Any Linguistics / English language academics

[sashh]

My dad left school at 15 with no qualifications, he may be dyslexic and doesn't read novels. He ran his own business for years and is more intelligent than he gives himself credit for.

After a conversation discussing a holiday in Holland he said he could understand the Friesian speakers as it's similar to Yorkshire dialect.

So I bought him David Crystal's Encyclopedia of the English language which he loves to dip in and out of, so I got him the encyclopedia of language and then a book written with his son about producing Shakespeare in the original pronunciation.

Now I'm stuck.

Any suggestions as to where to go next? With a book or maybe a DVD.

I think the Crystal books are great because you can just fip in rather than read from start to finish.

Something about dialects maybe? Sociolinguistics?

Nothing too heavy or requiring A levels to understand.

He might enjoy Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue: A Short History of the English Language ?

Eats, Shoots and Leaves perhaps?

I love David Crystal, too. His son, Ben, writes stuff on Shakespeare but may have done other things, too.

Oh... you mentioned Ben!

I like the sound of your dad : it's quite heartwarming!

He might also be interested in this course - I did it and it was great fun:

www.futurelearn.com/courses/frisian

Forgot this course too which he might like: www.futurelearn.com/courses/accents-attitudes-and-identity-an-introduction-to-sociolinguistics

The Bill Bryson one is a great read. Really good fun.

I loved Guy Deutscher, Through the Language Glass

So, not a book, but he might like a few YouTube channels. I’m thinking NativLang and LangFocus?

Alphabet by David Sacks

Fascinating history of where our letters came from, how they evolved and the alphabet developed.

really interesting.

www.amazon.co.uk/Alphabet-David-Sacks/dp/0099436825/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&keywords=alphabet+david+sacks&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1569676937&sr=1-4

WOW thank you all. I'll be checking these out later.

You could maybe check the Melvyn Bragg series with a free Audible trial? It's available in other formats too.

I'm sure he would like Helen Salzman's podcast 'The Allusionist", in which she examines quirks of language and finds the curiosities embedded in our, and sometimes other people's, languages. The open university has free courses on OpenLearn, and he sounds like he's be a good match for any of their entry-level linguistics/English language courses. The website "language log" might make him smile too. There was also an absolutely lovely history of English series made by the BBC with Melvyn Bragg, I don't know how you would get hold of it it now but if you can, it's great. Everything else that comes to mind is more at student level but if his interest persists then I'm happy to pass on some of my old study materials.i think I have some of them as pdf even.

Apart from the above mentioned resources (FL Frisian is great and from there to AFUK):
Try audible / the great courses / John McWhorter :
Language families of the world
Language from a to z
The story of human language

The lectures all come with a pdf textbook and reading lists for further reading.

Thank you for the further suggestions.

shinemercy I may take you up on your kind offer.

I've suggester open learn/OU but I think he regards that as a bit like school.

Pod casts are a good idea, he's not very techy but I loaded some CDs onto a flash drive to play in his car, so maybe a few podcasts ready loaded would be great.

Thank you everyone.

If you shoot me a mail to shinemercy at the usual gmail.com I will root out some entry-level Linguistics pdfs and get them on their way to you :)

Steven Pinker is good as well but not sure which is the last book I read. It was out in the last few years but he's written others.

sure.sunderland.ac.uk/profile/28

He might like some of the stuff on this page.

Mike Pearce was one of my lecturers last year and his stuff is great and really interesting. It's also focused on the North East which your dad might like.

This is a dip in and out of one as well - Words by Victor Stevenson.

www.amazon.co.uk/Words-Illustrated-History-Western-Languages/dp/0356098036?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Gyles Brandreth has written some books on English Language too. I think there's one called 'Have you eaten Grandma'.

Love this thread! And love Crystal!