The History of the English Language in Ten Minutes

Russell discovered this YouTube video, a compilation of Open University's History of the English Language in 10 Minutes series, and shared it with me. It's a quick, humorous, and informative overview of the development of the English language, which is very much in keeping with this blog's featured-word theme. The video (series) also happens to be a great little piece of publicity for Open University, a UK-based online university (n.b. one of my internet friends is an OU student and she seems pleased with it).

Open University's History of the English Language in 10 Minutes is divided into ten parts: Anglo-Saxon, The Norman Conquest, Shakespeare, The King James Bible, The English of Science, English and Empire (my favorite), The Age of the Dictionary (strangely enough there's no specific mention of the OED), American English, Internet English, and Global English. You can watch them in one fell swoop¹ by following the link in the first line of this post, or one by one through the original site, linked elsewhere.

Highly recommended.

1. See MacBeth. Another phrase that could have been included in the Shakespeare episode.