Frontmatter -- Contents -- A Note on Texts and Letter Forms -- Preface to the Revised Edition -- INTRODUCTION: Finding English, Finding Us -- 1. Caedmon Learns to Sing -- 2. From Beowulf to Wulfstan -- 3. In This Year -- 4. From Kingdom to Realm -- 5. Lord of This Langage -- 6. I Is as Ille a Millere as Are Ye -- 7. The Great Vowel Shift and the Changing Character of English -- 8. Chancery, Caxton, and the Making of English Prose -- 9. I Do, I Will -- 10. A Universal Hubbub Wild -- 11. Visible Speech -- 12. A Harmless Drudge -- 13. Horrid, Hooting Stanzas -- 14. Antses in the Sugar -- 15. Hello, Dude -- 16. Ready for the Funk -- 17. Pioneers Through an Untrodden Forest -- 18. Listening to Private Ryan -- 19. He Speaks in Your Voice -- 20. Faith in English -- Epilogue: The Talk and the Text -- Appendix: English Sounds and Their Representation -- Glossary -- References and Further Reading -- Acknowledgments -- Acknowledgments to the Revised Edition -- Index