AuthorMelvyn Bragg
NarratorMelvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 1, Book 4
Duration27m
CategoriesAdult Non-Fiction, General Non Fiction
PublisherAudio Go Ltd
VersionUnabridged
The language of sex and death, as Chaucer and others capture English speech of the time. Melvyn Bragg travels to the great mediaeval cathedral of Canterbury, with its shrine to the martyr, St. Thomas … Becket. It inspired the pilgrims described by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1395 in The Canterbury Tales, as they set out from the Tabard Inn in Southwark. Chaucer decided to write in English, which was beginning to take over from the Norman French of court and government and the Latin of church and learning.
Routes of English, Series 4, Programme 5
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 4, Book 5
Duration 27m
English becomes the language of liberation as Afrikaans takes on the label of oppression. In 1994 the first free democratic elections in South Africa were held, bringing Nelson Mandela to power as the country's first black president. One of the other consequences was the elevation of nine African languages to equal status with English and Afrikaans...
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Routes of English: Series 1, Programme 6
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 1, Book 6
Duration 27m
Conquest, trade and immigration have woven dozens of languages into English. Melvyn Bragg visits Liverpool, home of Scouse, an Irish-based variant of northern English made famous by the Beatles and countless comedians. By the mid-nineteenth century the port of Liverpool ranked second to London and became home to immigrants from all over the world w...
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Routes of English, Series 3, Programme 4
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes to English Series 3, Book 4
Duration 27m
Melvyn visits Brixton to discover the most imitated, influential form of spoken English today. It's a dialect determined not by geography or profession, but by age, fashion and aspiration. Pulsing through music culture, spread by television and radio, it can be found throughout the UK. Sometimes subversive, often secretive, it is arguably the most...
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Routes of English, Series 4, Programme 3
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 4, Book 3
Duration 27m
Here we take up the story of Caribbean English where the Brixton Routes left off. For the poet Edward Kamau Braithwaite the legacy of the English language is something from which he, in his tropical landscape, must break free because, as he wrote, "the hurricane does not roar in pentameters". Melvyn Bragg heads off to the Caribbean where he meets a...
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Routes of English, Series 4, Programme 1
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 4, Book 1
Duration 27m
We explore the rise of powerful non-English linguistic forces in the United States. Starting at Plymouth Rock where the Pilgrim Fathers landed in 1620, Melvyn Bragg follows the development of English in the American colony-from the War of Independence and the founding of the first capital, Philadelphia, right through to the controversial contempora...
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Routes of English, Series 4, Programme 6
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 4, Book 6
Duration 27m
With English now hailed on all sides as the world's first "global" language and the preferred medium of expression from United Biscuits to the United Nations, Melvyn Bragg meets people-like former Dome supremo P.Y. Gerbeau-for whom talking English is the most natural way to speak, yet who didn't absorb it with their mother's milk. Also taking part...
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Routes of English, Series 4, Programme 2
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 4, Book 2
Duration 27m
The English language in India. Despite being the imposed language of the imperial power, English also had the power to unite the nation. The story of the English language in India is also the story of the British merchants, adventurers and colonial administrators for whom the country was the Empire's jewel in the crown. Calcutta, the great Victoria...
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Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
Duration 6h 20m
Melvyn Bragg follows his long historical exploration of the Routes of English with Voices of the Powerless, the BBC Radio 4 series in which he explores the lives of the ordinary working men and women of Britain at critical moments across the last 1,000 years. The Norman Conquest is his starting point, a time when William the Conqueror's 'harrying...
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Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
Duration 2h 19m
Broadcaster and arts presenter Melvyn Bragg fronts 'The Written World', a five-part BBC Radio 4 series following the origins of writing from its first appearance 6,000 years ago and exploring how it has shaped the world's intellectual history. In the first programme he looks at the technology of writing, and how making signs on clay, wood or parchm...
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Routes of English, Series 3, Programme 5
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 3, Book 5
Duration 27m
Here, Melvyn visits Oswestry. Just five miles from the Welsh border, this is a frontier town whose name means "boundary". It's where Offa's Dyke and countless crumbling castles bear witness to centuries of shifting political allegiances. Language too, has been a battleground. Welsh and English have waxed and waned, woven and unravelled. Visit the t...
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