Back in early 2017 I asked a group of estimable colleagues (aka my Facebook friends) to give me their opinions on which of the many, many History of the English Language textbooks is the best. The context was that I wanted "Something for the students to read to accompany a big intro lecture course, ideally with exercises that can be used in tutorials". You can click the link for the full version, but here's a summary of the options, with people's comments (in alphabetical order by author surname).
I've also given each book a special George's mates rating, from one þ (terrible) to five þþþþþ (well-loved). It must be kept in mind that this rating, like most quantitative measures of academic quality, is entirely subjective and probably worthless. They're all pros who know what they're doing, but there's lots of groupthink on my wall, and on the whole these people tend more towards Hardcore Linguistics than towards English philology. Anyway, the rating is just my interpretation of what was said, and your needs will be specific to you.
If you have other views you'd be prepared to share, please feel free to comment below! (Some well-known books that weren't mentioned at all include Culpeper 2005 and Millward & Hayes 2011.)
Barber, Charles, Joan Beal, & Philip Shaw. 2012. The English language.
2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
George's mates rating: þþþ
“very readable but not so easy to find specific details in”
Baugh, Albert C., & Thomas Cable. 2013. A history of the English language.
6th edition. London: Routledge.
George's mates rating: þ
“turgid and outdated”
“very out of date”
“totally outdated”
Brinton, Laurel J., & Leslie Arnovick. 2016. The English language: a linguistic history.
3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
George's mates rating: þþþþþ
“not bad, as far as I can judge”
“I like Brinton and Arnovick too, a lot … Only problem is: there is no ebook, and the paperback is 75 quid, so it's a bit pricey.”
“I really like Brinton and Arnovick … Tons of exercises, with the answers at the end, and i like the level of linguistics; challenging but still accessible.”
Fennell, Barbara. 2001. A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach.
Oxford: Wiley.
George's mates rating: þþþþ
“I think it does the best job of including actual linguistic info, not just language and society, but also not trying to teach Old English in its entirety.”
Freeborn, Dennis. 2006. From Old English to Standard English.
London: Macmillan.
George's mates rating: þþþ
“contains lots of extracts from primary sources and has an accompanying workbook that you can pillage for exercises, but it's a mess as a textbook”
“excellent but not as a text”
van Gelderen, Elly. 2014. A history of the English language.
Revised edition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
George's mates rating: þþþþþ
“the best w.r.t. linguistics”
“Albeit quite generative…”
“comes the next closest [after Fennell] to striking this balance [including actual linguistic info, not just language and society, but also not trying to teach Old English in its entirety], I think”
“I like van Gelderen for the current approach, structural / socio angles and my guess is that the exercises would work well”
“Hogg & Denison or van Gelderen, but it depends how intro you need it to be and whether it's aimed at Linguistics/English language students or English literature ones”
Gramley, Stephan. 2011. The history of English: an introduction.
London: Routledge.
George's mates rating: þþþ
“I quite like Stephan Gramley’s one”
“Gramley is good … Both [this and another book] have accompanying websites”
Hogg, Richard, & David Denison (eds.). 2012. A history of the English language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
George's mates rating: þþþ
“there is [also] Hogg/Denison (CUP), but … [it doesn't] have exercises”
“Hogg & Denison or van Gelderen, but it depends how intro you need it to be and whether it's aimed at Linguistics/English language students or English literature ones”
Johnson, Keith. 2015. The history of early English.
London: Routledge.
George's mates rating: þþþ
“Keith Johnson's the history of early English 2015 (… with exercises) [is good]. Both [this and another book] have accompanying websites”
Mugglestone, Lynda (ed.). 2012. The Oxford history of English.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
George's mates rating: þþþ
“a good amount of detail, chapters written by specialists, but no exercises”
“Mugglestone (OUP) … [doesn't] have exercises”
Pyles, Thomas, & John Algeo. 2010. The origins and development of the English language.
6th edition. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage.
George's mates rating: þþþ
“I used Pyles and Algeo, which I didn’t particularly like, although the workbook is quite good”
Strang, Barbara. 1970. A history of English.
London: Routledge.
George's mates rating: þþ
“does go backwards, but the book is not really useable at all”
