Summary: This program travels the globe as it surveys a large portion of the world's languages-25 percent of which are spoken by a mere 0.1 percent of the Earth's population. Moving from Africa to Oceania and up to Asia and then west to Europe and across the ocean to the Americas, the program assesses how many languages are spoken in each region, the characteristics they share, and misconceptions about...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Using multilingual Hong Kong as a case in point, this program makes the hot-button phenomenon known as language-mixing easily accessible to any viewer through interviews with dozens of Hong Kong residents. Their explanations of why and when they mix Cantonese and English reveal much about cultural identity in cosmopolitan populations and the effects of globalization. Scholarly analysis is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, John McWhorter, author of The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language; Lyle Campbell, of the University of Utah; Brian Joseph, of The Ohio State University; and population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza examine factors that contributed to the diversification and spread of languages, including early migration, the introduction of agriculture, and genes. Language...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Melvyn Bragg begins the story of English in Holland, finding ancestral echoes in the Frisian dialect. What follows is a chapter on survival as the English language weathers Viking and Norman invasions, vying with and eventually absorbing rival tongues. Lively settings such as village pubs and markets bring home the lasting influence of Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Old French. The connection...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: It is predicted that within a century more than half of the world's languages will become extinct, but as languages are lost, new ones emerge naturally or are constructed. In this program, Noam Chomsky; Esperantist Thomas Eccard; endangered languages researcher Peter Ladefoged, who has since passed away; and others provide insights into the language life cycle. Topics include constructed...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: What precisely is language, and how did humans acquire it? In an effort to answer those essential questions, this program journeys back to prehistoric times in search of language's origin. But this is not a passive discussion, as Noam Chomsky; Brown University's Philip Lieberman; Johanna Nichols, of U.C. Berkeley; Stanford University's Merritt Ruhlen; professor of anthropology Richard Klein;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Writing is a relative latecomer to the history of language. This program tracks its emergence in Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica and its spread down through the millennia via conquest-usually violent, sometimes benign-and colonization. The creation of creoles and pidgins resulting from the interaction of specific populations is also addressed, and speculation is made about the first things...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: The world is a mosaic of visions, and each vision is encapsulated by a language. Yet every two weeks, one of the world's approximately 6,500 languages dies out. What is the significance of this loss to those who speak the language as well as for the rest of humankind? Why do some languages become global while others disappear? And how are language and identity connected? In this program,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: English is a language spoken by two billion people, perhaps even more. This classic PBS program examines the prevalence of English in the world today and presents a historical overview of its rise. Focusing on the expansion of the British Empire and the emergence of English-language mass media, the program explains how widespread English usage survived Britain's post-WWII decolonization,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Irish experience reflects two language traditions, English and Gaelic. This classic PBS program shows how English was first established in Ireland in the 17th century and how, in cases of violent cultural conflict, language can function as a weapon. Exploring the west of Ireland today, the program identifies traces of Irish Celtic culture, despite the historical decline of the Gaelic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: As the landscape of the New World awakened England's imagination, so did a new landscape of words-in the English of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible. This classic PBS program describes the spread of English to North America and explains how Shakespeare's prodigious vocabulary filled the language with startling new words, phrases, and constructions. Recording strong echoes of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: When Massasoit hailed the Plymouth settlers in their own language, they might have taken it for a sign that English would dominate the New World. Packed with surprising etymologies and intriguing stories, this program traces the dynamic relationship between English and America, exploring the linguistic influence of westward expansion, cowboy culture, slave culture, and encounters with the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The average person will speak approximately 370 million words in his or her lifetime-a simple fact. And yet the underlying structures-sociological, anatomical, developmental, intellectual-have proved to be some of science's most impenetrable mysteries. This program spotlights researchers who are unlocking the deepest secrets of speech: Deb Roy and the Human Speechome Project; Tecumseh Fitch and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Written language is arguably humankind's most important invention. This delightfully accessible documentary uses maps, tables, artifacts, and copious examples to trace the progression of communication through its six stages: gestures, picture writing, pictograms, ideograms, phonograms, and acrophonic characters. Through detailed narration, the program explores topics such as the function of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the 19th century, English spread throughout the British Empire-but which English? This classic PBS program traces the roots of white Commonwealth English to Cockney, the language of London's working class. Explaining the influence of Cockney on modern, standardized speech, the program shows how, in fact, the accents of BBC English are gradually becoming modified by Cockney speech...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Has any single person shaped English more than William Shakespeare? This program uses unparalleled access to some of the greatest English texts, including the first English dictionary and a rare first folio of Shakespeare's plays, to illustrate the great Bard's influence. John Barton, honorary associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, discusses the sound and accessibility of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Gullah-the African-influenced dialect of Georgia's Sea Islands-has undergone few changes since the first slave ships landed 300 years ago, and provides a clear window into the shaping of African-American English. This classic PBS program traces that story from the west coast of Africa through the American South, then to large northern cities in the 1920s. Studying the origins of West African...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Both westward expansion and 19th-century immigration affected the development of a uniquely American English. This classic PBS program tells the story of that burgeoning dialect, from the Revolutionary War to the 1920s. Beginning with the Declaration of Independence, the program depicts the determination of American radicals-dictionary author Noah Webster among them-to achieve linguistic as...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program follows Robert MacNeil down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Appalachia, Louisiana Cajun country, and the Tex-Mex border to examine Southern dialects and accents and the influences of French and Spanish on American English. Linguist Walt Wolfram, columnist Molly Ivins, pop country singer Cody James, and others talk about regional differences in vernacular, the steady displacement...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: With the Norman invasion, English became a third language in its own country, behind French and Latin. In this program, Melvyn Bragg examines the impact of Old French on the development of English. Manuscripts, tapestries, and dozens of curious etymologies help illustrate a tremendous influx of vocabulary pertaining to romance, chivalry, and, of course, food. The influence of Eleanor of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Amok, "boomerang," "bungalow," "bangle," "dumdum," "plonk," "assassin"-these are some of the many words that have entered English by way of colonial expansion. This program explores how the British Empire in its heyday exported its language around the globe and how different forms of speech and vocabulary, as well as different attitudes to English, developed out of that colonial expansion. Rich...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In late-medieval England, English quietly ousted French in law and government- but the move to make it God's language meant bloodshed. This program looks at the battle for a Bible in English, a struggle with huge impact on the language itself. Dramatic readings from successive English Bibles show the language's evolution. Location footage and original manuscripts illustrate key figures and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, Robert MacNeil canvasses the North to learn firsthand about linguistic dialect zones, the tension between prescriptivism and descriptivism, the impact of dialect on grapholect, the northern cities vowel shift, the roots of African-American English, minority dialects and linguistic profiling, biases against nonstandard speech, and the general perception of the U.S. Midland...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program explores how America's rise as an economic power made it the driving force behind the spread of English in the 20th century. A world tour illustrates how English has mixed with other languages-from "Franglais" in France to "Singlish" in Singapore-and how the dollar's power, coupled with the lure of consumerism, has made English the international trade language. Bringing it full...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006