This volume offers a selection of 19 papers from those read at the 8th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics in Edinburgh. Many of the writers are established authorities in the field, but there are also significant contributions from a younger generation of scholars. The topics discussed span the whole history of English from the Common Germanic period to the present century and the book also includes, as appropriate to the Conference venue, a number of papers on aspects of the historical development of Scots and Scottish English.

Old English is a companion to Old English studies and to historical studies of early English in general. It is also an introduction to Indo-European studies in the particular sense in which they underpin the history of English. Professor Roger Lass makes accessible in a linguistically up-to-date and readable form the Indo-European and Germanic background to Old English, as well as what can be reconstructed about the resulting state of Old English itself. His book is a bridge between the more elementary Old English grammars and the major philological grammars and recent interpretations of the Old English data.Old English assumes a basic knowledge of phonetics and phonology, the elements of syntactic and morphological theory, and an introduction to historical linguistics. An extensive glossary gives definitions of the major technical terms used.

This textbook analyses changes from every area of grammar and addresses recent developments in socio-historical linguistics.

Volume two of this set covers the Middle English Period, approximately 1066-1476, and describes and analyses developments in the language from the Norman Conquest to the introduction of printing.

The use of linguistic forms derived from the lexicon denoting sacred entities is often subject to tabooing behaviour. In the 15th and 16th century phrases like by gogges swete body or by cockes bones allowed speakers to address God without really saying the name; cf. Hock (1991: 295). The religious interjections based on the phonetically corrupt gog and cock are evidenced to have gained currency in the 16th century. In the 17th century all interjections based on religious appellations ceased to appear on stage in accordance with the regulations of the Act to Rest.

English historical linguistics is a subfield of linguistics which has developed theories and methods for exploring the history of the English language. This Handbook provides an account of state-of-the-art research on this history. It offers an in-depth survey of materials, methods, and language-theoretical models used to study the long diachrony of English. The frameworks covered include corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, historical pragmatics and manuscript studies, among others. The chapters, by leading experts, examine the interplay of language theory and empirical data throughout, critically assessing the work in the field. Of particular importance are the diverse data sources which have become increasingly available in electronic form, allowing the discipline to develop in new directions. The Handbook offers access to the rich and many-faceted spectrum of work in English historical linguistics, past and present, and will be useful for researchers and students interested in hands-on research on the history of English.

Roger Lass offers a critical survey of the foundations of the art of historical linguistics.