Language is intrinsic to being human. And yet, notwithstanding the 70-odd muscles and half a billion brain cells deployed every time we open our mouths, we hardly give the matter a second thought.
I was in two minds about committing to five hours of Stephen Fry telling me this; but as the opening credits rolled on Fry's Planet Word, and while he was still saying "the story of language is surely one of the greatest stories we have", I was hooked.
As it turned out, only three of the five episodes were on YouTube.
Episode 3
Episode 5
However, I had the book in my library, and so I continued with the written word. Fry's Planet Written Word. Read it here.
