English in America Linguistic History

From the 'Great Courses' series, Literature & English Language. 36 lectures on 18 CDs (two 30 minute lectures per CD). In three parts, each in its own clamshell case. One course guidebook per part.
Sixteen centuries ago a wave of settlers from northern Europe came to the British Isles speaking a mix of Germanic dialects thick with consonants and complex grammatical forms. Today we call that dialect Old English, the ancestor of the language nearly one in five people in the world speaks every day…

English is the collective work of millions of people throughout the ages. It is democratic, ever-changing and ingenious in its assimilation of other cultures. English runs through the heart of world finance, medicine and the Internet, and it is understood by around two thousand million people across the world…