Educational Media Reviews Online

The Adventure of English: 500 A.D. to 2000 A.D. is an 8-part series with content as expansive as its title. Each program conveys an immense amount of information, tracing the development of the English language from its isolated, struggling beginnings as an obscure tribal dialect to the global language it is today. In studying the language, the series also examines a remarkable amount of history. Each episode is thematic, and the series moves primarily in chronological order. While the discussions often focus on Europe, attention is also drawn towards America, Africa, Australia, India, and the Caribbean.

The vocabulary and phraseology of the English language as it has been spoken and written is demonstrated through poetry, prose, drama, lyrics, letters, and dictionaries, while examining both common and official communication. Each program focuses on various forces pushing the development and spread of the English language to become the most understood language in the world, including the effects of invading languages, immigration to or colonization of new lands, war, and cultural elements such as religion, literature, economics, and film.

All programs exhibit on location taping that is filled with great points of reference and historic sites, and often nicely interspersed with high quality dramatizations. The illustrative examples of text, spoken word, and locality are carefully crafted to keep viewers interested. Written and presented by Melvin Bragg, the series conveys this wealth of information with a scholarly, yet somewhat informal approach. Bragg is well known as a television presenter, novelist and broadcaster. He is currently Controller of Arts and Features at London Weekend Television and editor and presenter of The South Bank Show.

The series has not been widely reviewed, but the companion book has received mixed comments. While the overall content and Bragg’s style of presentation are consistently praised, critics have also found flaws in some of the research and generalizations or simplifications sometimes included. An example of such criticism follows:

”Bragg's enthusiasm for his subject-hero [English], whether the Old English of Beowulf or the new "Text English" of the Internet, makes up for his shortcomings as a linguist: his sources, unfootnoted, are at times at variance with the OED or Webster's Third. For instance, Bragg furnishes only one putative origin for the disputed "real McCoy." Moreover "candy" does not seem to have Anglo-Indian origins (it's from the Arabic "qandi"), and the first recorded use of "vast" is not from Shakespeare (the OED cites Archbishop Edwin Sandys).” [Publishers Weekly 251 no14 52 Ap 5 2004]

While I am not an expert in linguistics and would not have caught the discrepancies mentioned in some of the companion book’s reviews, there are a couple of minor issues that I will note. The presenter at times uses perhaps too many examples, running on through many words that aren’t always recognizable or meaningful to the viewer. Also, there is the occasional profanity to be examined. While this is entirely appropriate given the scope of the series, it might be something to be aware of if using the programs in schools. That said, it should be stressed that the wide ranging content provides an abundance of information on many subjects beyond the English language.

This will be a carefully considered purchase for most libraries at $929.95 for the entire series, but each title can be purchased separately for $129.95. The series is appropriate for high school, academic, and public libraries. The series could support a wide variety of academic subjects including history, linguistics, communication, literature, social/cultural issues and the study of various geographic areas.

This reviewer highly recommends The Adventure of English: 500 A.D. to 2000 A.D.

Awards

• Best Presenter (Factual), 2004 Royal Television Society, UK Award