Birding English: Exploring the History of a Language Through 50 Birds (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781685970697)

What do words like unkindness, haggard, asparagus, jizz, and the singular they have to do with birds? Quite a lot, actually. From Old English roots and Shakespearean idioms to Victorian slang and modern online lingo, Birding English charts a dynamic course through English's past, present, and future by admiring the plumage of falcons, the songs of sparrows, and the flight of ducks. With each of his fifty mini essays, Jeremy Withers uses birds as a point of entry into a key moment in the development of English: its origins in the Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic languages, the influence of writers like Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, the creation of English's first dictionaries and grammar books, and the arrival of rhyming slang and portmanteaus. Ideal for word nerds and bird nerds alike, this book will enchant anyone who's ever been captivated by the song of a bird or the song of a word.

Author: Jeremy Withers
ISBN-10: 1685970699
ISBN-13: 9781685970697
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Language: English
Published: 06/02/2026
Pages: 266
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs