John Fox (6) (1925–)

Fox and Wood's Concise History of the French Language is a bare-bones but fairly complete look at how the French language changed both phonetically and orthographically. The evolution of French from Classical Latin to Vulgar Latin to Old French to Middle French to the modern day is filled with spelling changes, lazy speech patterns breaking down and combining vowel sounds, and foreign influences. As far as the phonetics go, I found myself mimicking out loud many of the sound shifts that the show more authors describe, so it at least kept me somewhat engaged. All in all, it's a quick read for anyone interested in languages and their complicated histories. show less