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The Adventure of English
The Adventure of English is a British television series (ITV) in the history of the English language presented by Melvyn Bragg, and a companion book, also written by Bragg.
The series and the book is presented as an adventure story, or biography of English as if it were a living being, covering the history of the language from its modest beginnings around 500 AD as a minor Germanic dialect to its place as a truly established global language.
In the television series, Bragg explains the origins and spelling of many words based on the times that were introduced in the language every time you turn into modern English.
1. Birth of a Language. The modern Frisian language is the language closest to English sound used 2000 years ago, when people in what is now north of the Netherlands traveled to what would be the UK and drove the Celts in the west side of the island. Words such as “blue” can be recognized in the Frisian language.
2. English goes underground. Bragg discusses how the class also affected the use of English, especially in the time of William the Conqueror and about 300 years after his reign, during this period, only French and Latin were used in the business of state and the aristocracy, while the English remained in use with the lowest peasant classes.
3. The battle for the language of the Bible. In the early to mid 1300′s fought for English be the language of the Christian Bible through the efforts of theologian John Wycliffe, who opposed the use of the church of the Latin script, as it prevented most of the people reading the Bible for themselves.
4. This earth, this realm, this England. In times of Queen Elizabeth I, English began to spread to an even greater depth. Foreign trade brought new words from France, and swearing the now popular “fokkinge” (shit) “Krappe” (garbage) and “bugger” from the Dutch in the 16th century.
5. English in America. Upon landing in North America, the colonists found Squanto, a native who had been captured and taken to England to learn English and become a guide. After his escape, Squanto returned to his tribe, who happened to live near the site of English settlers created their small town.
6. Speaking properly. The age of reason began, and English students of mathematics and science as Isaac Newton began to publish his books in English instead of Latin. Jonathan Swift would save the ever-changing English language, followed by Samuel Johnson, who was to write the dictionary of the English Language, consisting of 43,000 words and definitions, written in seven years and published in 1755.
7. The language of the Empire. The British trade and colonization spread the English language. In India, the scholar William Jones finds some English words already present in Sanskrit. The Wretched of the Earth in Australia, London criminal slang mixed Aboriginal and words into a new dialect. Jamaican patois claim.
8. Many tongues called English, a language in the world. The globalization of English in the 20th century the greater part due to the United States. Here we look at the prevalence of Black American street talk, how World War II American cinema threatened to “infect” the mother tongue in the UK and how some countries are trying to end the English invasion – to Franglais example, in France and Singlish in Singapore.
The Adventure of English,
i’m now learning hebrew.. great language… but very foreign to us dutch…english was easy tolearn…it’s basicly just bad dutch mixed with french, spoken by a drunk frisian… if you speak german you already use the ugly sh and ow sounds used in english and german, and it’s even more easy
Don’t talk absolute tripe friend! English was a “international” language before the US of A was still full of peiople running round with feathers in their hair!
Do a research. There are so many other languages that are so much harder than english. Arabic for an example is my my native language but its really hard to understand it even if it is your native language, Let alone learning it as a second language. Then russian, Chinese, Hindi, Hungarian. All these are very hard languages that are not as easy as english. You can learn to talk and spell english words by only hearing it. You can’t with these other languages.
And yet 1000 years ago it had 3 genders; 7 cases; a subjunctive, which it still somewhat does; and more complex conjugations. We gave up a complex language for a higher form of education, a more diverse culture and a stronger economic and political system which helped England get to the state it is today.
Crap, pure crap. How do you think it got to the United States? By the English. America has only been a power in the world for 60 years, English is 1500 years old and has been spreading through the world since the 16th century……Way before America was even anything but a big land occupied by hostile natives!
That’s not true. It was the British Empire of the 1500s thru 1800s that spread the language to every corner of the globe (including the American Colonies). That gave it bases in every populated continent on the globe except South America. With that kind of critical mass and the overwhelming commercial strength of England in that period it was inevitable for English to become the dominant language it is today.
I’m brazilian, I’ve been an English teacher for 20 years and I couldn’t agree more with you…It’s the easiest, most beautiful and most exciting language to teach and learn. My first language is Portuguese because I was born in Brazil, but my blood language is English…Poor are all of those who haven’t spoken this wonderful and unique language.
I am english and I would say that it is simple compared to many other languages.* no nouns genders* no cases* no subjunctive* no formal and non formal forms for ‘you’* almost no conjugations for regular verbsIt does have some complexities of course (phrasal verbs etc.) but I believe English’s simplicity is one reason why it has become global. People can learn it!
Modern English and Modern German are members of the same language family (Germanic). The Angles (where “England” comes from) and Saxons were Germanic tribes Linguistically, English has more in common with German than it does with French, we just happen to have quite a few French words. Also, there is no such thing as the British language as Britain itself contains England, Wales, and Scotland all of which have different languages Welsh and Scottish are Celtic in origin.
Just a brief point – Melvyn states that London and Thames are remnants of Celtic languages. Actually, it’s generally accepted that no one knows where they come from and that they may in fact be pre-Celtic and represent the language of the people who lived in Britain before the Celts arrived in the 2nd millenium BC. This is based on cognate names in other parts of Europe, which go back to an ancient common ancestor.
The history of the English language is very similar to the history of the Spanish language, I am very lucky cuz I am able to speak the most widely use language in the world: English , Spanish and Chinese but I definetly love the English language and the Spanish ( my mother language) languages, languages of poets and warriors!
At the peak of Anglo-Saxon England (700 AD), there was no such thing as French or France. The Old English dialects were more or less mutually comprehensible with continental Frankish, which was essentially a proto-Dutch dialect of Germanic origin. Germanic (not modern German) words probably make up more than half of modern English.
Rather irksome that one of the opening lines of a show that purports to be about the English language would contain a major terminological error. Achievements of these islands segues incorrectly into achievements of England. These islands and England are not synonomous, treating them as though they are is a tedious and commonplace mistake.That aside, the uniqueness of Anglo-Saxons native literature is heavily overstated, surpassed both in volume and antiquity by their Gaelic neighbours.
I’m so glad that English is my native language because I doubt I could have learnt it as a second language. We have so many different words for similar concepts and so many grammatical rules and inconsistencies that I am amazed that others are successful in learning English as a secondary language. Only as I’ve studied other languages (mainly Romance languages) have I realized just how strange English is.
Interesting … but i think almost every european language has borrowed words from other languages .I know spanish has many germanic words (visigoth) , latin (obviously) , arabic and even more words borrowed from other languages .. The same goes for french ,german ,swedish russian ect… But it is interesting to see the exact history of the language i speak everyday
@pucksterz12 I love the English language – I will speak no other.” No offence, but that’s an ignorant comment; I hope that you are not serious. I agree that English is an extraordinary language, but there are many other languages that are very beautiful, and beautiful people speak them only. I’ve studied Latin, Spanish, Italian, and I’m studying Arabic! Having the ability to speak multiple languages is a beautiful thing because you can speak to more people! <3
soo the english language has, celtic, german, french .. geez, guess i have to tell that to my jap students.. yes, in order for each and everyone one of you, to learn, understand English, you must learn, atleast german and french.. lol
@tacotony24 The Latin words in the English language are not English. English words are English. 95% of the most common daily words used are Anglo-Saxon German. probably out of the first 200 most common words spoken 10 are Latin. Latin is Anglisized, but it’s not English. The words vocab and language are not English. Most of these Latin words have been acquired only in the last 300 years, since British globalization
funny how he never mentions Irish monks who wrote Gaelge down long before English and taught the Saxons to read, as well as founding Lindisfarne and Iona and creating the script shown in this show. good doc but this is a glaring omission. without the Irish monks the English would still be worshiping Odin…
klidstone1970: Sir, you should receive a knighthood for posting this whole linguistic series up on youtube. I’ve been looking for this for ages. Free access to culture for everyone, I’m convinced Mr Bragg (Lord Bragg I think) wouldn’t object to that.