The American Language: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The American Language, credited to H. L. Mencken, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The American Language by H. L. Mencken. Read in English by DrPGould; Mike Pelton; tommack; Bruce Pirie; Devorah Allen; Joseph Tabler; ToddHW; realisticspeakers; Linda Johnson; Austin Lim; Larry Wilson "It was part of my daily work, for a good many years, to read the principal English newspapers and reviews; it has been part of my work, all the time, to read the more important English novels, essays, poetry and criticism. An American born and bred, I early noted, as everyone else in like case must note, certain salient differences between the English of England and the English of America as practically spoken and written—differences in vocabulary, in syntax, in the shades and habits of idiom, and even, coming to the common speech, in grammar. And I noted too, of course, partly during visits to England but more largely by a somewhat wide and intimate intercourse with English people in the United States, the obvious differences between English and American pronunciation and intonation. Greatly interested in these differences—some of them so great that they led me to seek exchanges of light with Englishmen—I looked for some work that would describe and account for them with a show of completeness, and perhaps depict the process of their origin. I soon found that no such work existed, either in England or in America—that the whole literature of the subject was astonishingly meagre and unsatisfactory." - Summary by Mencken (Preface)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The American Language
• Author credits: H. L. Mencken
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 49
• Listed recording duration: 15:41:14

Catalogue topics

• will complete before cataloging

Opening tracks: first 24 of 49

1. 00 - Preface — 8:58
2. 01 - Ch1 By Way of Introduction Pt 1The Diverging Streams — 9:52
3. 02 - Ch1 By Way of Introduction Pt 2 The Academic Attitude — 19:30
4. 03 - Ch1 By Way of Introduction Pt 3 The View of Writing Men — 16:11
5. 04 - Ch1 By Way of Introduction Pt 4 Foreign Observers — 4:37
6. 05 - Ch1 By Way of Introduction Pt 5 The Characters of American — 22:13
7. 06 - Ch1 By Way of Introduction Pt 6 The Materials of American — 15:47
8. 07 - Ch2 The Beginnings of American Pt 1 In Colonial Days — 11:02
9. 08 - Ch2 The Beginnings of American Pt 2 Sources of Early Americanisms — 11:29
10. 09 - Ch2 The Beginnings of American Pt 3 New Words of English Material — 17:36
11. 10 - Ch2 The Beginnings of American Pt 4 Changed Meanings — 7:23
12. 11 - Ch2 The Beginnings of American Pt 5 Archaic English Words — 7:40
13. 12 - Ch2 The Beginnings of American Pt 6 Colonial Pronunciation — 11:32
14. 13 - Ch3 The Period of Growth Pt 1 The New Nation — 21:57
15. 14 - Ch3 The Period of Growth Pt 2 The Language in the Making — 9:44
16. 15 - Ch3 The Period of Growth Pt 3 The Expanding Vocabulary — 34:16
17. 16 - Ch3 The Period of Growth Pt 4 Loan-Words — 29:23
18. 17 - Ch3 The Period of Growth Pt 5 Pronunciation — 6:52
19. 18 - Ch4 American and English Today Pt 1 The Two Vocabularies — 18:28
20. 19 - Ch4 American and English Today Pt 2 Differences in Usage — 40:53
21. 20 - Ch4 American and English Today Pt 3 Honorifics — 16:45
22. 21 - Ch4 American and English Today Pt 4 Euphemisms and Forbidden Words — 20:51
23. 22 - Ch5 Tendencies in American Pt 1 International Exchanges — 20:35
24. 23 - Ch5 Tendencies in American Pt 2 Points of Difference — 13:36

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