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 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, Programme 1
Author: Melvyn Bragg
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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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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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 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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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 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 1, Programme3
Author: Melvyn Bragg
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 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 1, Programme 5
Author: Melvyn Bragg
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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