Adventure of English - Biography of a Language (TV series and Au

NOTE ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ This torrent is a replacement and augmentation for my original one, which had audio sync problems. Here, I have provided fresh, high quality DVD rips with subtitles, along with both mp3 and mb4 copies of the unabridged audiobook companion to the TV series, which I found on Demonoid. Since I use these materials in my classes, I have also provided the worksheets I have created, which some teachers or home schoolers may find useful.


http://bayimg.com/gamPMaAdd


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343228/

Typical episode notes

Video Codec..........: XviD ISO MPEG-4
Video Bitrate........: 1730kbps
Duration.............: 50:42.904
Resolution...........: 848*476
Framerate............: 29.970
Audio Codec..........: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3
Audio Bitrate........: 192 kbps CBR
Audio Channels.......: 2
Filesize.............: 735,890,676
Subtitles - ENGLISH

The Adventure of English is a British television series (ITV) on the history of the English language presented by Melvyn Bragg as well as a companion book, also written by Bragg. The series ran in 2003.

The series and the book are cast as an adventure story, or the biography of English as if it were a living being, covering the history of the language from its modest beginnings around 500 AD as a minor guttural Germanic dialect to its rise as a truly established global language.

Television series Episode list:

1. Birth of a Language
2. English Goes Underground
3. The Battle for the Language of the Bible
4. "This Earth, This Realm, This England"
5. English in America
6. Speaking Proper
7. The Language of Empire
8. Many Tongues Called English, One World Language
(Info courtesy Wikipedia)


The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language
by Melvyn Bragg; read by Robert Powell
BBC Audiobooks (August 25, 2005)
Unabridged Edition (Length: 12 hrs., 9 mins.)
Orig. Media: Audio Download (Audible)
┬⌐2003 Melvyn Bragg; ΓΓÇ₧ΓÇö2004 BBC Audiobooks, Ltd.


AUDIOBOOK TABLE OF CONTENTS . . .

01. The Common Tongue (38:42)
02. The Great Escape (39:57)
03. Conquest (19:55)
04. Holding On (28:40)
05. The Speech of Kings (34:57)
06. Chaucer (22:59)
07. God's English (29:39)
08. English and the Language of the State (23:04)
09. William Tyndale's Bible (24:03)
10. A Renaissance of Words (30:22)
11. Preparing the Ground (27:05)
12. Shakespeare's English (29:51)
13. "My America" (42:23)
14. Wild West Words (36:08)
15. Sold Down the River (28:10)
16. Mastering the Language (47:16)
17. The Proper Way to Talk (44:28)
18. Steam, Streets and Slang (32:24)
19. Indian Takeover (35:56)
20. The West Indies (24:05)
21. Advance Australia (26:06)
22. Warts and All (23:08)
23. All Over the World (23:08)
24. And Now . . . ? (16:38)


ENGLISH is the collective work of millions of people throughout the ages. It is democratic, ever-changing, and ingenious in its assimilation of other cultures. Today, English runs through the heart of world finance, medicine, and the internet, and it is understood by nearly two billion people across our world. And it seems set to go on. Yet it was very nearly wiped out in its early years.

In this thoroughly researched and ground=breaking book, Melvyn Bragg shows us the remarkable story of the English language, from its modest beginnings around A.D. 500 as a minor guttural Germanic dialect to its current position as a truly established global language. Along the way its colorful story takes us in a host of characters, locations, and events. Bragg brings the reader from the early Angle-Saxon tribes and Alfred the Great's stubborn resistance to the Danes, through the impact of the Norman invasion in 1066, and on to the arrival of such early literary masterpieces as "Beowulf" and Geoffrey Chaucer's bawdy "Canterbury Tales". With anecdotes only a novelist as accomplished as Bragg could capture, he tells the tales of Henry VIII's battles with the Church over bootleg Bibles, and the influence of the "coarse" playwright William Shakespeare, who alone contributed 2,000 new words to the language! With its spread to North America, English expanded with the songs of the Creole slaves, with the bold language of Davy Crockett, and with Lewis and Clark's expedition West, which coined hundreds of new terms as the explorers discovered hitherto unknown flora and fauna. From street slant and Dr. Johnson's dictionary to the role of English in India, Bragg leaves no stone unturned in his linguistic adventure.

Embracing elements of Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, and Gullah, this 1,500-year story covers a huge range of countries and peoples. "The Adventure of English" is an enthralling narrative not only of power, religion, and trade but also of people and how they have changed--and continue, day by day, to change, along with the extraordinary language that is English.

MELVYN BRAGG has written several works of nonfiction and is the author of more than a dozen works of fiction, most recently "A Son of War" and "The Soldier's Return" (winner of the W. H. Smith Literary Aqard), also published by Arcade. In addition to writing, Lord Bragg has worked extensively in television and radio, and currently hosts a weekly program on British television called "The South Bank Show". In 1999, he was made a life peer. He lives in London and in Cumbria, in northwestern England.