There have been many histories of the English language but, strangely, none has attempted to tell the true global story of English: for there are in fact many English languages and each has a story. David Crystal here presents the reader with not only the authoritative history of standard English, but also narrates the stories of the dialects of English, showing how they influenced the development of standard English. There are numerous panels describing word histories and looking in detail at specific idiosyncracies of the language along the way. The definitive account.