Fry's Planet Word II

The DVD arrived this morning and I've already watched the first two episodes - it is absolutely marvellous !!! Extremely interesting, highly informative, and - for someone like me who absolutely loves everything to do with language - at times truly beautiful.

In the first episode, Stephen explores how language makes us different from other mammals and how we acquire language. As I did English Language at college, I knew quite a few things already (thanks to my teachers Paul & Tony), but it nevertheless was fascinating. I was particularly absorbed by the bit about sign language. Stephen talked to an English and a German sign language speaker about the differences of their country's respective sign language (they do have different signs for Hitler for a start, not surprisingly really...Germans think of Hitler in a different way than English people, I would assume. Well, I know they do) and how new words and names enter their language. For example, the sign for Barack Obama is an 'O' followed by the hand imitating a flag (for America)... and Madonna is indicated by miming pointed breasts, which I thought was hilarious.

The second episode is about different accents and how language gives us identity. I especially liked the bit about Irish, as I think it a beautiful language that I would love to learn one day (well better earlier than later, as we all know learning new languages becomes harder the older we get). The bit about the French Academy made me a little angry, but I suppose that's just the coming together of my belief that regional accents are important and beautiful and my general hate for everything French. I was however quite surprised that I was able to understand bits of both an obscure French dialect (the name escapes me at the moment) and Basque - so five years of Latin and two of Spanish weren't wasted.

Anyway, I'm sure I will have watched the remaining episodes before this week is over (which means by tomorrow) and I strongly recommend it to anybody even remotely interested in language (not just English). It is also really funny at times. Go and watch!