The Adventure of English

Birth of a Language

Nov 6, 200365 min

We are going to delve down to the roots of the language and deduce its history - and in that one sentence we hear words from four different sources; delve from Dark Age Anglo-Saxon, root from Danish invaders, language from medieval French,

English Goes Underground

Nov 6, 200365 min

We see how England was ruled for three centuries after the Conquest by a French-speaking king and court which used Latin for their official business. English was the language of the peasants; a third-class tongue in its own country.

The Battle for the Language of the Bible

Nov 13, 200365 min

This is the story of how English became the battleground in the fight for men's souls. The medieval church establishment kept the Bible in Latin, while those possessing an English translation risked death. We see the impact of printing on t

This Earth, This Realm, This England

Nov 13, 200365 min

Visiting the England of Queen Elizabeth the First shows how naval enterprise and foreign trade brought scores of new words into the language. Scholars were bringing new Latin terms into the language, and there was a movement to stop this an

English in America

Nov 20, 200365 min

Following the English language on its journey overseas and tracing the story of how the language of the British Isles became a language for the world - the most widely spoken and understood vernacular in history. In America the language of

Speaking Proper

Nov 20, 200365 min

In eighteenth century Britain, the first English dictionary was produced. A cohort of grammarians imposed new rules on the language. English continued to change and develop and the way people talked and the words they used became a badge of