The Adventure of English

The Adventure of English
Created by	Melvyn Bragg
Starring	Melvyn Bragg
No. of episodes	8
Production
Running time	45–52 min per episode
Release
Original network	ITV
Original release	6 November – 30 November 2003

The Adventure of English is a British television series (ITV) on the history of the English language presented by Melvyn Bragg as well as a companion book, also written by Bragg. The series ran in 2003.

The series and the book are cast as an adventure story, or the 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 rise as a truly established global language.

In the television series, Bragg explains the origins and spelling of many words based on the times in which they were introduced into the growing language that would eventually become modern English.

The modern Frisian language is the closest sounding language to the English used approximately 2000 years ago, when the people from what is now the north of the Netherlands travelled to what would become England, and pushed the Celtic language - ancestor of modern Welsh - (Celts) to the western side of the island. Words like "blue" can be recognised in the Frisian language.

Bragg then discusses how English dialects in certain areas of the United Kingdom were heavily influenced by historical events such as the invasion of the Vikings in the east, contributing words such as "sky" to the English language.

In the early to mid 14th century, English fought to be the language of the Christian Bible through the efforts of theologian John Wycliffe, who opposed the church's use of a Latin scripture because it prevented most of the population from reading the bible for themselves. Though Wycliffe died before English became the official language of the bible, Bragg discusses how his translation eventually led to the transition of various Latin words into the English language, including "emperor," "justice,""profession," "suddenly" or "angel."

Eventually, Henry V of England would use his power to create this English language bible in the early 15th century. However, the difficulty of creating a common language for all the English dialects in the United Kingdom had to be addressed since there was such an array of spellings and pronunciations. Bragg explains, "The '-ing' participle, as in 'running,' was said as '-and' in the North, '-end' in the East Midlands, and '-ind' in the West Midlands. So 'running' could also be said as 'runnand,' 'runnind,' and 'runnend.'" The number of spellings was even greater, Bragg offers sixteen different ways in which the word meaning "church" had been spelt at the time, including "kerke," "kirc," "chirche," "cherge" and "schyrche."

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Wikipedia