A History of German (Oxford Linguistics) - Softcover

Joseph Salmons has produced a brilliant and challenging book that is already spurring fruitful discussion and collaboration. This project will give students a real sense of our dynamic field, with its lively debates and intriguing open questions. For many students, Salmonss book and website will be their first taste of Germanic historical linguistics and perhaps their first exposure to linguistics of any kind. It will not be long before many young colleagues start telling us that what first turned them on to the serious study of language was A History of German. (David Fertig. Language)

an insightful, informative, and inspiring work of scholarship ... A History of German is a major contribution to the fields of historical Germanic linguistics and historical linguistics in general, and it will certainly be useful to readers for many years to come. (John D. Sundquist, Journal of Germanic Linguistics)

The book had its origin in material prepared for university courses, and the authors enthusiasm for the subject, his estimable command of current research, and his desire to communicate it to students are evident throughout. (Martin Durrell, The Modern Language Review)

I strongly recommend this book to everybody interested in learning and/or teaching the history of German. (Barbara Schlücker, Morphology)

a most welcome addition to the existing literature on the history of the German language ... a joy to read ... an excellent volume. (Tonya Kim Dewey, Beitraege zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur)

This book provides a detailed introduction to the development of the German language from the earliest reconstructible prehistory to the present day. A key to understanding how any human language works is understanding how that language developed over time. German speakers, as well as language learners and teachers are often puzzled by many questions about the German language: How did German come to have so many different dialects and close linguistic cousins like Dutch and Plattdeutsch? Why does German have 'umlaut' vowels and why do they play so many different roles in the grammar (noun plurals and subjunctive verbs, among many more)? Why are noun plurals so complicated (-e, -en, -er, umlaut, -s or nothing at all)? Are there reasons for the different gender markings in the language (die Woche versus das Auge)? Are dialects dying out today? Does English, with all the words it loans to German, pose a threat to the language? Full, satisfying answers to many of these questions are emerging in current research and this book presents, in an accessible manner, a concise linguistic introduction to the history of German as specialists understand it today. The book is supported by a companion website and is suitable for language learners and teachers and students of linguistics, from undergraduate level upwards.