"In this book Melvyn Bragg shows us the remarkable story of the English Language; from its beginnings as a minor guttural Germanic dialect to its position today as a truly established global language. Along the way its colorful story takes in a host of characters and locations, from the early tribes, Alfred the Great's stubborn resistance to the Danes, and through its early literary masterpieces such as Beowulf and the bawdy Geoffrey Chaucer; Henry VIII's battles with the church over bootleg bibles; a 'coarse' playwright named William Shakespeare; the songs of the Creole slaves and the worlds of Davy Crockett; street slang and Dr. Johnson's dictionary; the role of English in India and its adoption in the United States of America which returned the language with full interest."--BOOK JACKET.