Birth of a Language

The story of the English language is an extraordinary one. It has the characteristics of a bold and successful adventure: tenacity, luck, near extinction on more than one occasion, dazzling flexibility, and an extraordinary power to absorb. And it's still going on. New dialects, new Englishes, are evolving all the time all over the world. But every story needs a beginning and, in the case at hand, who better than Lord Melvyn Bragg and the BBC to recount the tale of the birth of this remarkable language?

Stirring Saxon Words

Every single one of the 100 most frequently used words in the English language is of Anglo-Saxon origin. So are all the following words from Prime Minister Winston Churchill´s 4 June 1940 address to the House of Commons ― save one. Care to hazard a guess which is the sole exception? “We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds; we shall fight in the fields and the streets; we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” To unearth the Norman invader, see English Comes From Holland and Germany.