The Saturday Morning Review–King Alfred’s English

Did you know?

• The Brothers Grimm compiled German fairy tales, but they were also famous philologists (and what IS a philologist?)
• There’s a law for the way languages change that backs up Intelligent Design.
• For over 300 years the official language of the English court was…French! Seriously. But the English were always fighting the French. That’s true. Find out why.
• There’s a reason we write “knight” but say “nite,” and you won’t believe how they used to pronounce it.
• It was once punishable by death to translate even portions of the Bible into English! Yikes!

 

 

These fascinating facts, and much more are contained in Laurie White’s book King Alfred’s English.

 

I had the privilege of reading Laurie’s book for review purposes, and I found it absolutely fascinating! The book is written in a conversational style, but that doesn’t mean it’s short on content or depth. There is so much language and world history packed into this short book! If you click on this page for King Alfred’s English, you can see the Table of Contents (scroll a short way down the page for the link.)

Laurie has also included links on her website, The Shorter Word, for supplemental materials to the book. These include:

• Chapter worksheets
• Unit tests
• Links to online literature and primary sources
• Links to articles, images, and videos that expand the topics in each chapter
• Suggested movies

The book’s description states that it is “designed for students grades 7-12 and curious adults.” Truthfully, I wasn’t sure my kids would be interested in this, so I actually requested a review copy for my own reading. After going through it, however, I am going to have my high schooler read it later this school year. And, I’m going to suggest that my word-loving mom read it too, for her own enjoyment! (She was a history major in college.)

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in language history, linguistics, and the history of the English Bible. I also think it should be recommended reading for all high school students as part of their English studies.

You can find King Alfred’s English for a price of $14.89 at CBD (not an affiliate link). You can also locate it at Amazon (which has a Kindle version as well) and Rainbow Resource.

 

To find out what others thought about the book, use the link below.

 

(The legal stuff:  I was given a free copy of King Alfred’s English to review. All opinions are my own.)