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Table of Contents

Part I.    Pre-English Britain    55 BC – 500 AD.…. 1

Chapter 1.    When Togas and Latin Came to Britannia.…. 3

Caesar Conquers Gaul and Britannia. 3

Fighting Druids. 5

Constantine. 7

The Gospel in a Shamrock. 8

Rome Gets Vandal-ized. 9

The End of an Empire and the Close of an Age. 10

Chapter 2.    Well, We’re Through with the Romans,  So Who’s Next?.…. 11

How Do You Un-Invite a Jute?. 11

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. 13


Part II.    Old English        500 - 1066…..
15

Chapter 3.    A Little About Language….. 17

Old English. 17

The Grammar Game

The Language Law.. 19

Language—Evidence for Design. 21

Sir William Jones Goes to India. 22

The Brothers Grimm.. 23

An Inflected Language. 24

More Invasions. 26

Chapter 4.    The Invasion of the Church and of Latin….. 27

Augustine of Canterbury. 27

Bert and Bertha. 29

From Saxon Runes to Roman Alphabet. 30

The Gast and the God Spell 31

Our Pagan Days. 31

Latin: An International Language for Scholars. 32

The Language that Became a Prison. 32

Illuminated Manuscripts. 34

The “Our Father”. 35

I Hate to Be Confusing, But... 36

A Monk You Should Know: The Venerable Bede. 37

Beowulf 39

Cædmon’s Hymn: A Closer Look at Anglo-Saxon Poetry. 39

A Summary of Our History So Far:  To Britain. 42

Chapter 5.    The Invasion of the Vikings and Old Norse.…. 45

The Original Meaning of Berserk. 45

King Alfred. 47

King Cnut. 50

Old Norse Meets Old English. 50


Part III.    Middle English        1066 - 1500…..
55

Chapter 6.    The Invasion of the Normans and Old French.…. 57

William the Conqueror. 57

Language du Jour. 59

The Abandoned Chronicle. 60

Chapter 7.    The Making of Middle English….. 63

The Beginning of the Middle. 63

Losing Our Gutturals. 63

WH and CW Bite the Dust. 64

From Hog in the Barnyard to Pork on the Table. 65

The Hundred Years’ War. 66

Geoffrey Chaucer. 68

John Wycliffe and the First English Bible. 69

From Fæder to Fadir. 71

Some Þoughts On Þ. 72

Chapter 8.    And the Word Became...Print! .…. 75

Johannes Gutenberg. 75

The Mystery of English Spelling. 77

Spelling Caxton’s Way. 77

English Spelling and the Great Vowel Shift. 78


Part IV.    A Time of Transition– From Middle to Modern English
                  
1400 – 1600 (or thereabouts)…..
81

Chapter 9.    The Invasion of Greek….. 83

The Middle, the Modern, and the In-Between. 83

Rebirth of Ancient Knowledge. 84

The Byzantine Empire. 85

Re-Capturing Greek. 86

A Well-Documented Faith. 86

All this Plus Print. 88

Greek-Speak. 88

Chapter 10.    “Sola Fide”— A Battle Cry for Faith.…. 91

Martin Luther. 91

Purchasing Salvation—Hmmm. Didn’t Jesus Already
 Do That?. 93

The End of the Middle. 95


Part V.    The Making of the English Bible       1526 - 1611…..
97

Chapter 11.   English Contraband: Fulfilling Wycliffe's Dream….. 99

Outlawing English. 99

Enter Henry VIII. 100

Scriptures for a Ploughboy. 101

Erasmus. 103

Translation Trailblazing. 103

Tyndale’s Word Choices. 104

Tyndale’s Inventions. 105

Translating the Bible—A Political Activity?. 106

Chapter 12.    Of Kings and Wives and Martyrs.…. 109

Obsession for a Son. 109

When a Powerful King Wants an Unobtainable Divorce. 110

Heads Begin to Roll 110

The 1534 Convocation of Canterbury. 111

A Prayer for the King. 111

Chapter 13.    The Bible That Was Named for a King.…. 115

The Geneva Bible. 115

A Succession of Monarchs. 115

James I of England. 116

The Apocrypha. 118

Southern Dialect Wins Again. 118

The English Civil War and the Bible. 119

America and The King James Bible. 120

Euphemisms and Shifting Sensibilities. 120

Whacky but True: Shakespeare in a Psalm.. 121

Those Lingering Pronouns for God. 124

The Legacy. 125

The Man Behind the Team.. 126


Part VI.    Shakespeare and Modern English    
                    From 1500 Onward…..127

Chapter 14.    Shakespeare….. 129

A Class By Himself 129

Shakespeare’s Inventions. 130

The Extent of His Knowledge. 131

His Insight. 132

Chapter 15.    If Only King Alfred Could See Us Now! ….. 135

The Genesis of Grammar Rules. 135

I Ain't Going to Use No Double Negatives. 136

That or Which? . 136

A Few Predictions. 137

The Largest Dictionary in the World. 138

The British Empire. 138

English--American Style. 139

New Words for a New Age. 140

Outlawing E-mail 141

Liberté Pour Les Mots! (Liberty for Words!). 141

Mr. Crapper. 142

How Words Morph and Mutate. 143

The Biggest Language Invasion of All: English Invades

 the World. 144

Resources….. 147

About the Author….. 151

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