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)

Exceptional

The narrator is fantastic, the production is great and the subject is fascinating. If you're interested in it to begin with! If you aren't interested in words and their evolution, interest will probably wane fairly quickly.

Hang in there, it gets better as you go along

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Have you ever wondered where our peculiar phrases and words come from? Pass the buck, cowboy, okay, etc? Melvyn Bragg tells the story of the language as it developed and incorporated influences and went on to influence other languages. He is a bit slow at the start, but you should be intrigued because he makes the case that at the time of World War II a man from mid-Britain could make himself understood in Iceland within a couple of weeks--the pronunciation and grammar of two languages having so much still in common. Bragg goes on to follow the tale of English when it survived due to intervention by Alfred the Great, when it flourished so much that it outlasted incursion by French conquerers, tinkering and explosion in the New World, etc. The second half moves along much more quickly, but the first half, which concludes with the impact of Shakespeare on the langugage is well worth listening to.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Pretty steady, but you could tell that the speaker was unfamiliar with several North American frontier introductions--his pronunciation of lasso is a hoot, but you still enjoy his reading.

Perfectly narrated, informative

Probably the best audiobook about the ways English has spread across national and cultural boundaries. The material is made for audio. The narrator is spot on; a true dialect actor. Robert Powell ventures from Australian, American, and English English, and even gets Jamaican Patois and Ebonics right. Linguist author Melvyn Bragg provides lay readers with an historical journey of English through colonization, enslavement, class differences, and through touchstones such as war, technology, and business, Short and easy listening. Great book!

An amazing linguistic journey of hundreds of years

Robert Powell does a fantastic job of narrating this book, which surely must have been trickier than most. Throughout the story of English, we're treated to excerpts of older writings, clearly read in a long-past tongue.

I had to listen to this at 1.25x, because it was simply too much detail for me. I still found the book riveting, and felt like I was somehow quite lucky to be able to listen to the old pronunciations scattered liberally throughout.

Altogether, a great book for people who have an interest in linguistics and the path taken by a familiar language over the centuries.

beyond my exectations!!

My interest in the topic began with a lecture series I listened to about the history of english. I so thoroughly enjoyed it that I listened to another on the history of language - equally facinating. So I was unsure if this book would live up to the first History of the English Language that so captivated me . . . but it certainly did. Since this wasn't a lecture but a book, it filled in & fleshed out things not covered, or covered differently, in that lecture.



The author was endearing and his enthusiasm infectious - gave me a much deeper appreciation of english and it's life & growth - almost as if a living thing. Even though he isn't a linguist, he certainly knew how to write what could've been a boring chronology into a facinating story. I particulary enjoyed Tyndale's story regarding the english language Bible (I had no idea!) and hearing which words english appropriated & absorbed from which other languages - some were pretty surprising!



I enjoyed the narrator very much (cute to hear how he pronounced some American english words!) - he did the many english-speaking people's accents very, very well. The wrong narrator for this book could've been disasterous.

Less an Adventure than a Litany

I'm an eager audience for anything histiorical, and more than avaricious for questions of language. "Adventures in English" offers some points of interest but takes my linguistic investigation to a netherland. There is little adventure in this study and more a glossary of words.
The study offers little, if any,mention of English beyond its home ground; English in America, South African or Australia,

Equally important, the text quickly glosses over the importance of the vowell shift in the 15th and 16th centuries.
If you are going to talk about English then the problem of vowel shift is a topic that cannot be ignored.

For the most part, the author lists glossaries of word variations as heard in Britain and as a reflecion t personal recollections . These are certainly interesting. But,.the text all but ignores the pocess of language evolution.

What about Ameican English? What about the differences within the States? What of South Africa and Australia? What of English in India?: These are the countries of "Adventure."


To me, this text seems another in a long list of works published by those with little in -depth knowledge but who know how to market hype.

Was hesitant but found it worth my time

I'm not a linguist nor do I keep track of grammar rules, but I was curious about this book and I am glad that I read it.
Some was so so but the bulk was interesting, and sometimes saddening to hear how access to a language is denied, or literature not being permitted in a your language are used as weapons.
Class and religion are the usual culprits for this oppression.

Word Porn

Narrator does a great job of handling a book full of words. Needs another listen.

Well researched

I enjoyed this history of the English language. It is well narrated. If you have an interest in this subject, this book does an excellent job in telling it from the beginning to today.

Perfect in nearly every respect !!!

One of the best books on audio that I have listened to.

Not only is the book itself hard to put down, but the Narrator is amazing -- easily and adroitly navigates an extremely difficult range of dialect, accent, and archaic pronunciation...in a way that makes sense intuitively and captures the imagination.