''The American Language; An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States'', first published in 1919, is a book written by H. L. Mencken about the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

Origins and concept

Mencken was inspired by "the

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...

of the colored waiters" in Washington, as well as one of his favorite authors,

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

, and his experiences on the streets of

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

. In 1902, Mencken remarked on the "queer words which go into the making of 'United States.'" The book was preceded by several columns in '' The Evening Sun.'' Mencken eventually asked "Why doesn't some painstaking pundit attempt a grammar of the American language... English, that is, as spoken by the great masses of the plain people of this fair land?" In the tradition of

Noah Webster Noah Webster (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843) was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education" ...

, who wrote the first American dictionary, Mencken wanted to defend "Americanisms" against a steady stream of English critics, who usually isolated Americanisms as borderline "perversions" of the "mother tongue". Mencken assaulted the prescriptive grammar of these critics and American "schoolmarms", arguing, like

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...

in the preface to his dictionary, that language evolves independently of textbooks. The book discusses the beginnings of "American" variations from " English", the spread of these variations, American names and

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

over the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken, American English was more colourful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart. The book sold exceptionally well for a reference book — 1500 books, the entire first printing, in less than 2 years. The book was an early title published by Alfred A. Knopf and was revised three times in the author's lifetime. Reviews of the book praised it lavishly, with the exception of one by Mencken's old nemeses, Stuart Sherman. Many of the sources and research material associated with the book are in the Mencken collection at the

Enoch Pratt Free Library The Enoch Pratt Free Library is the free public library system of Baltimore, Maryland. Its Central Library is located on 400 Cathedral Street (southbound) and occupies the northeastern three quarters of a city block bounded by West Franklin S ...

in Baltimore, Maryland.

Editions

The first edition of 1919 was revised in 1921 and 1923; the fourth "corrected, revised, and enlarged" edition was published in 1936. Mencken released two full-sized ''Supplements'' to the main volume, in 1945 and 1948, based on the boom in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

articles. An abridged single-volume compilation of the original volume and supplements was edited by Raven I. McDavid Jr. and published in 1963. * * * * * * *

Audiobooks

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sch ...

version was released in 2021 by Spoken Realms, read by Rebecca H. Lee.

Sources

*Hobson, Fred. ''Mencken.'' Random House, New York, 1994.

References

External links

* (multiple editions) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:American Language, The 1919 non-fiction books Alfred A. Knopf books Books about American English Culture of the United States Books by H. L. Mencken