in short, a lack of compelling narrative in The Secret Life of Words and too much reliance on overwhelming quantities of examples.

Yet despite the shortcomings the theme is sufficient to entice anyone who possesses some curiosity about the wonderfully rich and perverse English language. As he gets into his stride, Hitchings takes us across centuries of experience, showing how the movement of people results in the alteration of language. The chapter titles, which are basically surrogates for organizational sub-themes, may strike some as contrived or even rather shaky ground upon which to build, but by and large the excursions work well enough to carry us along. There's just enough novelty of example to keep the general reader satisfied (after all, who can resist poaching a few fruity examples to use at dinner parties?) and lend us the sense that we are learning as we go. Many of the speculations in his later chapters seem somewhat unconvincing, and he completely fails to analyze the structural issues arising from the diversity of English speakers. He comments that more people speak English now as a second language than speak it as their primary tongue, and he also notes that India has more English speakers than the USA and the UK combined. But he notes only the loan-words and dialect; he doesn't dig deeper to the fundamental structural changes that are turning British English into a minority dialect. The breadth of his learning is everywhere apparent and it is always nice to benefit from someone else's diligent research. Additionally Hitchings' style is light and lucid, never convoluted or overly-formal. But in the end I found myself craving more substance and less surface sheen.

In short, this is a well-informed book that will certainly add greatly to almost everyone's comprehension of the English language and hopefully stimulate greater appreciation of its quirky charms. Yet in the end I will return to Sheard, despite his greater formality of language and more limited scope, because somehow Sheard brings English alive in a way that Hitchings doesn't quite manage. Sheard is more demanding yet in the end far more satisfying, perhaps not least because he ignores his own proclaimed limit (in the Introduction he claims he will focus only on vocabulary) and in fact pushes on into the evolving structure of the language whenever necessary.

Sadly Sheard has been out of print for over forty years and his book is available only through the agency of a well-connected antiquarian book seller, whereas Hitchings is available now. And that alone is enough to recommend his book to everyone who would like to understand why English is what it is, and how it informs the way we think and communicate in this world.

For someone like me, who loves to read, both in English and in French, a French bilingual English teacher in love with the English language, as well as with the history of the world, this is the perfect book. So many questions answered, such knowledge in the writer, I cannot applaud too loud. Thank you, Henry Hitchings !

There are many ways to write human history. Most writers of history books tend to go the traditional way - following kings and queens, wars, revolutions and invasions. The history of the world is almost always written in military or political terms, and while that's certainly a valid way to do it, it's a little overdone. A truly creative historian might try to look at the progress of humankind through a different lens - the history of art, perhaps, or literature or science.

Hitchings has decided to look at history through the rise and spread of the English language - once an agglomeration of angry noises from a few small tribes in what would eventually become Europe, now a tongue that dominates the world. The English language is used by billions, studied by millions more. It's the language of business, commerce, politics, law, entertainment and news, and has spread like no other language before it.

The big question then becomes, How did this happen? How did English become what it has become? What is the history that led it to span the globe, and what qualities does it have that other languages don't? In this book, Hitchings looks at the history of English - and by extension the Western world - through the growth of its vocabulary. Where did our words come from, and what does their journey into English tell us about our own history?

A modern English speaker, equipped with a time machine, could probably go back about four or five hundred years and still be confident that she would be able to converse with people. Maybe not with perfect clarity, and it would be an entertaining thing to watch, but it would certainly be possible. Before that, the conventions and lexis that we are all so familiar with will start to be more and more scarce, and by the time of Chaucer, our time traveler would have a hard time indeed. So, as far as languages go, modern English is a fairly young tongue. Over the last half-millennium or so, the sheer number of words available to English speakers has exploded, mainly due to what some would call the language's "whorish" qualities - English will take up with any other language that comes along, accepting its words and making them its own. By following the spread of English, and the changes that it has made, we can see how people and cultures intermingled in the last thousand years or so.

Hitchings begins at, more or less, the beginning, with the Anglo-Saxon roots of English and its almost immediate conflicts with Norman French and the languages of the invading and pillaging Norsemen. He follows the political swings of English, as the rulers of the British Isles alternatingly embrace and shun the language, until it finally becomes the tongue that defines that tiny island on the edge of the North Atlantic. He looks into Arabic and Latin, Japanese and the languages of the Native Americans. We see the wellsprings of the language of food and music, science, military and law. He introduces us to words that came into English through long and winding roads (one of my favorites is Alcatraz - from the Spanish word for "pelican," which in turn comes from Arabic's al-qadus for "machine for drawing water," which is turn comes from Greek's kados, meaning "jar" - quite a journey for such a miserable place.) The history of the English language is a fractal history, meaning that in order to understand it you also have to understand the histories of a dozen other languages and then the languages that came before them. To try and put it all down on paper is a monumental task indeed.

The study of English words is fascinating, though. I have recently become enamored of the "Way With Words" podcast, which dedicates itself to unraveling questions about English usage. The hosts are funny and engaging, and manage to give a brief history of words and phrases and all the little tics of English that make you annoyed enough to have to call a radio show about it. It's a pleasure to listen to, which is probably why I listened to that show a whole lot more than I read this book.

Mr. Hitchings has done an admirable job with this book, trying to cover all the different avenues by which words came into English. The paths that they followed are fascinating, and the stories behind them are the stories of Western culture and civilization. The trouble is that Hitchings doesn't do all that good a job in making it interesting to the lay reader, i.e. me.

By and large, each chapter deals with a different source of vocabulary or a different time in history, but the narrative that he sets up tends to... wander about. There's no real narrative to focus on, and while I know this isn't supposed to be one, Hitchings is trying to tell us a story. It's a long and complicated one, but it's still a story, and as such needs to flow in order to keep the reader's attention.

I can't fault him for his research or his dedication, but I think he could have given more thought to the organization of the book. Instead of trying to cover as many sources as possible, perhaps he could have narrowed his focus. Instead of throwing out a dozen or so words at a time, he could have given us an in-depth narrative on just a few. Each chapter could probably have been expanded into its own book on the Arabic/Spanish/Latin/German/Greek/African origins of words, and so in reading it you get the feeling that there's so much more that he's glossing over. By trying to follow all the twisted paths of the history of English, it's very easy for the reader to get lost.

All I kept thinking as I read this was that I had much more fun reading Bill Bryson's book, Mother Tongue, which covers the same topic but is much more enjoyable to read, and perhaps that was my mistake. By the time I got to the end, and was more or less just scanning pages so that I could legitimately say I'd finished it, I realized that this is not the kind of book that you settle down with and read all the way through. It's a piecemeal book - pick it up, read a chapter, put it down and leave it alone for a while. When you're in the mood for more language history, pick it up again and read another chapter. Give yourself time to mull it over and digest, and finish it when you finish it.

However you decide to get through it, you will certainly have a greater appreciation for the richness and diversity of the English language, so regardless of how interesting it was narrative-wise, Hitchings has achieved his goal. English is an amazing language, and it behooves all its speakers to learn a little bit more about the amazing confluence of cultures that produced the sounds that you speak every day.

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"A new word is a solution to a problem. It answers a need - intellectual, experiential. Often the need is obvious, but sometimes it is unseen or barely felt, and then it is only in finding something to plug the gap that we actually realize the gap was there in the first place."

- Henry Hitchings, The Secret Life of Words

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How anyone could take a book about the history of the English language and make it as boring as this is beyond me. This is worse than any textbook I ever read in college. So many wonderful stories to be told about the language and this guy just makes it a real sleep inducer.

This book is fantastic. Whenever people would see me reading it they would say things like, "Oh, you must be very smart" or "My the book you're reading looks interesting". I only made it through the first ten pages, but the public reaction to me reading this book has been very satisfactory. I will carry this book into many a Starbucks and make sure people see me reading it.

This is a fascinating description of the evolution of English as a language. It is tied to the events, conquests, migrations, trading and other significant historical influences in a very interesting account of English as it is spoken today. Greatly enjoyed.

Great book

英語はおよそ350もの国から借用語を取り入れているという｡ 本書は英語の借用語16を取り上げ､その語のみならずその国の文化を紹介している。日本からの借用語としてbonsai(盆栽)がとりあげられている。日本文化の紹介では, Marco Polo, the Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary(『日葡辞典』), William Adams, Richard Cocks, Engelbert Kaempfer (ケンペル)『日本誌』(History of Japan)の著者）などが紹介される。さながら日本英学小史である。

このbonsaiの項では、(ポルトガルなどを経由して)英語に入った日本語が多数紹介される（たとえば、bonze, Mikado, soy など）。借入翻訳（calque)の例も紹介されている｡ たとえば、pillow book(←pillow(枕の）草子（book）。

（calque は『ランダムハウス英和大辞典』によると「原語句の統語構造を維持しながら､それを構成する形態素をすでに自国語に存在する形態素を利用して翻訳すること」）。

著者のHitchings は博覧強記である。どの頁を見ても有益な情報が詰まっている。一読をお薦めする

Everything Hitchings writes about is worth reading. This is no exception. A very enjoyable read.

El libro está en muy buen estado, parece prácticamente nuevo. El contenido es muy ameno e infinitamente interesante. Se presenta a modo de narración, no es un diccionario etimológico.

Has a comprehensive bibliography for future research, and two sets of indicies so can be used as a text book. However you can also read it as a story book. I was surprised just how fascinating the history and development of the concepts behind each of the words described turned out to be.

Nice tome for those interested in English Philology. Delivery was protracted due to Xmas rush and weather, but got to me before Christmas.