Fry's Planet Word
Submitted by Floor Basten on Sun 13 Nov 11 - 15:47
in this five-part series, Stephen Fry explores language in all its amazing complexity, variety and ingenuity
In his five-part series Fry's Planet Word, Stephen Fry comes to understand how we learn language, write it, sometimes lose it, why it defines us to the very core of our being and can make us laugh, cry, tear our hair out and simply inspire us.
There are five episodes:
- Babel (on the origins of human language): our brain is uniquely hard-wired for language.
- Identity (on how language defines us): we interpret and define ourselves through our language.
- Uses and Abuses: the parts of the brain associated with swearing.
- Spreading the Word (on the written word): Communication across space and time, thus creating history and technology.
- The Power and the Glory (on storytelling): the desire to both entertain and explain has resulted in the flowering of language to describe every aspect of the human condition.
The full documentary is not always available, but the comments by viewers are enlightening in themselves.