A Mouthful of Air: Language and Languages, Especially English is a book on linguistics by Anthony Burgess published in 1992.
Topics
Topics covered in the book include:
the mechanics of linguistic sounds;
the development of the English language, and its connections with other languages;
the making of dictionaries;
the importance of slang;
the International Phonetic Alphabet;
the role of dialect;
the best way to learn a foreign language;
and a look at specific languages (including Russian, Japanese, and Malay).