The entire history of English, the world's most prolific language, certainly would be daunting to narrate, but Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue handles the task deftly, while sporting a charming sense of humour that stops the fairly serious topic of language evolution from being too dry for the average reader.

Whether English is your first language, your second or even your fifth, you really should read this book. It's akin to taking apart the car you drive; you'll find everything you ought to know — the inner workings — all dismantled right in front of you.

Believe it or not, the English language has only recently been considered worthy of true scholarly pursuit. English rose from being the underdog of European languages to the lingua franca between all the world's peoples. Its surprising history — the why's and how's of English's accomplishments and idiosyncrasies — is chronicled concisely within this book, from the now-incomprehensible works of Geoffrey Chaucer to Shakespeare's liberal fabrication of words we now take for granted. The book's incredibly thorough history of the English language is entertaining and offers a lot of surprises. You'll find out how rooted in England (where many kings' first tongue was French) the language is, and how much English adopts from other languages.

The book isn't all academic examination. One of the key components that make English so unique — accent — are given a fun investigation. The staggering diversity of English accents, a characteristic that in some places mean the difference between economic classes, is as well given the eye. If there's one thing consistent about the language, it's that there is no consistent pronunciation. The inevitable cross-examination between English and his (or her? After all, gender pronouns tied to inanimate objects have never really been a thing with this language) close cousins, Gaelic and Welsh, will make you thankful; the convoluted manner of English pronunciation is bad, but not that bad.

When writing a book about a language, the comparisons to others are inevitable. Mother Tongue shows just how perfect (and at the same time, broken) the English language can be for conveying ideas. To speak a language is to convey the nuances of a culture, and the blanket adoption of English is not without some modification to its rules based on location. Transpositions and outright grammatical changes happen; a sort of creole is born out of English vocabulary and the structure of the native tongue. It's a true testament to the malleability of the language.

The Mother Tongue is linguistic study laid out for the everyman. Bryson's style is, as always, accessible without being dumbed down. The Mother Tongue doesn't prove the superiority or inferiority of the English language; if anything, it shows just how self-contradictory a language can be thanks to numerous extenuating circumstances.

Reading Between The Lines explores books that you may have missed out on that are worth your while. If you have a book to suggest, email Eshaan at e_gupta@fanshaweonline.ca.