A History of English Sounds and Spelling

3 credits · Undergraduate

This course surveys some aspects of the history of English as a language, from Proto-Indo-European to the present day, through exploring how English has been and is pronounced and written. We will investigate methods for studying English phonology and orthography, ways in which the human history of English speakers has shaped the language, dialect variety and standardization, and past and present controversies surrounding spoken and written forms of English around the world.