The Adventure of English

The Biography of a Language

By: Melvyn Bragg

Narrated by: Robert Powell

Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

This is the remarkable story of the English language; from its beginnings as a minor guttural Germanic dialect to its position today as a truly established global language.

The Adventure of English is not only an enthralling story of power, religion, and trade, but also the story of people, and how their lives continue to change the extraordinary language that is English.

©2003 Melvyn Bragg (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Both entertaining and informative." (Booklist)
"This 'biography' succeeds in its broad, sweeping narrative." (Publishers Weekly)

The narration adds so much

The evolution of the English language is something that has always interested me, and this book did not disappoint in that regard. However, I REALLY recommend this as an audiobook. Robert Powell's narration is superb and his pronunciation of words in other dialects and languages adds something that is often difficult to pick up just from reading alone.

A True Adventure

I gave this recording and the Bragg book five stars for "story". The text if full of impeccable history but the evolution of a language, the impress of cultures, the social structures in which it is shaped and pronounced and assessed
engages presents the great adventure that it still is to see language change with the times.

While a very cerebral topic, I REALLY enjoyed it

Great narration, very insightful, wow your friends and neighbors by explaining to them the fountain of the language they speak.

Very Interesting!!

What would seem to be a very dull subject is made rather interesting by this book. There are parts where the book drags, but the chapters of Wycliffe, Tyndale, Shakespeare and the King James Bible are just a few of the intriguing highlights of this book.

As some have said, this is a book that is probably BETTER as an audiobook. The reader does a GREAT job with old english and many of the dialects. Hearing someone speak ancient versions of the language (rather than trying to figure out what they were supposed to have sounded like) is a BIG bonus with the audiobook version.

The author also did a great job with describing how dialects occur, even in modern times (such as "Pigeon" dialects). I also thought the discussion of attempts to create a modern "universal" language were quite interesting.

It was also fascinating to learn how many figures of speech originated with Shakespeare, as well as early versions of the English Bible.

Definitely well worth the read!

Fascinating and engrossing!

This is definitely one of those books that is better listened to than read, and I agree with the previous reviews that the narrator is to be commended for his ability to pronounce obsolete words and arcane dialects. (Although I must admit that his attempts at an American accent made me cringe a bit.) My only other criticism is a tiny one: the author's claim that the Northeastern US more or less speaks a single, clear spoken dialect. As a native Bostonian, I must object! That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It gave me a new understanding and appreciation of my language and enough trivia fodder to make me a cocktail party liability for quite some time.

Just Gets Better and Better

I will admit that when this book began it was a little rambling, a little disjointed. The story begins with seemingly disperate paragraphs on the groups that invaded England and how they cobbled together a language of sorts. I made it through the first two chapters only moderately interested. Then it really gets good.

First, the narrator is a masterpiece. He does seven or eight accents and even speaks in old and middle english with almost no effort. This book is BETTER in audio format because we can hear how the language has changed so drastically.

The writing also cleans up and becomes a straightforward biography of our language. He takes us through the times when it was in peril, when it spread and when it took over. The book is populated by amazing characters in history to which we owe so much of our daily lives. Without prejudice Mr. Bragg takes us into the branches of American English, Shakespeare, southern dialect, rock and roll songs, Irish and the snobs who tried (without success) to tame our language.

This is a story of the Western World, of the battle of thoughts and ideas, of the struggles between the oppressed and the oppressors and how language keeps us alive and thriving. It's more than a story of English, it's a story of us. And we didn't even know it. This has been a thrilling read.

A Misadventure in English

Usually I avoid books—especially histories—written by journalists. They tend to a surface breeziness, a reliance on conventional wisdom and accepted interpretations of events. I had to overcome this hesitancy after buying The Professor and the Madman on sale a while back, and I’m glad I did. I’m not so much now.

Melvyn Bragg is a revered BBC personality. He obviously loves the English language and uses it well. His book reads (or rather, sounds) very personal. And that’s fine if the person thinks in unexpected ways. Unfortunately, standard is very much the standard here.

At first there were little things. The old story that the Anglo-Saxons were first invited over to help the Britons defend themselves after the departure of the legions—a version of events now considered suspect by many scholars—is given here as fact. The five-day affair of Watt Tyler’s Rebellion is equated with the French Revolution. Of course, conventional wisdom approves of revolutions. But beyond a certain similarity in savagery I failed to see the parallel.

I admit to being charmed by Bragg’s contention that every word of Churchill’s stirring peroration of June 4, 1940 derived from the Anglo-Saxon:

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

Every word, that is, except “surrender”. And that, Bragg opines, may be significant in and of itself. Besides the conventional dismissal of French grit—actually, they fought better than most care to admit—the observation about Churchill’s use of Anglo-Saxon words is, according to Wikipedia, another “popular but false idea”.

But only when we enter the cauldron of pre-Reformation England do the “little things” get bigger.

I know of very few English authors, living or dead, who can see straight when dealing with this period. The problem is that they’re English. Or, rather, that the English Church, being a state church, is so intimately a part of their identity as Englishmen—no matter if they go to church or not. If the Elizabethan Settlement was wrong then something deep at the root of the nation is wrong too, and that is simply too awful a thought to entertain for a moment.

So, after chronicling how clerical ignorance and arrogance was rectified in the time of Alfred the Great in the 9th Century—by reform from within—we are now told that the only remedy in the 15th Century was to let everyone read the Bible and decide what it meant to them (the birth of that hydra-headed oxymoron, “personal truths”).

The problem, according to Bragg, was that everything that happened at Mass was wrapped in “mystery”, prompting one to wish that, while writing a book about language, he had looked up the specifically Catholic meaning of that word. Painting the hoary old picture of a nation “at the mercy of priests”, a church with a “monopoly”, not unlike “a single party state”, (there’s even a prurient allusion to the Church intruding between the sheets) he then makes it seem as if an English translation of the Bible was a natural part of a sane program for throwing out transubstantiation and confession. I fail to see how the first, a good idea, necessitates the other two abominable ones.

I’m the first to admit that, from the Twelve onward, the Church has never been perfect. Ignorant, arrogant, even downright malevolent priests appear in every generation. The spiritual authority with which they are entrusted can, like any power, corrupt. But I’m also the first to insist that truth is indivisible. Calling the defense of that unified truth—no matter how ham-handed—a “single party state” and a “monopoly” is just too easy (i.e.: conventional thinking).

Bragg is very good, earlier in the book, on the dangers of reading history backwards, of seeing the inevitability of outcomes (Waterloo, Dunkirk) that were in no way inevitable at the time. Yet here he seems to be painting the English Reformation as inevitable, the Great Leap Forward to The Way Things Are Now—which is, according to conventional thinking, how things should be.

I finally had to quit—something I can’t remember ever doing with an audiobook—when Bragg permitted himself that old chestnut I’ve heard from Protestant friends for years: “the Bible doesn’t even mention a pope”. No, it doesn’t if you’re being completely, flatfootedly literal. But if you’ve studied the book for years, understand Hebrew and Greek, and what Jesus meant when he talked about founding His church on a rock—stuff that, say, a Catholic priest might know—you’d see that the office of pope is embedded in Scripture.

Sad to say, I was really enjoying the performance given by our reader here, Robert Powell. Melvyn Bragg is a fine writer and his craft was only highlighted by Powell’s performance. Unfortunately, what he was writing was finally, regretfully, not worth my time.

Shout out, in English

The reader for this fascinating book, Robert Powell, is to be lauded, admired, and praised for his Herculean effort, and success with this challenging text. It cannot have been easy to read a book so heavily imbued with Old English, Norse, French, Latin, Middle English, smatterings of German, and, worst of all, lists. Tis a rare fellow who can make a list of 50 odd words go by so smoothly. (As you may be able to tell, my many hours of delightful listening to this work has elevated my lowly Midwestern American patois beyond its normal ken. Any mistakes are entirely the fault of the author.)

Anyhow, this is a way fun book, and the narration is totally awesome. :)

One of my favorites

This is a book that I listen to again every few years, alternating with Bill Bryson's "Mother Tongue". I am especially fascinated by the first half of the book, from the beginning of the language through Shakespeare and the King James Bible.

Better printed than audio

Any additional comments?

Ordinarily I like history books as audio. They use a different vocabulary and rythm than fiction that not everyone finds appealing, but since I am writing a review it is important to understand that I did not expect this book to read like an Agatha Christie. That being said, the type of content in this book would be better served in written form. There are lists of words and letters which the poor narrator reads as best he can, and spelling is important in the study of the history of english. I think the content is excellent and the narrator is good but this is one of those books which is best appreciated and much easier to follow on the page.