I'm a history documentary nut and this is my favorite documentary series ever. My third time through it. Every kid in every English class should see it.
The history of the English people and their language is absolutely enthralling. Germanic, Latin, Greek tongues engrossed by, at first, a few scholars and monks who would preserve our written history and tenacities. To the advent of print and industrialization. Its quite like watching a baby grow up to become this strong charismatic world leader!
Amazing. English is not my native tongue but having the ability to use it makes me feel very proud. The history behind it and indeed the beauty of it has also increased my appreciation of the language. Much love to all those who I am able to communicate with using this language.
I just stumbled across this series this evening and have apparently sat through four hours of it. I find it comprehensive, interesting, well directed and well narrated. Would but for a world where programs like this were more common. Thank you for contributing!
I know what you mean. On this side of the pond TV programming has a lot to answer for: Catapulting a clown to the highest office in the land. Postings of BBC programming help me to maintain my sanity during these dark days.
NameRequiredSoHere My sentiments exactly. Also as an American, I don’t know what I would do without British programming. I saw this series on PBS before, but am thrilled to view it again. Thank you.
I love how people who don’t like to learn say they can’t understand a thing they’re saying but I understand more then a few words learn about your history!!
I had to watch this for a school Engish test, sighing that it was 50 minutes long, yet the more I watched the more interesting it became. Its a good and interesting documentary and I'll probably watch the rest of the series as well.
Fisher Yu The host, Melvin Bragg, does a lot of documentaries like this. Try listening the "In our time" series on BBC radio 4. There are plenty on UA-cam. They talk about history, science, philosophy and religion. It's a great way of educating yourself just by listening.
John 14:6New International Version (NIV) 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 1 John 2:22King James Version (KJV) 22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. John 20:28King James Version (KJV) 28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
If you enjoyed this quite excellent series then you might also like the PBS produced "The Story of English" by Canadian Robert McNeil. Highly recommended.
Although I understand little of old English, I really love to hear it spoken. I’m not sure why they didn’t identify Seamus Heaney. I’m so sad that he passed away. What a great loss.
SO interesting. I have always wondered about the origins of the English language. This documentary really explains it all....extremely educational, I loved it!
I remember seeing this episode on TV some years ago. I don't remember seeing any other episodes. I wish all the episodes of the series become available one day!
Thank you for sharing this with us!! I adore the English language! It has mystery and adventure and murder (The Professor and the Madman :A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary) A favorite book of mine. I love to break down words and find out where they come from and to diagram sentences. Words are like food to me and I find them delicious and a pleasure to digest!! =:)
17:05 Hearing the Lord's prayer in old English really invoked some deep feelings. I'm not overly religious but it's beautifully haunting to hear how my ancestors would've spoke a millennia ago and still have it sound somewhat intelligible.
I live in northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein) and I still learned the old Low German language (Plattdütsch) from my grandparents and parents. Because I also lived many years in Northern Friesland, I also can good understand the Frisian language and I learned Danish at the citizens high school and by Danish friends. So I could understand over 80 percent of this prayer in Old English language, so many words are very similar to this 3 languages... I absolutely have to hear or read more old English language, it is very fascinating.
interesting to see what all the languages English, Dutch, German, Skandinavian languages have in common. I live in Germany, bout 30 miles north of Hamburg. Having learned the old NorthGerman dialect "Plattdeutsch" ( =Low German) makes me understand Dutch pretty well too. here in my part of Germany we also have quite some villages which names end with -by. Thats a relic of times of Danish occupation until 19th century.
I was born speaking English, but being Spanish, that was my second language growing up! But I must confess, Spanish has NOTHING on the English language! Excellent first episode of this brilliant series!
roberto abrams Actually, Spanish has a very similar evolution from Latin. Lots of contact with other languages (Celtic, Basque, Arabic, among other tribal Iberian languages). A similar process of a loss of distinctive noun declension and other syntactical simplification. It’s quite fascinating, too.
@Zelda Zonk....I'm assuming that you think 'franca' is related to the word, French. Educate yourself by consulting Wikipedia as to the origin of 'lingua franca'.
This is an old series which I have watched three times and enjoyed it immensely. Watch 'Invasion of the Anglo Saxons' with Frances Pryor which has updated/alternate information in it about the invasion, language and other topics. It's very interesting.
One caveat about Bede's "Ecclesiastical History" is that it was written about the Anglo-Saxon invasion about 400 years later based largely on legends, which as Bill Bryson put it, would be like us writing about Elizabethan England based mainly on hearsay.
Yea, and also there was an Ost Germanic in wich Ostgotts were speaking. This language died but many words from it came into west and ost slavic languages. For example russian word "khleb" (bread) is theirs.
'Hors' is the old English word for a horse and it comes from the Proto-Germanic '*hrussą'. 'Blanca' is just a particular kind of horse, specifically one that is white or grey.
Plattdeutsch, the language spoken by the weatherman here, can be understood by people speaking scottish ( not celtish1 of gaelic) in Scotland. Plattdeutsch speakers can communicate with people who speak that old scottish. tongue.
Having watched a few episodes I realised that it is virtually a copy of the 1986 production, "The Story of English" with the Canadian broadcaster, Robert McNeil and others being hosts for the series. The episodes are listed on the DVD as 1. An English Speaking World, 2. The Mother Tongue, 3. A Muse of Fire, 4. The Guid Scots Tongue, 5. Black on White, 6. Pioneer O Pioneer, 7. Muvver Tongue, 8. The Loaded Weapon and 9. Next Year's Words. The episodes were filmed in many locations around the world and include some fascinating materials not included in History of the English Language. Maybe somebody could make a version incorporating the best of both. Just my opinion.
How interesting to start with Friesland in The Netherlands. My first language is Dutch, I have read some text in medieval English and to my surprise it must be easier for Dutch & Friesian people of nowadays to understand medieval English, than for the modern English people. Because so many short 3 - 5 letter words are almost the same in English and Dutch language I have the impression there was already a common basic language the moment the North Sea (during ice age) was nothing more than a small river and people could walk to England.
At my house, when we refer to anything as being passed down in the English tradition, we usually mean it's passed from mother to son, then back to mother.
It has often been wondered why, as Saxons founded Essex, Sussex, Wessex and Middlesex, what became of the North Saxons? They settled in Nosex, and failed to thrive. (I'm here all week.)
Hello, thank you for this. I Noticed you seem to jump to part 3 in your videos and don't have a part two. Is that correct or are they mislabeled? Thank you again for the upload! 💕
My Dad’s mother was of all Danish blood or so we thought. However, DNA shows my dad was 20% English. . My grandmother was 40% English blood. Interestingly her family had never been to England. So, I gather my Danish ancestors took English wives back to Denmark..
Richard Stueland Or the DNA tests are shitty. I'm sorry but some people just don't realise how mich of a scam those things are. You can only pinpoint a single line of DNA passed down. All other DNA you have is not shown. Those tests only show the DNA that was passed down that YOU now have. It won't show your actual ancestors. And theres no definitive group of "race". It will show english because you have genes a b and c and statistically most english people have genes a b and c. But you could have been from a completely different place! Sorry i'm a nerd.
Great documentary. If you enjoyed it, I warn you: Don't read beyond the first 2 or 3 comments. Such an interesting & well-presented subject has been turned into an excuse to insult oneanother by the boring herd of know-it-alls in the comments.
Man, I sure would love to hear Beowulf read in its entirety by whoever that is at 18:06. I'd love to hear it read in English by the guy at 19:43, too. Only his first name (Seamus) is mentioned?
I'm a history documentary nut and this is my favorite documentary series ever. My third time through it. Every kid in every English class should see it.
We do in Italy
I watched it a couple of years ago, and I’m back to watch it again. It’s really interesting.
The history of the English people and their language is absolutely enthralling. Germanic, Latin, Greek tongues engrossed by, at first, a few scholars and monks who would preserve our written history and tenacities. To the advent of print and industrialization. Its quite like watching a baby grow up to become this strong charismatic world leader!
Amazing. English is not my native tongue but having the ability to use it makes me feel very proud. The history behind it and indeed the beauty of it has also increased my appreciation of the language. Much love to all those who I am able to communicate with using this language.
After being an American for over 72 years, I found this series to be very enlightening. Than you.
I just stumbled across this series this evening and have apparently sat through four hours of it. I find it comprehensive, interesting, well directed and well narrated. Would but for a world where programs like this were more common. Thank you for contributing!
u r lifeless
I know what you mean. On this side of the pond TV programming has a lot to answer for: Catapulting a clown to the highest office in the land. Postings of BBC programming help me to maintain my sanity during these dark days.
NameRequiredSoHere My sentiments exactly. Also as an American, I don’t know what I would do without British programming. I saw this series on PBS before, but am thrilled to view it again. Thank you.
Educational binge watch! A rarity:)
MountainDew7 no not so rare me too
This set of videos has been my absolute favorite for a couple of years or so. Now, my son is a linguistics major, and I've got him watching it.
I love how people who don’t like to learn say they can’t understand a thing they’re saying but I understand more then a few words learn about your history!!
I had to watch this for a school Engish test, sighing that it was 50 minutes long, yet the more I watched the more interesting it became. Its a good and interesting documentary and I'll probably watch the rest of the series as well.
This is my second viewing of this series. It's wonderful. Thank you so much for making it available.
This series is a truly great historical perspective. Love it.
I'm a young chinese , through this documentary ,I have learned so much that can't get from mainland China.thx everyone !
Fisher Yu The host, Melvin Bragg, does a lot of documentaries like this. Try listening the "In our time" series on BBC radio 4. There are plenty on UA-cam. They talk about history, science, philosophy and religion. It's a great way of educating yourself just by listening.
If Fisher lives outside China s/he could do that, but unfortunately UA-cam is blocked by the Communist Party in China.
RJ3220 .
Fisher Yu 约翰福音 3:16 Chinese Contemporary Bible (Simplified) (CCB)
16 “因为上帝爱世人，甚至将祂独一的儿子赐给他们，叫一切信祂的人不致灭亡，反得永生。
John 14:6New International Version (NIV)
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
1 John 2:22King James Version (KJV)
22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
John 20:28King James Version (KJV)
28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
If you enjoyed this quite excellent series then you might also like the PBS produced "The Story of English" by Canadian Robert McNeil. Highly recommended.
Merci.
Thank you!!
Last year in British Literature we watched these videos! I found them quite entertaining and funny at times! Brings back good memories!
Excellent information and series. Thanks.
Hearing old English and the Gaelic languages spoken gives me goosebumps! Wonder if there are any music groups singing in old English?
This was one of the most enjoyable documentaries I've ever watched. Very well made. Thank you! Please make more!
Hearing Old English strikes an ancient and beautiful chord buried deep within my DNA.
Tolkien from Midlands, so people speak around here closet to some old English.
Fægen tōgēane þū, Ic cume of Duddlee
Although I understand little of old English, I really love to hear it spoken. I’m not sure why they didn’t identify Seamus Heaney. I’m so sad that he passed away. What a great loss.
In my opinion the work diachronic of the linguist is highly professional. Greetings from El Salvador.
Epochal. Purest and most fluent history I've encountered.
How does this not have more views and likes? Fantastic documentary!
Deligtful series.
Love the interview with the late great Seamus Heaney.
Very interesting thank you for uploading.
SO interesting. I have always wondered about the origins of the English language. This documentary really explains it all....extremely educational, I loved it!
thank you so much for this rich offering of knowledge, helpful for much more than the history of the language
fascinating...I have long wondered about howt the English language came to be
I am linguistic and I enjoy this series and everyone's comments.. Thank you!
Fascinating program
I love this language.
I remember seeing this episode on TV some years ago. I don't remember seeing any other episodes. I wish all the episodes of the series become available one day!
Thank you for sharing this with us!! I adore the English language! It has mystery and adventure and murder (The Professor and the Madman :A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary) A favorite book of mine. I love to break down words and find out where they come from and to diagram sentences. Words are like food to me and I find them delicious and a pleasure to digest!! =:)
Fantastic and Educational program, can't wait to see the rest of this series. Thank for this download.
I love my language, English. Great, expressive language.
Wow!!! Love this new channel. Great history of English!!
Absolutely fascinating and educational!
Fascinating video and history lesson!
I will always come back here to watch the documentary when I go astray
17:05 Hearing the Lord's prayer in old English really invoked some deep feelings. I'm not overly religious but it's beautifully haunting to hear how my ancestors would've spoke a millennia ago and still have it sound somewhat intelligible.
I live in northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein) and I still learned the old Low German language (Plattdütsch) from my grandparents and parents. Because I also lived many years in Northern Friesland, I also can good understand the Frisian language and I learned Danish at the citizens high school and by Danish friends. So I could understand over 80 percent of this prayer in Old English language, so many words are very similar to this 3 languages... I absolutely have to hear or read more old English language, it is very fascinating.
This was very well done
Many thanks for sharing it!
really interesting! Love doco's like this!
This documentary is very informative and helpful for me as an upcoming English language freshman. Thank you so much!
Put subtitles on and you'll even discover yet another variant of English.
Thanks for that... I needed that laugh tonight!
I have a class project and i need to subtitle this into my own language but i can't understand some parts can u help me if you are not busy?:(
SUN 90 yup no problem
"go throng the Danish invader" (should be "Guthrun, the Danish invader")
Those who express their appreciation do so, so well.
I'm a huge nerd,.... love languages and documentaries,....
Whooohooohooo! I love this. At first I thought...😴..but how pleasantly suprising, entertaining and educating! Thank you for posting!
Vraiment magnifique!!! Merci infinement.
I saw this years ago. Have the DVD. Quiet brilliant!
Es extraordinariamente interesante. It helps a lot to understand and to love British cultura
Marvelous, edifying series. Thankyou.
Just discovered this series. Excellent, very interesting.
interesting to see what all the languages English, Dutch, German, Skandinavian languages have in common. I live in Germany, bout 30 miles north of Hamburg. Having learned the old NorthGerman dialect "Plattdeutsch" ( =Low German) makes me understand Dutch pretty well too.
here in my part of Germany we also have quite some villages which names end with -by.
Thats a relic of times of Danish occupation until 19th century.
I was born speaking English, but being Spanish, that was my second language growing up! But I must confess, Spanish has NOTHING on the English language! Excellent first episode of this brilliant series!
roberto abrams Actually, Spanish has a very similar evolution from Latin. Lots of contact with other languages (Celtic, Basque, Arabic, among other tribal Iberian languages). A similar process of a loss of distinctive noun declension and other syntactical simplification. It’s quite fascinating, too.
very enjoyable, useful and informative. Thanks for programmes like this!
I am trying to improve my english each day.
Thanks to this documentary I understood some names came strange to my ears!
Excellent series!
Very pleasant narrator as to listning to.
English- the Lingua Franca of our modern world.
Que
You do know what Franca means, and where the word comes from ? 🤔
@Zelda Zonk....I'm assuming that you think 'franca' is related to the word, French. Educate yourself by consulting Wikipedia as to the origin of 'lingua franca'.
@@2eleven48 The word is from Italian ( or/with frankish origin )and was said during the 17th century or even before
Thank you " LD Linguistiks " for sharing this post. God Bless.
So interesting! Thank you
Robert McNeil did a spectacular series on PBS 30 years ago.
I like this English old launagage and me English word learning and work job any other countryies
fantastic video.
There must be something to the English language - seems like most of the world wants to speak it. For me there is no other language I desire to learn.
38:59 Establishing Common Literacy AND Higher Education? Amazing.
AWESOME on Alfred the Great.
This is an old series which I have watched three times and enjoyed it immensely. Watch 'Invasion of the Anglo Saxons' with Frances Pryor which has updated/alternate information in it about the invasion, language and other topics. It's very interesting.
One caveat about Bede's "Ecclesiastical History" is that it was written about the Anglo-Saxon invasion about 400 years later based largely on legends, which as Bill Bryson put it, would be like us writing about Elizabethan England based mainly on hearsay.
Am going to watch this when I have time.
I've lost count of the number of times I've watched this, possibly endleofan or twelf.
Amazing documentary, thank You!
Nastasja Zecevic xxxxx
And what does that mean?
Fascinating
This is surprisingly interesting.
English absorbing Old Norse words wouldn't take it further away from its Germanic roots, because Old Norse was also a Germanic language.
True, but they sat on different branches of the Germanic tree. English was West Germanic while Old Norse was North Germanic.
Matthew Longley That is true.
Yea, and also there was an Ost Germanic in wich Ostgotts were speaking. This language died but many words from it came into west and ost slavic languages. For example russian word "khleb" (bread) is theirs.
I assume it came from latin. In modern Italian the word "corsa" means horse racing.
'Hors' is the old English word for a horse and it comes from the Proto-Germanic '*hrussą'. 'Blanca' is just a particular kind of horse, specifically one that is white or grey.
Plattdeutsch, the language spoken by the weatherman here, can be understood by people speaking scottish ( not celtish1 of gaelic) in Scotland. Plattdeutsch speakers can communicate with people who speak that old scottish. tongue.
It's not Plattdeutsch it's West Frisian. both languages are closely related
Having watched a few episodes I realised that it is virtually a copy of the 1986 production, "The Story of English" with the Canadian broadcaster, Robert McNeil and others being hosts for the series. The episodes are listed on the DVD as 1. An English Speaking World, 2. The Mother Tongue, 3. A Muse of Fire, 4. The Guid Scots Tongue, 5. Black on White, 6. Pioneer O Pioneer, 7. Muvver Tongue, 8. The Loaded Weapon and 9. Next Year's Words. The episodes were filmed in many locations around the world and include some fascinating materials not included in History of the English Language. Maybe somebody could make a version incorporating the best of both. Just my opinion.
I remember that series. It was truly FANTASTIC and should be available on UA-cam
english rules the world !!!!
``Dieu et mon droit`` as written on the royal badge will give a partial insight about the origin of English.
English- the reason Britain is the most influential country of all time.
It was the vastness of the Empire and global success of the USA that put English there.
Lastly, quite a few French words are of Germanic origin (y'know, the Franks), including "guard", "dance" and "shock".
God bless England
Portugal has a lot of Germanic words.
Shakespear one of people who developed English language by added many new words to dictionary
How interesting to start with Friesland in The Netherlands. My first language is Dutch, I have read some text in medieval English and to my surprise it must be easier for Dutch & Friesian people of nowadays to understand medieval English, than for the modern English people.
Because so many short 3 - 5 letter words are almost the same in English and Dutch language I have the impression there was already a common basic language the moment the North Sea (during ice age) was nothing more than a small river and people could walk to England.
At my house, when we refer to anything as being passed down in the English tradition, we usually mean it's passed from mother to son, then back to mother.
And now, once again, we are in great danger of being pushed to the edge!
It has often been wondered why, as Saxons founded Essex, Sussex, Wessex and Middlesex, what became of the North Saxons?
They settled in Nosex, and failed to thrive. (I'm here all week.)
Hehe a pity that no one responded to your cheek. Lemme be the first of many likes.
24:00 Vikings!
27:00 king Alfred
37:24 English in the books
41:20
the '-by' ending doesn't so much mean farm as 'berg' in german (equivalent) and is pronounced 'bü' - you can find many such towns in modern denmark
nice..thank you..
Great
Is there a part 2 of this series? It seems to skip to part 3.
Hello, thank you for this. I Noticed you seem to jump to part 3 in your videos and don't have a part two. Is that correct or are they mislabeled? Thank you again for the upload! 💕
Today around 40% of the English vocabulary consists of french words.
My Dad’s mother was of all Danish blood or so we thought. However, DNA shows my dad was 20% English. . My grandmother was 40% English blood. Interestingly her family had never been to England. So, I gather my Danish ancestors took English wives back to Denmark..
Richard Stueland Or the DNA tests are shitty. I'm sorry but some people just don't realise how mich of a scam those things are.
You can only pinpoint a single line of DNA passed down. All other DNA you have is not shown. Those tests only show the DNA that was passed down that YOU now have. It won't show your actual ancestors.
And theres no definitive group of "race". It will show english because you have genes a b and c and statistically most english people have genes a b and c. But you could have been from a completely different place!
Sorry i'm a nerd.
🇩🇰 🏴 🇩🇰 🏴 🇩🇰
Or its just showing northern European white Caucasian blood. I agree those tests arent very accurate
@@princessfluffybottom1933
Agreed,we English are a mongrel breed...
but the 'up thumb' is for your Monica.
Richard Stueland - Well the English (Angles) are from southern Denmark, so not too surprising that your Danish grandmother had 'English' DNA.
Lovely documentary! Regarding Runes: why do you fail to mention the magical, divination uses of the alphabet?
Great documentary. If you enjoyed it, I warn you: Don't read beyond the first 2 or 3 comments. Such an interesting & well-presented subject has been turned into an excuse to insult oneanother by the boring herd of know-it-alls in the comments.
I wonder what William the Conqueror would've thought to know what would become of the Bayeux Tapestry almost a thousand years later.
Beowulf sounds like something straight out of "Lord of the Rings". Which shouldn't surprise me...
Tolkein was a serious anglo-saxon scholar and much of his ideas derive from anglo-saxon and norse mythology, language and society.
Man, I sure would love to hear Beowulf read in its entirety by whoever that is at 18:06. I'd love to hear it read in English by the guy at 19:43, too. Only his first name (Seamus) is mentioned?