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Showing 22 to 37 of 37 results:
Routes of English, Series 4, Programme 5
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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 4, Programme 3
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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 2
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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 4, Programme 1
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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 3, Programme 6
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 3, Book 6
Duration 27m
The final programme in the series considers the future of English dialects. In the last programme in the series Melvyn looks at Standard English. He is joined by Lynda Mugglestone, Fellow of English Language at Pembroke College, Oxford and John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at the University of London. Together they attempt to answer some of the qu...
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Routes of English, Series 3, Programme 5
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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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Routes of English, Series 3, Programme 4
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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 3, Programme 3
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes to English Series 3, Book 3
Duration 27m
Melvyn travels west in search of the increasingly elusive Cornish dialect. Cornwall is an evocative place. A Celtic land with a rich mythology, a land of caves and coves, of cream teas and country lanes. At least that's the image that has long attracted travellers and settlers. Yet it's also a land that has, over the last century, faced dramatic so...
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Routes of English,series 2, Programme 4
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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 2, Programme 3
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes to English Series 2, Book 3
Duration 27m
"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 begi...
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Routes of English, Series 2,programme 2
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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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Routes of English,series 2, Programme 1
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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 1, Programme 6
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
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 1, Programme 5
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 1, Book 5
Duration 27m
The power of English-and the "English of Power", as the language extends its influence from Court to Edinburgh. Melvyn Bragg goes to Edinburgh and the house of John Knox, the great Scottish apostle of the Reformation, who preached in English. Latin was replaced by English as the language of the Church when Henry VIII broke with Rome. And the 1611 K...
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Routes of English, Series 1, Programme3
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
SeriesRoutes of English Series 1, Book 3
Duration 27m
Where better than Hastings to look at the impact of the French on the English language? Melvyn Bragg goes to Hastings, where in 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold and invaded England. The actual fighting took place in the nearby village of Battle. It was to be the starting point of a long and intense relationship between England a...
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Routes of English, Series, Programme 1
Author: Melvyn Bragg
Format: Stream / Download
Author Melvyn Bragg
Narrator Melvyn Bragg
Duration 27m
Melvyn Bragg goes back to his home town of Wigton in Cumbria to see how English is developing-and how dialects are still spoken. He meets townspeople from all generations and walks of life, from octogenarian horse-dealer Tommy Miller to local poet Mary Haslam, and finds that the old ways of speaking are being lost.
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