AuthorMelvyn Bragg
NarratorMelvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes to English Series 2, Book 3
Duration27m
CategoriesAdult Non-Fiction, History, General Non Fiction
VersionUnabridged
"By your vowels, your station shall be known." How accents and social class are entwined. For at least 400 years, the way we speak has been one of the fundamental measures by which we've judged our fellow men on the scale of social acceptability. To so many, "talking proper" matters, and "rough talk is not quality talk." But such attitudes are beginning to change.
Routes of English, Series 2,programme 2
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes to English Series 2, Book 2
Duration 27m
Melvyn has fun and games with puns, wordplay and tongue twisters. Twisting, manipulation and stretching of the English language is an integral part of everyday communication. This language play exists in many forms, as puns, double entendres, word games and verse exercises, and we have been playing with English for centuries.
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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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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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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 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 2, Programme 1
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes to English Series 2, Book 1
Duration 27m
When a new concept or product comes along, how does it get its name? Making up new words for new things or ideas isn't new. New words-linguists call them "coinages"-are as old as the English language itself. Melvyn Bragg explores the history of linguistic innovation from the Middle Ages, through the inventiveness of the Industrial Revolution, to th...
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Routes of English,series 2, Programme 4
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes to English Series 2, Book 4
Duration 27m
Bad language is not new. We've been swearing for centuries, and those in power have been trying to censor us for just as long. Nowadays, many people are quite relaxed about swearing and will be careful about the context-although we still try to avoid bad language in front of the children, or in polite society.
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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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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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