A rich, provocative and entertaining history of women's words - of the language we have, and haven't, had to share our lives.
'Vivid, philosophical, absorbing and urgent, this superb book teems with historical marvels and their 21st century resonances.' Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred
'Revelatory ... There is a nugget of joy and wisdom on every single page' Victoria Whitworth, historian and author of Daughter of the Wolf
So many of the words we use to articulate the experiences women share feel awkward or alien. Medical terms are accurate but antiseptic. Slang often perpetuates stereotypes. Where are the plain, honest words for women's daily lives?
From the dawn of Old English to the present day, Dr. Jenni Nuttall guides readers through the evolution of the words we have used to describe bodies, menstruation, sexuality, the consequences of male violence, childbirth, paid and unpaid work, and gender.
Along the way, she argues that, paradoxically, as women have made slow progress towards equality, we've lost some of the most expressive and eloquent bits of our vocabulary.
Inspired by Nuttall's deep knowledge of the English language as well as conversations with her teenage daughter, this is a book for anyone who loves language - and for feminists who want to look to the past in order to move forward.
Review
Fascinating, intriguing, witty, a gem of a book - Kate Mosse
From the womb-wicket to the child-mighty, and roaring maidens to cunning crones, MOTHER TONGUE encompasses a millennium of enthralling English parlance. Incisively scholarly, affectionately humorous (and sometimes quietly furious), Nuttall sifts the archives of centuries and listens to modern echoes, as lost voices emerge, showing how women have long spoken, and been spoken of. Vivid, philosophical, absorbing and urgent, this superb book teems with historical marvels and their 21st century resonances - Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of KINDRED
What a revelatory delight of a book. It is richly scholarly, wry and funny, healthily grounded in women's bodily experiences - they don't change but attitudes towards them do, and we are clearly very mistaken if we think we are getting it right and previous generations were unenlightened. There is a nugget of joy and wisdom on every single page - Victoria Whitworth
Book Description
A rich, provocative and entertaining history of women's words - of the language we have, and haven't, had to share our lives.
From the Back Cover
When we look to the past, we often expect to be disappointed. In the history of language, we expect to find misogyny around each corner, a disdain for or absence of the voice of women.
But the history of women's words, as it turns out, is full of surprises.
From the monthly flux or flowers to the mægs that experience them, from the original helpmeet, Eve, to the viragos who fronted early feminism, it is undeniable that there was a wealth of riches for describing our experiences, our lives and our selves.
In fact, as women have made slow progress towards equality, we've paradoxically lost some of the most expressive and eloquent bits of our vocabulary. Here, Jenni Nuttall shines a light on them, to dust them off and see if we've any use for them today.
Mother Tongue is a rich, provocative and entertaining history of women's words - of the language we have, and haven't, had to share our lives. Inspired by Jenni Nuttall's deep knowledge of the English language as well as conversations with her teenage daughter, this is a book for anyone who loves language - and for feminists who want to look to the past in order to move forward.
QUOTES TBC
About the Author
Dr Jenni Nuttall is an academic who has been teaching and researching medieval literature at the University of Oxford for the last twenty years, and who has thus had a lot of practice at making old words interesting. She has a DPhil from Oxford and completed the University of East Anglia's MA in Creative Writing. She is the author of a readers' guide to Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde with Cambridge University Press. Mother Tongue is her first book for the general reader.
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