| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (51 min. 34 sec.) ; 309737799 bytes |
| Summary |
This eight-part series traces the journey of the English language, telling the incredible story of how English survived against all the odds. In this episode Melvyn Bragg travels to Australia, India and the Caribbean. The forces of empire spread English around the globe, until it could truly be claimed that the sun never set on the English language. The English language however pushed hundreds of local languages aside. In Australia, English was coloured by a few of the local Aboriginal words - kangaroo, koala, boomerang, barramundi, woomera and cooee. Australian-English quickly developed its own character and was shaped not so much by the local native languages but by the regional and criminal backgrounds of the early settlers. Some words we now think of as typically Australian were in fact imported dialect words that have died out in England but hung on in their new home - cobber, dinkum, digger. The new Australians acquired their most colourful vocabulary from the criminal slang of 18th Century London. Some of the words they used are familiar to us now - chum, swag, job, mug, pigs, beak, lark, put up job, stow it. All these words can be found in the criminal language of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. (From the UK, in English) (Part 7) |
| Event |
Broadcast 2007-11-09 at 19:30:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: PG |
| Subject |
Aboriginal Australians -- Languages.
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Australianisms.
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English language -- Phraseology.
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English language -- Pronunciation.
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Vocabulary.
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Australia.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Wattis, Nigel, director
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Bragg, Melvyn, host
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