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The Adventure of English

The Biography of a Language

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The Adventure of English

By: Melvyn Bragg
Narrated by: Robert Powell
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About this listen

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. Communication & Social Skills Personal Development Words, Language & Grammar Thought-Provoking Inspiring Funny Middle Ages Imperialism

Critic reviews

"Both entertaining and informative." (Booklist)

"This 'biography' succeeds in its broad, sweeping narrative." (Publishers Weekly)
All stars
Most relevant

If you could sum up The Adventure of English in three words, what would they be?

Logophile's anthropomorphic dream

What did you like best about this story?

This was a lesson in history as much as language. I had been unaware of the contributions of, say, Alfred (The Great) and Henry V to the preservation of the language.

What about Robert Powell’s performance did you like?

If anyone required convincing of the qualities of audio books vs. reading, this book would be my choice. Robert Powell is the ideal narrator to familiarise us with: Old-English; Middle-English; uses of English in America, Australia, India, Caribbean, Japan etc.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

You never knew it was in peril so many times...

Any additional comments?

This book prompted me to my first use of ‘Clips’ which can be shared with friends by email, txt, WhatsApp etc. Editing them is very straightforward, once you've experimented a little.

It's all about the sound

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I have been listening to this along with watching the television documentary. Obviously Melvyn Bragg presented the television programme and to hear from the author direct is far better than from a reader. But Robert Powell was excellent and clear in this, explaining the adventures about this wonderful language called English as I would expect from an actor of his calibre. And Mr Bragg is to be congratulated on this excellent book. A pleasure to listen to and much linguistic gossip now to spread!

Informatively riveting

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Written to Melvyn Bragg's usual high standard and extreamly well read by Robert Powel. Unfortunately the long lists of examples became tedious and if it had been a book I would have skipped through many of them.

Save this one for long days on the beach - not a commute.

Erudite - but long

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Book & performance BRILLIANT but chapters shown in app did not match chapters as read our

Organise Chapters Better

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If you are an english speaker you owe it to yourself to hear this gripping tale of a swashbuckling language and it's rise to dominance.
Superb.

Fascinating

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