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BRAGG: So far in the adventure
of English,

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we've traced the story
of the language

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through its first
thousand years,

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from the 5th century

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to its great flowering
at the time of Shakespeare.

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What began
as a minor Germanic dialect

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had comes to these shores
with the Saxons,

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endured invasion by Vikings

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and 300 years of suppression
by Norman French,

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during which time English
virtually went underground.

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It had even toppled Latin

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as the language of worship
and philosophy,

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and by the Elizabethan Age,

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English completely dominated
this sceptered isle.

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But now, the English language
was about to leave Britain.

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In the next four programmes,
we'll tell the story of the way

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in which English became
Britain's greatest export,

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some would say gift,
to the modern world

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and how it became
a global language.

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We shall see
how English travelled to India,

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where it encountered scores
of other more ancient languages,

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including Sanskrit, which did
much to mother our own tongue.

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Yet even at the end
of our imperial rule

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in the mid 20th century,

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English remains in India
as a major unifying tongue.

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We'll follow it
to the West Indies,

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where new English dialects
have been spawned,

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as rich and vigorous
as the native ones

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used by Thomas Hardy
and D.H. Lawrence.

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And to Australia,

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where once-exiled English
now reaches back

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to influence the youth
of the mother country.

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But first to the New World,

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where 1 7th-century
Puritan English

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stubbornly beat off opposition

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from native tongues
and rival European powers

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to become the language

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of what was to grow into
the greatest country on Earth,

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America.

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Subtitling made possible by
Acorn Media

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[Water lapping]

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This was the new-found land.

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To the first settlers' eyes,

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this was a vast
and, it seemed, empty space.

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And yet it's because
of their first determined steps

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onto this soil
nearly 400 years ago

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that English would one day speak
for America.

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This is Plymouth Rock.

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It's literally the foundation
stone of modern America,

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for this is the very spot where
the Pilgrim Fathers landed

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in New England in November 1 620.

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They came on the Mayflower.

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They were religious separatists,

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and they were here to create
a new community

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where they could worship
as they wished.

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They bound themselves to
an oath, the Mayflower Compact,

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swearing to found a colony
for the glory of God

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and the advancement
of the Christian faith.

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They were, above all, people
who lived by the Word of God

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in English.

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They came from a hard-line
Puritan religious tradition

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which had been persecuted
and reviled.

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They'd been tortured
and murdered

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for their faith
in an English-language Bible,

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and, to them, that Bible, that
language, meant life itself.

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They weren't the first people
on the continent.

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Native Americans had been here
for 30,000 years,

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and the woods
and the plains rang

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with the sounds of hundreds
of their languages.

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When the Pilgrim Fathers looked
around them,

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instead of a new Eden,

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they saw what they described

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as a hideous
and desolate wilderness,

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full of threat and danger.

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MAN: And for the season,
it was winter,

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and they that know
the winters of that country

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know them to be sharp
and violent

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and subject to cruel
and fierce storms,

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dangerous to travel
to known places,

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much more to search
an unknown coast.

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Besides, what could they see
but a desolate wilderness,

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full of wild beasts
and wild men?

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And what multitudes there might
be of them, they knew not.

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BRAGG: They were cold, hungry,
and prey to sickness.

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Nearly half of the company
of 1 44 died that first winter.

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It wasn't going to be easy
to turn their oath into reality

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and to give English
its toehold on the land.

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The Pilgrim Fathers had
one advantage, though.

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They had come here to stay.

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And they wanted their settlement
to be English.

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"New England"
they were to call it,

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but "True England"
might have been more accurate.

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Their first move was to build
a settlement, re-created here.

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Plimouth Plantation.

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They lived in terror
of the supposedly wild men

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in the wilderness outside.

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But before they could even
do that,

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they were to owe their survival
to one of those wild men

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and an extraordinary encounter
with the English language.

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MAN: And whilst we were busied
hereabout, we were interrupted,

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for there presented himself
a savage,

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which caused an alarm.

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He very boldly came all alone
up to the houses,

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where we intercepted him,
not suffering him to go in,

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as undoubtedly he would,
out of his boldness.

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He saluted us in English
and bade us welcome.

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BRAGG: So, "welcome" was the
first word spoken by a native

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that the Pilgrim Fathers
understood.

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The man who had come
out of the wilderness

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had picked up some words
from the English fishermen

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who worked the coast.

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Even more extraordinarily,

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he was able to introduce them
to Tisquantum,

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or Squanto as he became known.

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He is the most important man

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in this chapter
of the adventure of English.

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He'd been kidnapped by English
sailors 1 5 years before,

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taken to London,

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where he was trained to be
a guide and interpreter

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and learn English.

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Then he managed to escape
on a return visit.

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To the colonists, it must have
seemed like a miracle.

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It was the most unlikely
of all coincidences

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that they should have settled

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near the tribal home of the man
who was almost certainly

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the only English speaker
for hundreds of miles around.

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But for their extraordinary
good fortune,

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the whole history of America
might have been very different.

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For Squanto saved the colony
and... who knows? ...

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gave America
the English language.

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Squanto taught the settlers
how to farm the unfamiliar land

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and he got them through

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that terrible,
first New England winter.

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It's almost certain
that without him,

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sickness and hunger would have
wiped out the settlers.

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Against all odds, the English
colony had been saved

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by an encounter
with the English language.

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The adventure had planted
its roots in American soil.

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The settlers had a new country,

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full of new places
and geographical features,

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new animals and plants.

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They needed words
to describe them

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and, occasionally, they turned
to the native languages.

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"Skunk" was derived
from the local language,

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and "squash", for the variety
of pumpkin grown here.

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"Squaw", meaning "young woman",
was a local word,

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as was "papoose", a young child.

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And "wigwam"
was another early borrowing

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from the local languages.

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But what's really remarkable

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is not that these words did
enter the English vocabulary,

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but how few of them there were.

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For centuries,

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English had been borrowing words
in their thousands,

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from Latin, Danish, French,

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and every other language
it had come into contact with.

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But here, faced with the
richness of an entire continent,

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the English borrowed words not
in thousands, but in handfuls.

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The writings
of the Founding Fathers here

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run to thousands of pages

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but contain less than a dozen
borrowed Indian words.

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So why are there so few?

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In a strange new country,

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the English settlers
may have taken great comfort

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in making the objects around
them at least sound familiar.

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Look at the names they gave
the local terrain.

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Falmouth, Yarmouth,

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Boston, Cambridge,

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Billericay, Bedford, Taunton.

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They were trying to re-create
the English shires

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in the American wilderness.

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And perhaps
there was desperation here

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as well as determination.

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But through language...
their own...

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they would survive,
as they had in the old country.

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So they put a wall between
themselves and the native world.

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In the end, we must conclude

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that they were here to impose
their habits

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and their language on the land,

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not to be changed by it.

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Words...
God's good English words...

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were at the heart of the lives
of the settlers here.

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Improper speech was a crime.

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Blasphemy, slander,
cursing, lying, perjury,

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railing, reviling,
scolding, swearing,

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threatening, treason,
and defying authority

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were all offences.

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The colonists would try to
control the language,

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and this set the pattern
for their teaching of English.

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[Bell rings]

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And as New England grew,

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this was how they did it,
with "The New England Primer".

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CHILDREN: A...
In Adam's fall, we sinned all.

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B... Heaven to find,
the Bible mind.

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C... Christ crucified
for sinners died.

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D... The deluge drowned
the Earth around.

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BRAGG:
From the very beginning,

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Americans took immense care over
the correct teaching of English.

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It was taught well and in way
that was highly religious,

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and this set the tone
as English spread.

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It wasn't all going
English's way though.

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Other European powers
were jostling for influence

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in the New World.

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Delaware, where a Swedish
settlement had taken root,

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was conquered in 1 655

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by the Dutch admiral
Peter Stuyvesant

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and incorporated into the Dutch
New Netherlands.

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His base, New Amsterdam, was in
turn conquered by the British

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in 1 664 and renamed New York.

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There was rivalry with the
French, which turned into war.

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When it finally ended in 1 7 63,

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Britain was given sole claim
to the east of the continent

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and took a grip on the north
in Canada.

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Even the Spanish colony of
Florida came under British rule.

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But perhaps the real edge

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that gave English
a stronger presence

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than the other
European languages

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came not through the gun,
but through the ploughshare.

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The Spanish, on the whole,

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concentrated on sending armies
and priests to the New World

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and taking gold.

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The French were interested
in sending fur trappers

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and trading with the natives.

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It was only the English

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who continued the spirit
of the Pilgrim Fathers

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and came to stay.

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Persistence
and sheer weight of numbers

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eventually ensured that English,
not Spanish, Dutch, or French,

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would be the language heard
from the Atlantic Coast

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to the Appalachian Mountains.

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But as English spread,

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it also started to develop
a character of its own,

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to drift away from the language
spoken in England.

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There was already the beginnings

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of the "tomaato/tomayto"
problem.

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In some cases, meanings shifted.

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The English shop
had become an American store.

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00:11:44,838 --> 00:11:47,329
"Lumber" meant "rubbish"
in the old country.

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00:11:47,441 --> 00:11:51,605
To Americans, lumber was,
and still is, cut timber.

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00:11:51,712 --> 00:11:55,478
And "haul" came to mean
"to transport in a vehicle",

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00:11:55,582 --> 00:11:59,211
not, as in England,
"to move by force".

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American English was also
developing its own sound.

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00:12:02,856 --> 00:12:05,654
The first settlers had come
from various parts of England,

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00:12:05,759 --> 00:12:07,488
each with its own
regional accent.

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00:12:07,594 --> 00:12:09,824
But no single accent dominated.

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00:12:09,930 --> 00:12:11,397
As they talked to each other,

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00:12:11,498 --> 00:12:13,932
the variety very quickly became
a blend.

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00:12:14,034 --> 00:12:16,366
To this day, there's only

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00:12:16,470 --> 00:12:18,597
a tiny variation in accents
across America

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00:12:18,705 --> 00:12:19,603
compared to Britain,

251
00:12:19,706 --> 00:12:22,971
and the further west you go,
the more true that becomes.

252
00:12:23,076 --> 00:12:24,566
By the middle
of the 1 8th century,

253
00:12:24,678 --> 00:12:28,079
the absence of regional
pronunciations and dialect words

254
00:12:28,181 --> 00:12:31,207
was being noted approvingly
by upper-class British visitors,

255
00:12:31,318 --> 00:12:33,650
who regarded
all such variations as vulgar.

256
00:12:33,754 --> 00:12:35,984
In 1 7 64, Lord Gordon wrote,

257
00:12:36,089 --> 00:12:39,024
"The propriety of language here
surprised me much.

258
00:12:39,126 --> 00:12:41,890
The English tongue being spoken
by all ranks

259
00:12:41,995 --> 00:12:43,986
in a degree of purity
and perfection,

260
00:12:44,097 --> 00:12:46,395
surpassing any
but the polite part of London."

261
00:12:46,500 --> 00:12:49,492
It's a sentiment that would be
repeated again and again,

262
00:12:49,603 --> 00:12:52,299
that the Americans
didn't just speak good English.

263
00:12:52,405 --> 00:12:55,067
They spoke it better
than the English themselves.

264
00:13:01,348 --> 00:13:03,441
It wasn't only where language
was concerned

265
00:13:03,550 --> 00:13:05,450
that the colonists began
to stand up to the English.

266
00:13:05,552 --> 00:13:08,316
Tension was growing between them
and the Crown.

267
00:13:08,421 --> 00:13:12,755
In 1 7 7 5, here on this bridge
at Concord in Massachusetts,

268
00:13:12,859 --> 00:13:17,193
7 5 American volunteers
confronted 7 00 British troops.

269
00:13:17,297 --> 00:13:18,958
[Gunshot]

270
00:13:19,065 --> 00:13:21,499
One of them fired
what has ever since been called,

271
00:13:21,601 --> 00:13:23,000
with a touch of hyperbole,

272
00:13:23,103 --> 00:13:25,196
"the shot heard
round the world".

273
00:13:25,305 --> 00:13:26,272
Revolution had begun.

274
00:13:26,373 --> 00:13:27,738
A year later,

275
00:13:27,841 --> 00:13:29,638
1 3 colonies declared
their independence

276
00:13:29,743 --> 00:13:33,406
and did so in perfect, what we
might call classical, English.

277
00:13:35,282 --> 00:13:38,080
MAN: We hold these truths
to be self-evident,

278
00:13:38,185 --> 00:13:40,050
that all men are created equal,

279
00:13:40,153 --> 00:13:41,745
that they are endowed
by their Creator

280
00:13:41,855 --> 00:13:43,914
with certain unalienable rights,

281
00:13:44,024 --> 00:13:46,185
that among these
are Life, Liberty,

282
00:13:46,293 --> 00:13:47,351
and the pursuit of Happiness.

283
00:13:47,460 --> 00:13:48,358
BRAGG:
John Adams,

284
00:13:48,461 --> 00:13:50,861
who would become the second
president of the United States,

285
00:13:50,964 --> 00:13:51,988
wrote of a future

286
00:13:52,098 --> 00:13:54,794
in which all Americans
spoke the language equally well,

287
00:13:54,901 --> 00:13:56,994
in which eloquence would be
the way to high office

288
00:13:57,103 --> 00:13:58,502
and no-one would be excluded

289
00:13:58,605 --> 00:14:01,301
because their speech betrayed
inferior origins.

290
00:14:01,408 --> 00:14:03,706
It was the birth
of a democratic ideal

291
00:14:03,810 --> 00:14:05,710
that's still part
of the American myth...

292
00:14:05,812 --> 00:14:07,609
that anyone can become president

293
00:14:07,714 --> 00:14:08,908
and everyone would have

294
00:14:09,015 --> 00:14:11,108
a presidential vocabulary
and accent.

295
00:14:11,218 --> 00:14:13,118
This was no longer
the King's English,

296
00:14:13,220 --> 00:14:14,949
but perhaps
the People's English.

297
00:14:15,055 --> 00:14:17,546
And they wanted to set it
in stone.

298
00:14:17,657 --> 00:14:20,091
This is another foundation
of America.

299
00:14:20,193 --> 00:14:22,753
Not a rock,
but a little blue book.

300
00:14:22,863 --> 00:14:24,194
It was written

301
00:14:24,297 --> 00:14:26,629
by a schoolteacher called
Noah Webster.

302
00:14:26,733 --> 00:14:28,291
Through the last years
of the 1 8th century

303
00:14:28,401 --> 00:14:29,299
and the 1 9th century,

304
00:14:29,402 --> 00:14:31,996
it was sold in countless
general stores like this one,

305
00:14:32,105 --> 00:14:34,471
stacked among the tins
of molasses and sacks of beans,

306
00:14:34,574 --> 00:14:37,065
the snake oils, paraffin lamps,
and shovels.

307
00:14:37,177 --> 00:14:39,873
It soon became known
as the "American Spelling Book",

308
00:14:39,980 --> 00:14:41,641
or the "Blue Backed Speller".

309
00:14:41,748 --> 00:14:44,046
It sold at 1 4 cents a copy,

310
00:14:44,150 --> 00:14:47,483
and in its first hundred years,
it sold 60 million copies...

311
00:14:47,587 --> 00:14:49,817
more than any other book
in American history

312
00:14:49,923 --> 00:14:51,481
with the exception of the Bible.

313
00:14:51,591 --> 00:14:53,889
This is one of
the most influential books

314
00:14:53,994 --> 00:14:55,928
in the history of English.

315
00:14:55,829 --> 00:14:59,162
[Bell rings]

316
00:14:59,266 --> 00:15:02,064
WOMAN:
The first word is "academic".

317
00:15:02,169 --> 00:15:04,797
The first sound is A-C.

318
00:15:04,905 --> 00:15:06,839
- Ac.
- Perfect.

319
00:15:06,940 --> 00:15:09,067
The next part is "ah".

320
00:15:09,176 --> 00:15:10,666
Ah.

321
00:15:10,777 --> 00:15:12,369
D-E-M.

322
00:15:12,479 --> 00:15:13,673
Dem.

323
00:15:13,780 --> 00:15:15,611
- L-C.
- Ic.

324
00:15:15,716 --> 00:15:16,648
All together.

325
00:15:16,750 --> 00:15:18,115
Academic.

326
00:15:18,218 --> 00:15:20,209
Democratic.

327
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:22,481
D-E-M.

328
00:15:22,589 --> 00:15:23,487
Dem.

329
00:15:23,590 --> 00:15:24,784
BRAGG:
The hundreds of words

330
00:15:24,891 --> 00:15:26,324
and model sentences
in Webster's book

331
00:15:26,426 --> 00:15:28,155
have been repeated
by millions of children

332
00:15:28,261 --> 00:15:29,387
on countless occasions.

333
00:15:29,496 --> 00:15:30,758
All together.

334
00:15:30,864 --> 00:15:32,456
Democratic.

335
00:15:32,566 --> 00:15:33,533
Very nice.

336
00:15:33,633 --> 00:15:35,157
And the practice is thought

337
00:15:35,268 --> 00:15:37,168
to have changed the sound
of the language.

338
00:15:37,270 --> 00:15:40,034
To this day, Americans
tend to pronounce words

339
00:15:40,140 --> 00:15:42,438
with a far more even emphasis
than the English

340
00:15:42,542 --> 00:15:43,702
and, in particular,

341
00:15:43,810 --> 00:15:46,370
than the clipped vowels
of the English aristocracy,

342
00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:48,914
whose influence
Webster wanted to oppose.

343
00:15:49,015 --> 00:15:51,074
Where the English say
"cemet'ry",

344
00:15:51,184 --> 00:15:53,084
the Americans have "cemetery".

345
00:15:53,186 --> 00:15:56,815
English "laborat'ry",
American "laboratory".

346
00:15:56,923 --> 00:15:59,483
But pronunciation wasn't all
that he influenced.

347
00:15:59,593 --> 00:16:02,756
It was from this book that
America learned how to spell.

348
00:16:02,863 --> 00:16:06,026
Correct spelling came to be seen
as a standard of education

349
00:16:06,133 --> 00:16:07,691
and civilisation
throughout America,

350
00:16:07,801 --> 00:16:09,393
and it still is today.

351
00:16:09,503 --> 00:16:11,494
And the spelling bee became
part of the life

352
00:16:11,605 --> 00:16:13,573
of every town and village.

353
00:16:13,673 --> 00:16:15,573
WOMAN: This morning we're going
to start our spelling lesson

354
00:16:15,675 --> 00:16:17,267
with practice
for the spelling bee

355
00:16:17,377 --> 00:16:18,401
that we're going to be doing.

356
00:16:18,512 --> 00:16:20,446
The first word is "syllable".

357
00:16:20,547 --> 00:16:21,639
Sometimes when you study words,

358
00:16:21,748 --> 00:16:23,477
you might break them
into syllable patterns.

359
00:16:23,583 --> 00:16:24,777
BRAGG:
Webster's book

360
00:16:24,885 --> 00:16:26,785
standardised spelling
across America,

361
00:16:26,887 --> 00:16:27,979
and he also tried to improve

362
00:16:28,088 --> 00:16:30,716
on inconsistent
and illogical spellings.

363
00:16:30,824 --> 00:16:33,918
The next word is "democracy".

364
00:16:36,963 --> 00:16:38,760
D-E-M...

365
00:16:38,865 --> 00:16:41,698
O...

366
00:16:41,802 --> 00:16:43,736
C-R-Y.

367
00:16:43,837 --> 00:16:45,532
Under Webster's system,

368
00:16:45,639 --> 00:16:46,867
"honour", "colour",

369
00:16:46,973 --> 00:16:50,170
and a score of similar words
lost their "U".

370
00:16:52,212 --> 00:16:54,271
Double letters were reduced
to single ones,

371
00:16:54,381 --> 00:16:58,283
like the "L" in "traveller"
or the "G" in waggon.

372
00:16:59,719 --> 00:17:04,713
"E-R" replaced "R-E" as the
ending of "theatre" or "centre".

373
00:17:04,825 --> 00:17:07,885
"Defence" with a "C"
became "defense" with an "S".

374
00:17:07,994 --> 00:17:09,586
"Axe" lost its "E".

375
00:17:09,696 --> 00:17:12,324
- Ax.
- A-X.

376
00:17:12,432 --> 00:17:14,525
Perfect. I see you've all been
doing your homework.

377
00:17:14,634 --> 00:17:17,034
BRAGG:
England had made the language,

378
00:17:17,137 --> 00:17:19,765
but America had begun to claim
its future.

379
00:17:19,873 --> 00:17:20,999
By the 1 820s,

380
00:17:21,107 --> 00:17:23,837
East Coast America was
presenting itself confidently

381
00:17:23,944 --> 00:17:25,411
as the guardian of English,

382
00:17:25,512 --> 00:17:27,503
beating off vulgarity
and fashion.

383
00:17:27,614 --> 00:17:29,275
There was even a cheeky motion
proposed

384
00:17:29,382 --> 00:17:30,440
in the House of Representatives

385
00:17:30,550 --> 00:17:32,677
to invite the sons
of the English aristocracy

386
00:17:32,786 --> 00:17:35,653
to come to America
to learn how to speak properly.

387
00:17:35,755 --> 00:17:38,246
Americans felt they'd kept
the English language pure

388
00:17:38,358 --> 00:17:39,552
for 200 years...

389
00:17:39,659 --> 00:17:41,490
so pure that they were still
using words

390
00:17:41,595 --> 00:17:42,493
the English had dropped,

391
00:17:42,596 --> 00:17:45,292
words like "greenhorn",
"burly", "deft",

392
00:17:45,398 --> 00:17:47,423
"scant", "talented",
and "likely".

393
00:17:47,534 --> 00:17:50,992
Americans still say "sick" to
mean ill, not just nauseous.

394
00:17:51,104 --> 00:17:52,628
They say "fall"
meaning "autumn",

395
00:17:52,739 --> 00:17:54,730
just as the English did once.

396
00:17:54,841 --> 00:17:56,775
And when Americans say
"I guess",

397
00:17:56,877 --> 00:17:58,174
they're using a form of words

398
00:17:58,278 --> 00:18:01,179
that would have been familiar
to Chaucer... egess.

399
00:18:01,281 --> 00:18:03,579
And they denied that they were
changing the language.

400
00:18:03,683 --> 00:18:04,775
When Webster published

401
00:18:04,885 --> 00:18:07,649
his groundbreaking
American dictionary in 1 828,

402
00:18:07,754 --> 00:18:09,881
he claimed that it, this,

403
00:18:09,990 --> 00:18:14,518
contained less than 50 terms
that were new to the country.

404
00:18:16,062 --> 00:18:18,292
Here was America
claiming to preserve English

405
00:18:18,398 --> 00:18:19,695
in all its past glories,

406
00:18:19,799 --> 00:18:23,200
to have erected a barrier
against change and corruption.

407
00:18:23,303 --> 00:18:25,203
But they could no more exclude

408
00:18:25,305 --> 00:18:27,364
these natural developments
in the language

409
00:18:27,474 --> 00:18:30,443
than the first colonists
could hide behind their stockade

410
00:18:30,543 --> 00:18:32,636
from the world beyond.

411
00:18:32,746 --> 00:18:34,407
John Adams had predicted

412
00:18:34,514 --> 00:18:36,414
that America would drive
the English language

413
00:18:36,516 --> 00:18:37,847
into a great future.

414
00:18:37,951 --> 00:18:40,283
His vision was prophetic.

415
00:18:40,387 --> 00:18:42,446
But the language
would be very different

416
00:18:42,555 --> 00:18:45,991
from the measured East Coast
tones that Adams had known.

417
00:18:46,092 --> 00:18:51,120
American English was going west
and going wild.

418
00:19:15,622 --> 00:19:17,920
In 1 804,
the United States purchased

419
00:19:18,024 --> 00:19:20,151
what was then called Louisiana
from the French

420
00:19:20,260 --> 00:19:21,818
for 3 cents an acre

421
00:19:21,928 --> 00:19:25,694
and more than doubled the size
of the country overnight.

422
00:19:33,873 --> 00:19:35,363
And these lands
were nothing less

423
00:19:35,475 --> 00:19:37,170
than the whole
American heartland...

424
00:19:37,277 --> 00:19:40,610
the Great Plains and prairies
drained by the Mississippi River

425
00:19:40,714 --> 00:19:44,445
and its tributaries like the
Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee.

426
00:19:44,551 --> 00:19:46,883
It stretched all the way
from New Orleans in the south

427
00:19:46,987 --> 00:19:48,147
to the Rocky Mountains

428
00:19:48,254 --> 00:19:52,486
and what is today the Canadian
border in the north.

429
00:19:56,696 --> 00:19:59,927
Jefferson, the president,
sent an expedition of 45 men,

430
00:20:00,033 --> 00:20:00,931
under the leadership

431
00:20:01,034 --> 00:20:03,332
of Captains Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark,

432
00:20:03,436 --> 00:20:05,063
into the unknown interior

433
00:20:05,172 --> 00:20:09,472
in search of a navigable
river route to the West Coast.

434
00:20:13,613 --> 00:20:15,410
Lewis and Clark's expedition

435
00:20:15,515 --> 00:20:18,916
became one of the epic journeys
in the history of exploration.

436
00:20:19,019 --> 00:20:20,884
It started here, in St. Louis,

437
00:20:20,987 --> 00:20:22,113
on the great junction

438
00:20:22,222 --> 00:20:24,156
where the Mississippi
and the Missouri Rivers

439
00:20:24,257 --> 00:20:25,281
come together.

440
00:20:25,392 --> 00:20:27,724
Lewis and Clark
were Army-trained frontiersmen,

441
00:20:27,828 --> 00:20:29,159
backwoods specialists,

442
00:20:29,262 --> 00:20:32,789
and because Jefferson insisted
on daily journals being kept,

443
00:20:32,899 --> 00:20:34,457
their expedition was recorded,

444
00:20:34,568 --> 00:20:36,661
not in the Puritan language
of faith,

445
00:20:36,770 --> 00:20:39,170
nor in Webster's urbane prose,

446
00:20:39,272 --> 00:20:41,740
but in the practical language
of the frontier.

447
00:20:41,842 --> 00:20:44,402
And this is crucial,
because it marks the beginning

448
00:20:44,511 --> 00:20:46,570
not only
of the opening of the continent,

449
00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:49,080
but of the decline
of the East Coast's grip

450
00:20:49,182 --> 00:20:50,945
on American English.

451
00:20:54,754 --> 00:20:57,188
MAN: We finished butchering
the buffalo,

452
00:20:57,290 --> 00:20:58,655
and on my return to camp,

453
00:20:58,758 --> 00:21:00,623
I trod within a few inches
of a rattlesnake

454
00:21:00,727 --> 00:21:02,991
but fortunately escaped
his bite.

455
00:21:03,096 --> 00:21:06,065
We also passed another creek
and a very bad rapid

456
00:21:06,166 --> 00:21:08,066
which reached
quite across the river.

457
00:21:08,168 --> 00:21:10,864
A female elk and its fawn swam
down through the waves,

458
00:21:10,971 --> 00:21:11,960
which ran very high,

459
00:21:12,072 --> 00:21:13,801
hence the name of Elk Rapids,

460
00:21:13,907 --> 00:21:16,398
which we instantly gave
this place.

461
00:21:16,509 --> 00:21:18,943
Opposite to these rapids,
there is a high bluff

462
00:21:19,045 --> 00:21:20,774
and a little above
on the larboard,

463
00:21:20,881 --> 00:21:23,873
a small cottonwood bottom in
which we found sufficient timber

464
00:21:23,984 --> 00:21:26,544
for our fires and encampment.

465
00:21:26,653 --> 00:21:29,816
BRAGG: These are words peculiar
to America

466
00:21:29,923 --> 00:21:31,550
or in a peculiarly
American use.

467
00:21:31,658 --> 00:21:33,751
In England,
a creek is a tidal inlet.

468
00:21:33,860 --> 00:21:35,725
In America,
it's broadened its meaning

469
00:21:35,829 --> 00:21:37,296
to cover all manner of streams.

470
00:21:37,397 --> 00:21:40,389
Adjectives turn into nouns.
Rapid into rapids.

471
00:21:40,500 --> 00:21:43,401
And "bluff" was coined here
to describe flat cliffs.

472
00:21:43,503 --> 00:21:44,731
"Rattlesnake" was another

473
00:21:44,838 --> 00:21:47,033
of those descriptive
combinations of English words,

474
00:21:47,140 --> 00:21:48,368
as was "cottonwood".

475
00:21:48,475 --> 00:21:50,670
And "elk" is one of the words
imported from England

476
00:21:50,777 --> 00:21:52,176
and applied
to a different beast.

477
00:21:52,279 --> 00:21:54,509
"Buffalo", though,
had been an English word

478
00:21:54,614 --> 00:21:55,842
for over two centuries,

479
00:21:55,949 --> 00:21:59,282
imported from a Portuguese book
about China.

480
00:22:00,553 --> 00:22:02,282
Lewis and Clark's journals
include

481
00:22:02,389 --> 00:22:05,119
not Webster's 50 words
peculiar to America,

482
00:22:05,225 --> 00:22:06,556
but over 2,000 of them.

483
00:22:06,660 --> 00:22:08,287
Most are names of objects,

484
00:22:08,395 --> 00:22:10,329
a great catalogue
of flora and fauna

485
00:22:10,430 --> 00:22:13,399
and man-made items
that were new to English eyes.

486
00:22:13,500 --> 00:22:16,731
Words like "hickory", "hominy",
"maize", "moccasin",

487
00:22:16,836 --> 00:22:19,805
"moose", "opossum",
"pecan", "persimmon",

488
00:22:19,906 --> 00:22:22,534
"toboggan" are derived
from native languages,

489
00:22:22,642 --> 00:22:25,577
as well as more obscure words
like "kinnikinnick",

490
00:22:25,679 --> 00:22:27,579
a mixture of leaves for smoking;

491
00:22:27,681 --> 00:22:30,980
"pemmican", a preserved mixture
of meat, fat, and berries;

492
00:22:31,084 --> 00:22:33,518
and "tamarack", a kind of larch.

493
00:22:33,620 --> 00:22:35,212
Others are English coinages

494
00:22:35,322 --> 00:22:37,654
with descriptive properties
of their own.

495
00:22:37,757 --> 00:22:40,624
The whippoorwill, a bird named
by the sound of its call;

496
00:22:40,727 --> 00:22:41,921
or the mockingbird,

497
00:22:42,028 --> 00:22:46,362
a name inspired by its habit of
imitating other birds' songs.

498
00:22:46,466 --> 00:22:48,434
And there are
hundreds of names made

499
00:22:48,535 --> 00:22:50,469
by combining
existing English words,

500
00:22:50,570 --> 00:22:53,505
from "black bear", "bluegrass",
"bottomland",

501
00:22:53,606 --> 00:22:56,439
"backtrack", "box alder",
"brown thrush",

502
00:22:56,543 --> 00:23:00,035
"buckeye", "bullfrog",
"bald eagle", and "blue jay"

503
00:23:00,146 --> 00:23:02,808
to "sapsucker", "snowberry",
"snowshoe",

504
00:23:02,916 --> 00:23:05,908
"sugar maple", "whistling swan",
"timberland", "tumblebug",

505
00:23:06,019 --> 00:23:08,044
"turkey buzzard",
and "yellow jacket".

506
00:23:08,154 --> 00:23:10,987
But this was just the beginning.

507
00:23:19,799 --> 00:23:21,289
In the wake of Lewis and Clark,

508
00:23:21,401 --> 00:23:24,336
the great rivers became
America's superhighways.

509
00:23:24,437 --> 00:23:27,998
Once, this keyside in St Louis,
the gateway to the West,

510
00:23:28,108 --> 00:23:30,235
bustled with scores
of paddle steamers

511
00:23:30,343 --> 00:23:32,436
taking new settlers
to the new lands.

512
00:23:32,545 --> 00:23:36,481
This was the hub of the frontier
in the 1 830s and '40s.

513
00:23:36,583 --> 00:23:39,450
The very word "immigrant"
is an American invention.

514
00:23:39,552 --> 00:23:41,019
Vast migrations of people

515
00:23:41,121 --> 00:23:42,952
had never been a huge factor
in the Old World,

516
00:23:43,056 --> 00:23:47,356
but it was the defining
experience of the new one.

517
00:23:47,861 --> 00:23:51,388
And new settlers brought
new linguistic energies.

518
00:23:51,498 --> 00:23:52,760
The Pilgrim Fathers had come

519
00:23:52,866 --> 00:23:54,925
primarily from the south
and east of England.

520
00:23:55,035 --> 00:23:56,468
But two centuries on,

521
00:23:56,569 --> 00:23:58,764
Americans were as likely
to come from Scotland,

522
00:23:58,872 --> 00:24:01,204
escaping the aftermath
of the Highland Clearances,

523
00:24:01,307 --> 00:24:04,003
or from Ulster, often driven out
by famine, high rents,

524
00:24:04,110 --> 00:24:05,236
religious intolerance,

525
00:24:05,345 --> 00:24:08,974
or simply looking for the chance
to make a new and better life.

526
00:24:09,082 --> 00:24:11,778
As many as half the population
of Ulster crossed the Atlantic,

527
00:24:11,885 --> 00:24:13,750
and many kept moving west.

528
00:24:13,853 --> 00:24:16,287
They became a major part
of the rich mix of people

529
00:24:16,389 --> 00:24:18,380
who were creating
a new American country

530
00:24:18,491 --> 00:24:21,392
and a new American voice.

531
00:24:26,566 --> 00:24:28,693
Scots and Irish brought
new words and expressions

532
00:24:28,802 --> 00:24:29,734
to America.

533
00:24:29,836 --> 00:24:33,670
The Scottish verb "schoon",
meaning to skim over water,

534
00:24:33,773 --> 00:24:36,708
took to the sea as a new type
of ship, the schooner.

535
00:24:36,810 --> 00:24:38,368
The Irish donated
the word "cabin"

536
00:24:38,478 --> 00:24:40,173
to name the typical
frontier dwelling.

537
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,443
They also brought "dead",
as in dead straight.

538
00:24:43,550 --> 00:24:45,415
And the similar use
of "plumb" and "right"

539
00:24:45,518 --> 00:24:47,884
came to America through use
by both Scots and Irish,

540
00:24:47,987 --> 00:24:50,683
as did the habit of sticking
an "A" on the front of verbs,

541
00:24:50,790 --> 00:24:52,587
like "a-going".

542
00:24:55,929 --> 00:24:57,419
The old French presence, too,

543
00:24:57,530 --> 00:24:59,430
is apparent everywhere
along the Mississippi.

544
00:24:59,532 --> 00:25:01,625
It's there in the place names
from New Orleans,

545
00:25:01,735 --> 00:25:04,203
Baton Rouge, and Lafayette
in the south

546
00:25:04,304 --> 00:25:07,671
to St. Louis, Cape Girardeau,
and Belleville further north.

547
00:25:07,774 --> 00:25:11,005
And towns ending in the French
suffix "-ville" are everywhere.

548
00:25:11,111 --> 00:25:14,444
Edwardsville, Greenville,
Jacksonville, Clarksville.

549
00:25:14,547 --> 00:25:15,707
The French gave us the name

550
00:25:15,815 --> 00:25:19,080
of one of the great western
institutions... the hotel.

551
00:25:19,185 --> 00:25:21,016
America took a word
the French had given

552
00:25:21,121 --> 00:25:23,487
to a grand private house
or a municipal building

553
00:25:23,590 --> 00:25:26,184
and turned it into the name
of a new invention...

554
00:25:26,293 --> 00:25:27,954
a palace for all the people,

555
00:25:28,061 --> 00:25:30,461
far grander in ambition
than the inns and taverns

556
00:25:30,563 --> 00:25:33,396
that offered rest
to travellers in England.

557
00:25:33,500 --> 00:25:35,900
And their clients
were businessmen.

558
00:25:36,002 --> 00:25:37,299
In 1 8th century England,

559
00:25:37,404 --> 00:25:39,599
merchants had been described
as businessmen.

560
00:25:39,706 --> 00:25:42,641
But now the word took on
its modern American meaning.

561
00:25:42,742 --> 00:25:45,108
The mover and shaker
in the worlds of finance

562
00:25:45,211 --> 00:25:49,375
and expansion and opportunity.

563
00:25:57,424 --> 00:26:00,655
The country was on the move
and on the make.

564
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:02,785
The river teemed
with poor migrants...

565
00:26:02,896 --> 00:26:04,523
rednecks, who got their name

566
00:26:04,631 --> 00:26:06,826
from the way their necks
were burnt by the sun

567
00:26:06,933 --> 00:26:08,628
as they bent to work
in the fields.

568
00:26:08,735 --> 00:26:10,726
Because they couldn't afford
the steamboat fare,

569
00:26:10,837 --> 00:26:12,327
they travelled on rafts,

570
00:26:12,439 --> 00:26:14,464
which they steered
with oars called riffs,

571
00:26:14,574 --> 00:26:16,508
so they were known
as the riffraff.

572
00:26:16,609 --> 00:26:18,133
On board boats like this one,

573
00:26:18,244 --> 00:26:21,111
richer travellers were, in turn,
regarded as highfalutin

574
00:26:21,214 --> 00:26:23,307
because of the high,
fluted smokestacks

575
00:26:23,416 --> 00:26:26,442
that carried soot and cinders
well away from those passengers.

576
00:26:26,553 --> 00:26:28,817
And also perhaps
because of the stovepipe hats

577
00:26:28,922 --> 00:26:30,583
those dudes wore.

578
00:26:30,690 --> 00:26:34,786
They bestrode the Texas deck,
the biggest on the boat.

579
00:26:36,296 --> 00:26:37,888
Ready to play?

580
00:26:40,900 --> 00:26:44,495
Gentlemen,
this is five-card stud.

581
00:26:45,839 --> 00:26:47,704
BRAGG: Gambling
was a favourite activity

582
00:26:47,807 --> 00:26:49,297
among the riverboat passengers.

583
00:26:49,409 --> 00:26:51,536
"Pass the buck"
and "The buck stops here"

584
00:26:51,644 --> 00:26:53,009
both come from such card games.

585
00:26:53,113 --> 00:26:56,105
The buck was a buckhorn-handled
knife passed round

586
00:26:56,216 --> 00:26:57,774
to show who was dealing.

587
00:26:57,884 --> 00:26:59,511
And they're just the start
of the phrases

588
00:26:59,619 --> 00:27:01,280
that American gamblers
gave to the language

589
00:27:01,388 --> 00:27:04,118
in the middle
of the 1 9th century.

590
00:27:04,224 --> 00:27:06,317
I'm assuming you have an ace.

591
00:27:06,426 --> 00:27:09,088
BRAGG: "Deal" became part of
phrases like "square deal",

592
00:27:09,195 --> 00:27:11,288
"new deal", "fair deal",
"raw deal".

593
00:27:11,398 --> 00:27:13,161
Dealer will take three.

594
00:27:13,266 --> 00:27:14,790
BRAGG:
"Big deal", "no big deal".

595
00:27:14,901 --> 00:27:16,300
And raise it three.

596
00:27:16,403 --> 00:27:19,429
BRAGG: "I'll raise your bid",
"You bet", "Put up or shut up",

597
00:27:19,539 --> 00:27:22,201
and "I'll call your bluff"
were all first heard

598
00:27:22,308 --> 00:27:23,468
round the card table.

599
00:27:23,576 --> 00:27:25,567
I'll call you.

600
00:27:25,678 --> 00:27:29,307
BRAGG: You have an ace up
your sleeve, so you up the ante.

601
00:27:29,416 --> 00:27:33,614
Someone throws in his hand,
but you keep a poker face.

602
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:35,278
Now the chips are down.

603
00:27:35,388 --> 00:27:37,253
But the cards are stacked
against you.

604
00:27:37,357 --> 00:27:40,918
Someone plays a wild card
and scoops the jackpot.

605
00:27:41,027 --> 00:27:42,995
- Pair of kings.
- Nice.

606
00:27:46,533 --> 00:27:47,625
Cheers.

607
00:27:47,734 --> 00:27:49,759
Gambling and drinking spread
across the West.

608
00:27:49,869 --> 00:27:50,836
No surprise there.

609
00:27:50,937 --> 00:27:52,495
This was
a very different frontier

610
00:27:52,605 --> 00:27:54,072
from the original one
at Plimouth.

611
00:27:54,174 --> 00:27:56,506
And nothing added
more slang words and phrases

612
00:27:56,609 --> 00:27:58,577
to the language than alcohol.

613
00:27:58,678 --> 00:28:00,839
"Barroom" and "saloon"
both entered the language,

614
00:28:00,947 --> 00:28:03,415
soon followed by "bartender"
and "Set 'em up!"

615
00:28:03,516 --> 00:28:06,417
Measures like a snifter,
a jigger, and a finger

616
00:28:06,519 --> 00:28:08,009
all came
from the bars of America.

617
00:28:08,121 --> 00:28:10,385
And bootlegging comes
from the practice

618
00:28:10,490 --> 00:28:13,891
of hiding a flat bottle
of whisky in the leg of a boot,

619
00:28:13,993 --> 00:28:17,554
to be sold illegally
to the natives.

620
00:28:17,664 --> 00:28:21,100
And there were literally
hundreds of terms for drunk.

621
00:28:21,201 --> 00:28:22,498
Even before the Revolution,

622
00:28:22,602 --> 00:28:26,129
Benjamin Franklin listed
229 of them minted in America,

623
00:28:26,239 --> 00:28:28,469
including
"He's casting up his accounts",

624
00:28:28,575 --> 00:28:30,236
"His head is full of bees",
"He sees the bears",

625
00:28:30,343 --> 00:28:31,901
"He's cherry merry",
"He's wamble-cropped",

626
00:28:32,011 --> 00:28:33,205
"He's halfway to Concord",

627
00:28:33,313 --> 00:28:35,076
"He's ate a toad and a half
for breakfast",

628
00:28:35,181 --> 00:28:36,808
"He's groatable",
"He's globular",

629
00:28:36,916 --> 00:28:38,816
"He's loose in the hilts",
"He's intoxicated",

630
00:28:38,918 --> 00:28:40,647
"He's juicy",
"He clips the King's English",

631
00:28:40,753 --> 00:28:42,744
"He sees two moons",
"He's nimptopsical",

632
00:28:42,856 --> 00:28:44,687
"He's oiled",
"He's like a rat in trouble",

633
00:28:44,791 --> 00:28:46,156
"He's double tongued",
"He's trammeled",

634
00:28:46,259 --> 00:28:48,352
"He's got the Indian vapours",
"He's out of the way",

635
00:28:48,461 --> 00:28:50,395
"He's very weary".

636
00:28:50,497 --> 00:28:53,057
"Teetotal" was another word
that came into the language

637
00:28:53,166 --> 00:28:54,190
from the Irish settlers,

638
00:28:54,300 --> 00:28:56,734
along with "speakeasy",
"shillelah", and "smithereens",

639
00:28:56,836 --> 00:28:58,531
"Yes, indeedy" and "No, sirree",

640
00:28:58,638 --> 00:29:01,835
and later, of course, came
"on the waggon".

641
00:29:06,913 --> 00:29:09,814
Westward expansion had long been
the cause of land disputes

642
00:29:09,916 --> 00:29:11,645
between the settlers
and the natives,

643
00:29:11,751 --> 00:29:14,049
and once they left the great
rivers for the waggon routes

644
00:29:14,154 --> 00:29:16,145
like the Oregon
and the Santa Fe Trails,

645
00:29:16,256 --> 00:29:17,723
contact and often friction

646
00:29:17,824 --> 00:29:20,759
between migrants
and Indians increased.

647
00:29:20,860 --> 00:29:22,953
Many of the Indian words

648
00:29:23,062 --> 00:29:24,461
that had already come
into English

649
00:29:24,564 --> 00:29:25,929
reflected this antagonism.

650
00:29:26,032 --> 00:29:27,966
"Scalp",
a good old English noun,

651
00:29:28,067 --> 00:29:29,932
had become a far more
threatening verb

652
00:29:30,036 --> 00:29:32,197
as early as 1 693.

653
00:29:32,305 --> 00:29:35,206
"Tomahawk" was another early
addition to the language.

654
00:29:35,308 --> 00:29:37,606
So were "warpath",
"war whoop", "war dance",

655
00:29:37,710 --> 00:29:40,474
and "Long Knives",
an Indian word for white man,

656
00:29:40,580 --> 00:29:43,674
and "firewater",
the term they gave to alcohol.

657
00:29:43,783 --> 00:29:48,083
Phrases like "no can do"
or "long time no see"

658
00:29:48,188 --> 00:29:51,282
are literal translations
from Indian languages.

659
00:29:51,391 --> 00:29:54,554
The word "brave"
to describe Indian warriors

660
00:29:54,661 --> 00:29:56,629
was certainly inherited
from the French.

661
00:29:56,729 --> 00:29:59,994
And "buck", slang for a dollar,
derives from buckskin,

662
00:30:00,099 --> 00:30:04,263
the standard unit of trade
between Europeans and Indians.

663
00:30:06,773 --> 00:30:09,298
Conflict with the natives
was just one of the hazards

664
00:30:09,409 --> 00:30:11,377
faced by the people
who went West.

665
00:30:11,477 --> 00:30:13,445
Every one of them had
an epic journey to tell

666
00:30:13,546 --> 00:30:16,276
of the hardships imposed
by distance and the weather.

667
00:30:16,382 --> 00:30:18,009
Every one had carved a new life

668
00:30:18,117 --> 00:30:21,518
out of a landscape made
on a scale unknown in Europe.

669
00:30:21,621 --> 00:30:24,920
They chose new American heroes
for themselves,

670
00:30:25,024 --> 00:30:28,084
through whose stories they could
distil their own experiences.

671
00:30:28,194 --> 00:30:30,355
And they chose them
and told tales about them

672
00:30:30,463 --> 00:30:32,954
on a grand scale.

673
00:30:35,101 --> 00:30:37,069
The most famous of all
straddled the gap

674
00:30:37,170 --> 00:30:40,367
between fact and fiction...
Davy Crockett.

675
00:30:41,241 --> 00:30:42,970
He was,
as we know from the song,

676
00:30:43,076 --> 00:30:44,873
born on a mountaintop
in Tennessee.

677
00:30:44,978 --> 00:30:46,878
He was the son of a veteran
of the Revolution.

678
00:30:46,980 --> 00:30:49,710
He became a congressman,
famous for his plain speaking,

679
00:30:49,816 --> 00:30:52,910
and he died defending the Alamo
in Texas in 1 836.

680
00:30:53,019 --> 00:30:54,611
He was as American as they came.

681
00:30:54,721 --> 00:30:57,349
And he became a legend,
the king of the wild frontier,

682
00:30:57,457 --> 00:30:59,584
the hero of a series
of paperbound books

683
00:30:59,692 --> 00:31:02,058
telling exaggerated stories
about him.

684
00:31:02,161 --> 00:31:04,925
This fictionalised Crockett
was the first great exponent

685
00:31:05,031 --> 00:31:08,967
of a style of speech as big as
the country, called tall talk.

686
00:31:09,068 --> 00:31:11,901
When he opened his mouth,
he made the forest shake.

687
00:31:12,939 --> 00:31:14,406
These is times that come upon us

688
00:31:14,507 --> 00:31:15,838
like a whirlwind
and an earthquake.

689
00:31:15,942 --> 00:31:17,807
They are come like a catamount
at full jump!

690
00:31:17,910 --> 00:31:19,309
We are called upon
to show our grit

691
00:31:19,412 --> 00:31:21,403
like a ball of lightning
again' a pine log,

692
00:31:21,514 --> 00:31:24,176
to exterminate, mollify,
and calumniate the foe,

693
00:31:24,284 --> 00:31:25,581
pierce the heart of the enemy,

694
00:31:25,685 --> 00:31:27,710
cram his pesky carcass
full of thunder and lightning

695
00:31:27,820 --> 00:31:28,809
like a stuffed sassidge,

696
00:31:28,921 --> 00:31:30,855
and turtle him off
with a red-hot poker.

697
00:31:30,957 --> 00:31:33,551
And while the stars of Uncle Sam
and the stripes of his country

698
00:31:33,660 --> 00:31:35,093
wave triumphantly
in the breeze,

699
00:31:35,194 --> 00:31:38,288
where, where, where is
the craven, low-lived,

700
00:31:38,398 --> 00:31:39,956
chicken-bred, toad-hoppin',
red-mounted,

701
00:31:40,066 --> 00:31:41,226
bristle-headed
mother's son of ye

702
00:31:41,334 --> 00:31:43,325
who will not raise
the beacon light of triumph,

703
00:31:43,436 --> 00:31:45,267
snouse the citadel
of the aggressor,

704
00:31:45,371 --> 00:31:49,171
and squeeze ahead
to liberty and glory?

705
00:31:50,109 --> 00:31:53,010
Confidence bred ornate,
baroque words.

706
00:31:53,112 --> 00:31:55,740
Shebang, shindig,
and slumgullion,

707
00:31:55,848 --> 00:31:58,180
kerflop, kerbang, and kerthump.

708
00:31:58,284 --> 00:32:00,479
An American need not
simply leave hurriedly.

709
00:32:00,586 --> 00:32:03,054
He could absquatulate
or skedaddle.

710
00:32:03,156 --> 00:32:06,125
He didn't just use something up.
He exfluncitated it.

711
00:32:06,225 --> 00:32:09,626
The language was hunky-dory,
rambunctious, splendiferous.

712
00:32:09,729 --> 00:32:11,128
Its vigour was in speech,

713
00:32:11,230 --> 00:32:13,824
and that habit of coming up
with vivid verbal images

714
00:32:13,933 --> 00:32:16,595
has left us with many
that figure in everyday talk.

715
00:32:17,937 --> 00:32:20,303
It's not my funeral
if you fly off the handle

716
00:32:20,406 --> 00:32:22,670
because you have a chip on your
shoulder and an axe to grind.

717
00:32:22,775 --> 00:32:24,470
I won't sit on the fence
and dodge the issue.

718
00:32:24,577 --> 00:32:26,169
I won't fizzle out.
I won't crack up.

719
00:32:26,279 --> 00:32:27,268
No two ways about it,

720
00:32:27,380 --> 00:32:28,904
I'll knuckle down
and make the fur fly.

721
00:32:29,015 --> 00:32:31,006
I'll go the whole hog
and knock the spots out of you

722
00:32:31,117 --> 00:32:32,209
and you'll be a goner.

723
00:32:32,318 --> 00:32:34,218
You'll kick the bucket.
So face the music.

724
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:35,685
You're barking up
the wrong tree.

725
00:32:35,788 --> 00:32:36,846
You won't get the drop on me.

726
00:32:36,956 --> 00:32:38,890
I'm in cahoots with some people
with the know-how.

727
00:32:38,991 --> 00:32:39,980
Keep a stiff upper lip

728
00:32:40,093 --> 00:32:42,493
and have the horse sense
to pull up stakes, okay?

729
00:32:44,030 --> 00:32:46,726
Within two generations
of the opening of Louisiana,

730
00:32:46,833 --> 00:32:48,824
the American language
had been reborn.

731
00:32:48,935 --> 00:32:50,800
No legislator sitting
in a library

732
00:32:50,903 --> 00:32:52,029
in one of the eastern states

733
00:32:52,138 --> 00:32:54,732
could have hoped to arrest
its exuberant progress.

734
00:32:54,841 --> 00:32:58,777
It's a fact that the biggest
author of the language is Anon.

735
00:32:58,878 --> 00:33:02,211
This was the democratic language
that Adams had foreseen,

736
00:33:02,315 --> 00:33:03,213
but democracy meant

737
00:33:03,316 --> 00:33:05,113
that everyone threw in
their two cents' worth,

738
00:33:05,218 --> 00:33:06,947
and the old conservative values

739
00:33:07,053 --> 00:33:10,113
were trampled
in the movement west.

740
00:33:10,223 --> 00:33:12,589
And never quicker
than when gold was discovered

741
00:33:12,692 --> 00:33:15,661
in "them thar hills".

742
00:33:21,968 --> 00:33:23,993
Gold fever brought
tens of thousands of people

743
00:33:24,070 --> 00:33:24,968
from the eastern states,

744
00:33:25,071 --> 00:33:27,232
and their letters home
were loaded with new words.

745
00:33:27,340 --> 00:33:28,932
"Prospector" was one.

746
00:33:29,041 --> 00:33:31,635
They wrote about how
they'd "staked their claim",

747
00:33:31,744 --> 00:33:34,144
about how they hoped
that gold dust would "pan out"

748
00:33:34,247 --> 00:33:35,805
of the water
that they were sieving,

749
00:33:35,915 --> 00:33:38,349
or they would "strike it lucky"
or "strike it rich"

750
00:33:38,451 --> 00:33:39,941
and produce a "bonanza",

751
00:33:40,052 --> 00:33:42,612
which came from the Spanish word
for "fair weather".

752
00:33:42,722 --> 00:33:44,883
And for the first time,
a surefire investment

753
00:33:44,991 --> 00:33:48,324
became known colloquially
as a gold mine.

754
00:33:52,965 --> 00:33:54,990
And the gold rush gave us
two words

755
00:33:55,101 --> 00:33:57,501
that became far more famous
in the 20th century.

756
00:33:57,603 --> 00:33:59,230
When a certain Levi Strauss

757
00:33:59,338 --> 00:34:01,306
started to make
hard-wearing clothes for miners,

758
00:34:01,407 --> 00:34:03,898
he used a cloth called
jean fustian,

759
00:34:04,010 --> 00:34:05,477
originally made in Genoa.

760
00:34:05,578 --> 00:34:08,479
Levi's and jeans have been as
American as stars and stripes

761
00:34:08,581 --> 00:34:10,208
ever since.

762
00:34:10,316 --> 00:34:11,908
[Railroad-crossing bell
ringing]

763
00:34:11,908 --> 00:34:14,775
That other envious souls used to
try to pass themselves off

764
00:34:14,878 --> 00:34:18,041
as the man who had such a simple
but brilliant idea.

765
00:34:18,148 --> 00:34:19,445
And so he developed the habit

766
00:34:19,549 --> 00:34:20,880
of introducing himself
to strangers

767
00:34:20,984 --> 00:34:22,975
as "the real McCoy".

768
00:34:23,086 --> 00:34:27,147
He gave the world a catchphrase,
and he also gave it the cowboy.

769
00:34:30,961 --> 00:34:33,862
English had known the word
"cowboy" since the 1 8th century,

770
00:34:33,964 --> 00:34:37,297
but now it took on a new
currency and a new meaning.

771
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:39,766
McCoy's brainwave turned
the cattle industry

772
00:34:39,870 --> 00:34:41,167
into a licence to print money

773
00:34:41,271 --> 00:34:44,399
and the cowboy
into a national icon.

774
00:34:44,508 --> 00:34:48,103
Cowboys had been working near
the Mexican border for years,

775
00:34:48,211 --> 00:34:51,305
picking up Spanish words which
now drove north with them.

776
00:34:52,749 --> 00:34:54,444
"Ranch" comes from the Spanish

777
00:34:54,551 --> 00:34:57,418
as does "corral", where horses
or cattle were penned.

778
00:34:57,521 --> 00:35:00,319
Mustang, bronco,
and the more humble burro;

779
00:35:00,423 --> 00:35:03,551
the chaps, sombrero,
and poncho they might wear;

780
00:35:03,660 --> 00:35:05,753
the cinch
that secured the saddle,

781
00:35:05,862 --> 00:35:08,660
the lariat and the lasso
they used to rope cattle;

782
00:35:08,765 --> 00:35:12,201
the sierras, mesas,
and canyons they rode across;

783
00:35:12,302 --> 00:35:13,826
the cries of "Vamoose!"
and "Pronto!"

784
00:35:13,937 --> 00:35:15,598
the stampede that they feared,

785
00:35:15,705 --> 00:35:17,969
and the rodeo where they drove
the cattle together

786
00:35:18,074 --> 00:35:21,043
all came from Spanish.

787
00:35:22,245 --> 00:35:23,712
The language of the West

788
00:35:23,813 --> 00:35:27,146
has become the standard idea of
what American English is like,

789
00:35:27,250 --> 00:35:29,844
completely overtaking
the proper speech of the East.

790
00:35:29,953 --> 00:35:31,181
And the man who is virtually

791
00:35:31,288 --> 00:35:33,017
single-handedly responsible
for this

792
00:35:33,123 --> 00:35:35,751
was one of the greatest showmen
and boosters of them all.

793
00:35:35,859 --> 00:35:38,589
He was William F. Cody,
Buffalo Bill,

794
00:35:38,695 --> 00:35:41,459
and he chose to be buried here,
on the hills above Denver,

795
00:35:41,565 --> 00:35:44,693
where the Rockies rise steeply
out of the Great Plains.

796
00:35:44,801 --> 00:35:47,292
He turned
the frontier experience

797
00:35:47,404 --> 00:35:48,962
into an epic entertainment,

798
00:35:49,072 --> 00:35:50,835
Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

799
00:35:50,941 --> 00:35:53,409
The extravaganza featured
live elk and buffalo,

800
00:35:53,510 --> 00:35:55,341
real Indians
attacking a stagecoach,

801
00:35:55,617 --> 00:35:56,748
and Custer's
Last Stand at Little Big Horn,

802
00:35:56,754 --> 00:35:59,245
in which Buffalo Bill himself
arrived on the scene

803
00:35:59,356 --> 00:36:01,824
just too late to save the day.

804
00:36:01,925 --> 00:36:03,893
[Gunshots]

805
00:36:03,994 --> 00:36:05,461
It was nonsense,

806
00:36:05,562 --> 00:36:09,020
and it was a smash across
America and Europe for 30 years,

807
00:36:09,133 --> 00:36:10,930
long after Indian resistance
had ended

808
00:36:11,034 --> 00:36:13,559
and the last buffalo herd
had been massacred.

809
00:36:13,670 --> 00:36:15,900
It created a vogue
for the language of the West

810
00:36:16,006 --> 00:36:19,373
and began a line of Western myth
that kept that language alive

811
00:36:19,476 --> 00:36:21,068
through countless books
and films.

812
00:36:21,178 --> 00:36:23,703
And the dreams of luxury
and optimism

813
00:36:23,814 --> 00:36:27,773
became an enduring fantasy
of a Western El Dorado, an Eden,

814
00:36:27,885 --> 00:36:30,683
somewhere over the rainbow, or
at least the next county line.

815
00:36:30,788 --> 00:36:33,621
It's all there in a little song
about the hobos...

816
00:36:33,724 --> 00:36:35,157
another good frontier word...

817
00:36:35,259 --> 00:36:36,487
who rode the railways west

818
00:36:36,593 --> 00:36:40,188
in search of their own
American dream.

819
00:36:40,297 --> 00:36:42,765
# In the
Big Rock Candy Mountains #

820
00:36:42,866 --> 00:36:45,198
# You never change your socks #

821
00:36:45,302 --> 00:36:47,600
# And the little streams
of alcohol #

822
00:36:47,704 --> 00:36:50,195
# Come a-trickling
down the rocks #

823
00:36:50,307 --> 00:36:52,605
# The breakmen
have to tip their hats #

824
00:36:52,709 --> 00:36:55,007
# And the railroad bulls
are blind #

825
00:36:55,112 --> 00:36:57,410
# There's a lake of stew
and a whisky, too #

826
00:36:57,514 --> 00:36:59,744
# You can paddle all around 'em
in a big canoe #

827
00:36:59,850 --> 00:37:02,216
# In the
Big Rock Candy Mountains #

828
00:37:02,319 --> 00:37:03,980
But there was another group
of Americans

829
00:37:04,087 --> 00:37:06,146
who had never been invited
to share that dream...

830
00:37:06,256 --> 00:37:08,554
the black slave population
of the South.

831
00:37:08,659 --> 00:37:10,490
And they spoke
about their experiences

832
00:37:10,594 --> 00:37:12,858
in a very different language.

833
00:37:14,531 --> 00:37:16,965
# I'll see you all
this coming fall #

834
00:37:17,067 --> 00:37:20,161
# In the
Big Rock Candy Mountains #

835
00:37:26,577 --> 00:37:28,442
This is Sullivan's Island,

836
00:37:28,545 --> 00:37:30,342
a little patch of land
in Charleston Harbor

837
00:37:30,447 --> 00:37:32,381
off the coast of South Carolina.

838
00:37:32,483 --> 00:37:34,041
It was the first taste
of America

839
00:37:34,151 --> 00:37:35,709
for hundreds of thousands
of immigrants

840
00:37:35,819 --> 00:37:37,980
in the 1 8th and 1 9th centuries.

841
00:37:38,088 --> 00:37:39,612
But the immigrants
who came through here

842
00:37:39,723 --> 00:37:42,248
hadn't chosen the American dream
of a better life.

843
00:37:42,359 --> 00:37:45,453
They had been sold into slavery.

844
00:37:45,562 --> 00:37:49,293
Sullivan's Island was a holding
pen for imported slaves.

845
00:37:49,399 --> 00:37:52,129
Between half and two-thirds
of them entered America here

846
00:37:52,236 --> 00:37:55,694
before being sold on, mainly to
work on the cotton plantations.

847
00:37:55,806 --> 00:37:58,707
There's no Statue of Liberty
here, just this plaque,

848
00:37:58,809 --> 00:38:02,108
erected in 1 999
to commemorate their arrival.

849
00:38:02,212 --> 00:38:04,305
They came here from
the countries of West Africa

850
00:38:04,414 --> 00:38:06,780
and from plantations
in the Caribbean.

851
00:38:06,884 --> 00:38:08,613
Slaves who spoke
different languages

852
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:10,744
were put together
on the same sea voyage here

853
00:38:10,854 --> 00:38:13,823
to stop them plotting together
to seize control of the ship.

854
00:38:13,924 --> 00:38:17,860
So on ship and on shore, there
was a great babel of languages.

855
00:38:17,961 --> 00:38:19,394
The slaves had to find a tongue

856
00:38:19,496 --> 00:38:22,158
in which to talk to one another
and to their masters.

857
00:38:22,266 --> 00:38:23,198
It was English,

858
00:38:23,300 --> 00:38:25,165
but English
very heavily influenced

859
00:38:25,269 --> 00:38:27,362
by African ways of talking.

860
00:38:27,471 --> 00:38:30,440
[Speaking Gullah]

861
00:38:40,317 --> 00:38:44,447
You take the Gullah and...
and you have a spot of tea.

862
00:38:44,555 --> 00:38:47,023
BRAGG: The language these people
are talking is Gullah,

863
00:38:47,124 --> 00:38:49,718
which has survived
as a distinct variety of English

864
00:38:49,826 --> 00:38:53,227
here around
the South Carolina islands.

865
00:38:53,330 --> 00:38:55,230
And walk up on the bank and say,

866
00:38:55,332 --> 00:38:56,526
"What you doin'
up on the bank there?"

867
00:38:56,633 --> 00:38:59,466
BRAGG:
It's thought by many people

868
00:38:59,570 --> 00:39:02,334
to be the closest we can get
to the kind of language

869
00:39:02,439 --> 00:39:03,997
that would have been spoken
by the slaves

870
00:39:04,107 --> 00:39:06,769
in the 1 8th
and early 1 9th centuries

871
00:39:06,877 --> 00:39:11,075
and that this is the origin of
modern Afro-American vernacular.

872
00:39:11,181 --> 00:39:15,277
Get off about 50 feet off,
and you all look over there.

873
00:39:15,385 --> 00:39:16,613
And he goin' his boat,
and he looked.

874
00:39:16,720 --> 00:39:17,812
His boat done sank down.

875
00:39:17,921 --> 00:39:20,515
He start hollering,
"Hey! Help! Help!"

876
00:39:20,624 --> 00:39:22,353
[Speaking indistinctly]

877
00:39:22,459 --> 00:39:23,585
[Laughter]

878
00:39:23,694 --> 00:39:26,288
We put together
varying African words

879
00:39:26,396 --> 00:39:27,886
along with Elizabethan English

880
00:39:27,998 --> 00:39:30,762
and came out with something
that sounded like...

881
00:39:32,135 --> 00:39:34,626
So, sometimes people think
maybe it's English,

882
00:39:34,738 --> 00:39:36,706
and then they go
"but not quite".

883
00:39:36,807 --> 00:39:39,708
They were lbos,
Mandinkas, Malinkes,

884
00:39:39,810 --> 00:39:42,870
Yorubas, Golas, Kidze,
Afiq, Mende

885
00:39:42,980 --> 00:39:44,880
that were all kidnapped,
captured,

886
00:39:44,982 --> 00:39:47,507
and then isolated together
on these islands

887
00:39:47,618 --> 00:39:49,745
during enslavement.

888
00:39:49,853 --> 00:39:51,753
Once the slaves reached
the plantations,

889
00:39:51,855 --> 00:39:54,619
they lived in cabins like these
beside the main house.

890
00:39:54,725 --> 00:39:56,249
Here, many words
that came into Gullah

891
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:57,292
from African languages

892
00:39:57,394 --> 00:39:58,759
have found their way
into standard English.

893
00:39:58,862 --> 00:40:00,227
Words such as "banana",

894
00:40:00,330 --> 00:40:02,958
which comes from the Wolof
language spoken in Senegal;

895
00:40:03,066 --> 00:40:05,830
and "voodoo", traceable to
an African word for "spirit"

896
00:40:05,936 --> 00:40:08,268
in the language spoken
by the Yoruba people.

897
00:40:08,372 --> 00:40:10,465
Other African words which have
entered standard English

898
00:40:10,574 --> 00:40:13,543
include the animals zebra,
gorilla, and chimpanzee;

899
00:40:13,644 --> 00:40:17,341
the musical terms samba,
mambo, banjo, and bongo;

900
00:40:17,447 --> 00:40:20,075
and the food and plant names
goober, meaning peanut,

901
00:40:20,183 --> 00:40:22,481
yam and gumbo, meaning okra.

902
00:40:22,586 --> 00:40:24,747
African compound words
were translated,

903
00:40:24,855 --> 00:40:27,016
giving English
terms like "bad-mouth".

904
00:40:27,124 --> 00:40:30,093
And "nitty-gritty" originated
as a term for the grit

905
00:40:30,193 --> 00:40:33,492
that accumulated
in the bilges of slave ships.

906
00:40:33,597 --> 00:40:36,031
As well as vocabulary,

907
00:40:36,133 --> 00:40:38,226
Gullah employs
some grammatical features

908
00:40:38,335 --> 00:40:40,565
that differ
from standard English.

909
00:40:40,671 --> 00:40:43,003
WOMAN:
If someone say...

910
00:40:45,442 --> 00:40:46,409
Okay?

911
00:40:46,510 --> 00:40:48,341
So, they're asking,
"Are you going to do it?"

912
00:40:48,445 --> 00:40:49,343
"I already did it.

913
00:40:49,446 --> 00:40:51,471
And I did it a long time ago,"

914
00:40:51,581 --> 00:40:53,173
essentially,
is what you're saying.

915
00:40:53,283 --> 00:40:55,410
"I bin dun do um.
I dun dun do da."

916
00:40:55,519 --> 00:40:56,417
You see?

917
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:58,317
So you ask someone,
they say "I dun dun do da",

918
00:40:58,422 --> 00:41:00,287
they mean they did it
and they did it a long time ago

919
00:41:00,390 --> 00:41:03,188
and "Why are you asking me
again?" basically.

920
00:41:03,293 --> 00:41:05,318
So there's a lot more
going into it.

921
00:41:05,429 --> 00:41:07,989
So, if someone says...

922
00:41:18,175 --> 00:41:19,073
You see?

923
00:41:19,176 --> 00:41:20,438
So it's like, "Well,
you were going over there?"

924
00:41:20,544 --> 00:41:21,568
"Yeah, I already went there,

925
00:41:21,678 --> 00:41:23,612
but when I went,
you weren't there,

926
00:41:23,714 --> 00:41:25,682
but I was there.

927
00:41:25,782 --> 00:41:27,977
But you're right. I wasn't there
when you were there."

928
00:41:28,085 --> 00:41:31,885
Phrases like these have a rich
and economical expressiveness.

929
00:41:31,988 --> 00:41:34,286
In other ways, Gullah
and other black Englishes

930
00:41:34,391 --> 00:41:35,915
have stripped down
their grammar.

931
00:41:36,026 --> 00:41:37,459
They drop verbs like "is",

932
00:41:37,561 --> 00:41:39,791
use "don't" where standard
English says "doesn't",

933
00:41:39,896 --> 00:41:41,591
and omit the apostrophe and "S"

934
00:41:41,698 --> 00:41:44,360
that standard English uses
as a sign of ownership.

935
00:41:44,468 --> 00:41:46,436
This kind of simplification
is common

936
00:41:46,536 --> 00:41:48,970
when languages meet
and emerge as a new hybrid.

937
00:41:49,072 --> 00:41:50,164
It's exactly what happened

938
00:41:50,273 --> 00:41:52,241
when Saxons and Danes dealt
with each other

939
00:41:52,342 --> 00:41:53,900
in England in the 9th century

940
00:41:54,010 --> 00:41:55,807
and changed English grammar
forever.

941
00:41:55,912 --> 00:41:57,106
But in this case,

942
00:41:57,214 --> 00:42:00,149
the changes were mistakenly
taken by many white observers

943
00:42:00,250 --> 00:42:03,117
as evidence that black speakers
just hadn't got the intelligence

944
00:42:03,220 --> 00:42:04,517
to speak the language properly,

945
00:42:04,621 --> 00:42:07,283
that they were simply trying and
failing to copy white speech.

946
00:42:07,390 --> 00:42:10,291
In fact, they were adding
to the language.

947
00:42:10,393 --> 00:42:12,054
Now listen ya.

948
00:42:12,162 --> 00:42:14,153
You know, some people say
they n'afrai' a ting.

949
00:42:14,264 --> 00:42:15,561
But they always afrai'.

950
00:42:15,665 --> 00:42:17,895
Like dat Brer Rabbit, dat boy
know he ain't nuttin' to him.

951
00:42:18,001 --> 00:42:19,127
You hear what I say?

952
00:42:19,236 --> 00:42:21,101
Dat cutter was slow-motion,

953
00:42:21,204 --> 00:42:24,435
and that Brer Rabbit
just as slick as he wanna be.

954
00:42:24,541 --> 00:42:26,702
BRAGG: And black speakers
had their own tradition

955
00:42:26,810 --> 00:42:27,708
of performances

956
00:42:27,811 --> 00:42:29,870
that showed just how flexible
and expressive

957
00:42:29,980 --> 00:42:30,878
their language was.

958
00:42:30,981 --> 00:42:33,609
They told stories,
and they are still told today.

959
00:42:33,717 --> 00:42:38,814
An' now hound come.
"Woof, woof, woof, woof."

960
00:42:38,922 --> 00:42:42,016
An' ol' hot tail Brer Rabbit,
him take off lickety split.

961
00:42:42,125 --> 00:42:45,288
BRAGG: Brer Rabbit is a direct
descendant of animal tricksters

962
00:42:45,395 --> 00:42:47,090
who feature in African folklore.

963
00:42:47,197 --> 00:42:49,131
I say, "Brer Rabbit, you do
tellin' a truth, butter cutter?"

964
00:42:49,232 --> 00:42:50,392
He say, "Yessir, ma'am."

965
00:42:50,500 --> 00:42:51,899
I say, "You lyin' ting,
you lyin' ting.

966
00:42:52,002 --> 00:42:54,732
Ain't no truth in ye.
Ain't no truth in yer no way."

967
00:42:54,838 --> 00:42:56,806
But folk tales
weren't the only thing

968
00:42:56,907 --> 00:42:58,340
that fuelled dreams of freedom.

969
00:42:58,441 --> 00:43:00,875
With English, the slaves
had learned Christianity.

970
00:43:00,977 --> 00:43:03,673
White society thought
it would teach obedience.

971
00:43:03,780 --> 00:43:06,578
The Bible became as central
to the lives of the slaves

972
00:43:06,683 --> 00:43:09,208
as it had been to the first
settlers in New England.

973
00:43:09,319 --> 00:43:11,913
But the message they found in it
wasn't obedience.

974
00:43:12,022 --> 00:43:13,250
It was liberty.

975
00:43:13,356 --> 00:43:17,019
Once again, the Bible in English
became the book of freedom.

976
00:43:17,127 --> 00:43:20,062
# Hear Jedus callin' #

977
00:43:20,163 --> 00:43:23,428
# Who no wan' fo' go? #

978
00:43:23,533 --> 00:43:26,468
# Hear Jedus callin' #

979
00:43:26,570 --> 00:43:29,164
# Who no wan' fo' go? #

980
00:43:29,272 --> 00:43:32,833
# An' he's callin'
fo' us sinner #

981
00:43:32,943 --> 00:43:35,935
# Who no wan' fo' go? #

982
00:43:36,046 --> 00:43:38,378
# Oh, chil'en #

983
00:43:38,481 --> 00:43:40,506
# Who no bet' fo' get ready #

984
00:43:40,617 --> 00:43:42,812
# Jedus be comin' back #

985
00:43:42,919 --> 00:43:47,253
# Who no wan' fo' go? #

986
00:43:49,626 --> 00:43:53,562
# Steal away #

987
00:43:53,663 --> 00:43:56,689
# Steal away #

988
00:43:56,800 --> 00:44:01,794
# Steal away fo' Jedus #

989
00:44:01,905 --> 00:44:04,032
BRAGG: By the first decade
of the 1 9th century,

990
00:44:04,140 --> 00:44:06,608
the American states in the North
had abolished slavery.

991
00:44:06,710 --> 00:44:11,773
# Steal away home #

992
00:44:11,882 --> 00:44:14,544
When the blacks of the South
sang "Steal Away"

993
00:44:14,651 --> 00:44:17,017
or "One More River to Cross"
or "Bound for Canaan Land",

994
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,918
they were introducing new words
and sounds into the language

995
00:44:20,023 --> 00:44:22,514
and they were also singing
not just about the next world

996
00:44:22,626 --> 00:44:23,718
but about this one,

997
00:44:23,827 --> 00:44:26,523
about the hope of escaping
to the North and to freedom.

998
00:44:26,630 --> 00:44:29,098
The chains of slavery
were rusting.

999
00:44:29,199 --> 00:44:30,996
And on the 1 2th of April, 1 861,

1000
00:44:31,101 --> 00:44:32,261
in the early hours
of the morning,

1001
00:44:32,369 --> 00:44:34,633
shots were fired at Fort Sumter
in Charleston Harbor,

1002
00:44:34,738 --> 00:44:35,830
just behind me.

1003
00:44:35,939 --> 00:44:38,134
This was the start
of the American Civil War,

1004
00:44:38,241 --> 00:44:39,868
which the North, of course,
was to win.

1005
00:44:39,976 --> 00:44:43,139
Four years later, Confederate
forces abandonned Charleston.

1006
00:44:43,446 --> 00:44:45,505
The Union Army
marched in unopposed.

1007
00:44:45,615 --> 00:44:47,344
They freed the slaves.

1008
00:44:47,450 --> 00:44:49,884
# Glory, glory #

1009
00:44:49,986 --> 00:44:51,510
# Hallelujah #

1010
00:44:51,621 --> 00:44:53,486
The promise in the language
of their spirituals

1011
00:44:53,590 --> 00:44:56,753
had come good for the black
people of Charleston.

1012
00:44:57,594 --> 00:44:59,494
# Glory, glory #

1013
00:44:59,596 --> 00:45:03,123
The American Civil War gave us
the phrase "Hold the fort".

1014
00:45:06,369 --> 00:45:09,133
And the first people to hear
anything "on the grapevine"

1015
00:45:09,606 --> 00:45:10,664
were in the southern states,

1016
00:45:10,740 --> 00:45:13,140
where Army telegraph lines
strung in the trees

1017
00:45:13,243 --> 00:45:14,141
became so knotted

1018
00:45:14,244 --> 00:45:16,940
that they were said
to look like grapevines.

1019
00:45:17,046 --> 00:45:22,507
# Oh, you gotta ask
the Lord's forgiveness #

1020
00:45:22,619 --> 00:45:25,315
There was plenty of resistance
to the new order.

1021
00:45:25,421 --> 00:45:28,447
The Ku Klux Klan, who apparently
derived their name

1022
00:45:28,558 --> 00:45:30,856
from the Greek word kuklos,
meaning "circle",

1023
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,827
were formed
in the aftermath of the war.

1024
00:45:33,930 --> 00:45:36,160
They gave English
the world "bulldozer",

1025
00:45:36,266 --> 00:45:41,033
originally a bull-dose, meaning
a dose large enough for a bull.

1026
00:45:41,137 --> 00:45:42,331
It was a dose of whipping,

1027
00:45:42,438 --> 00:45:46,033
and it was administered
to black people, often fatally.

1028
00:45:46,142 --> 00:45:49,168
Words like "bulldoze"
are a savage reminder

1029
00:45:49,279 --> 00:45:50,246
that the end of the war

1030
00:45:50,346 --> 00:45:52,337
didn't bring the end
of segregation and prejudice.

1031
00:45:52,448 --> 00:45:54,382
In theory,
blacks and their language

1032
00:45:54,484 --> 00:45:56,145
were now free to mix
with whites.

1033
00:45:56,252 --> 00:45:58,516
But in practice, it was only
in the 20th century

1034
00:45:58,621 --> 00:46:00,816
that the mixing of vocabularies
really began,

1035
00:46:00,924 --> 00:46:03,017
that, just like
in the plantation houses,

1036
00:46:03,126 --> 00:46:05,526
white speakers started to ape
black speech

1037
00:46:05,628 --> 00:46:06,925
and cool was born.

1038
00:46:07,030 --> 00:46:09,498
And that's a story
for a later programme.

1039
00:46:11,634 --> 00:46:13,124
Even after the Civil war,

1040
00:46:13,236 --> 00:46:15,204
very few white people treated
black language

1041
00:46:15,305 --> 00:46:16,829
with any interest or respect.

1042
00:46:16,940 --> 00:46:19,568
One who did was a man who had
grown up on the Mississippi

1043
00:46:19,676 --> 00:46:22,975
and was fascinated by all of
its talk... black and white.

1044
00:46:23,079 --> 00:46:26,105
Luckily for us, he was a genius.

1045
00:46:26,216 --> 00:46:28,309
When he made writing
his profession,

1046
00:46:28,418 --> 00:46:29,783
he chose as his pen name

1047
00:46:29,886 --> 00:46:31,877
a call that he'd heard
the riverboatmen use

1048
00:46:31,988 --> 00:46:34,149
to sound a depth
of two fathoms,

1049
00:46:34,257 --> 00:46:37,124
Mark Twain.

1050
00:46:37,227 --> 00:46:39,991
And the river runs through
Twain's greatest book,

1051
00:46:40,096 --> 00:46:41,893
"The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn".

1052
00:46:41,998 --> 00:46:43,795
It's set in the years
before the Civil War,

1053
00:46:43,900 --> 00:46:45,367
and it's the story
of a young boy

1054
00:46:45,468 --> 00:46:47,333
who escapes
what he disdainfully calls

1055
00:46:47,437 --> 00:46:50,167
the civilising influence
of his Aunt Sally.

1056
00:46:50,273 --> 00:46:52,002
Huck takes to the river
on a raft,

1057
00:46:52,108 --> 00:46:55,339
in the company of
an escaped slave called Jim.

1058
00:46:55,445 --> 00:46:56,673
In his introduction,

1059
00:46:56,779 --> 00:46:59,407
Twain told his readers
that he'd taken great pains

1060
00:46:59,515 --> 00:47:01,710
to capture the different
dialects of the river.

1061
00:47:01,818 --> 00:47:04,446
"A Southerner talks music,"
he once wrote.

1062
00:47:04,554 --> 00:47:07,148
And when he had Huck Finn
describe life on the river,

1063
00:47:07,257 --> 00:47:09,487
he found its melody.

1064
00:47:09,592 --> 00:47:13,289
MAN:
It's lovely to live on a raft.

1065
00:47:13,396 --> 00:47:16,456
We had the sky up there,
all speckled with stars,

1066
00:47:16,566 --> 00:47:19,194
and we used to lay on our backs
and look up at them

1067
00:47:19,302 --> 00:47:22,760
and discuss about whether they
was made or only just happened.

1068
00:47:22,872 --> 00:47:24,271
Jim allowed that they was made,

1069
00:47:24,374 --> 00:47:26,001
but I allowed
that they happened.

1070
00:47:26,109 --> 00:47:28,805
I judged it would have
took too long to make so many.

1071
00:47:28,911 --> 00:47:31,106
Jim said the moon
could a laid them.

1072
00:47:31,214 --> 00:47:33,045
Well, that looked
kind a reasonable,

1073
00:47:33,149 --> 00:47:34,844
so I didn't say nothing
against it,

1074
00:47:34,951 --> 00:47:36,919
because I've seen a frog
lay most as many.

1075
00:47:37,020 --> 00:47:39,750
We used to watch the stars
that fell, too,

1076
00:47:39,856 --> 00:47:41,983
and see them streak down.

1077
00:47:42,091 --> 00:47:45,618
Jim allowed they'd got spoiled
and was hove out of the nest.

1078
00:47:45,728 --> 00:47:49,664
BRAGG: This is a new voice
in the American record

1079
00:47:49,766 --> 00:47:52,326
that of the common man
and the frontier.

1080
00:47:52,435 --> 00:47:53,766
English has come a long way

1081
00:47:53,870 --> 00:47:55,462
from the sober
and sacred language

1082
00:47:55,571 --> 00:47:57,766
that the Puritans had first
brought to New England.

1083
00:47:57,874 --> 00:48:01,469
It has changed its sound, and
it has changed its character.

1084
00:48:01,577 --> 00:48:05,741
Words were no longer solely
vehicles for God's truth.

1085
00:48:07,617 --> 00:48:09,084
They were also words
that offended.

1086
00:48:09,185 --> 00:48:11,415
The East Coast wasn't yet ready
to relinquish

1087
00:48:11,521 --> 00:48:14,422
its self-appointed role
as guardian of the language.

1088
00:48:14,524 --> 00:48:17,254
Back here at Concord,
the cradle of the Revolution,

1089
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:19,988
the civilised Aunt Sallys
who sat on the library committee

1090
00:48:20,096 --> 00:48:22,690
banned "Huckleberry Finn"
for its vernacular language.

1091
00:48:22,799 --> 00:48:26,496
It was, they said, "couched
in a rough, ignorant dialect"

1092
00:48:26,602 --> 00:48:29,162
and that there was
"a systematic use of bad grammar

1093
00:48:29,272 --> 00:48:32,207
and an employment
of inelegant expressions".

1094
00:48:32,308 --> 00:48:34,606
But though the library committee

1095
00:48:34,711 --> 00:48:36,576
might call Twain's language
vulgar,

1096
00:48:36,679 --> 00:48:38,306
it couldn't ban
the vigour of English

1097
00:48:38,414 --> 00:48:40,507
that had grown up away
from the East Coast...

1098
00:48:40,616 --> 00:48:41,674
American English.

1099
00:48:41,784 --> 00:48:45,311
Huck's closing words defied
their attempts to control it.

1100
00:48:45,421 --> 00:48:48,390
MAN: There ain't nothing more
to write about

1101
00:48:48,491 --> 00:48:51,051
and I am rotten glad of it,

1102
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,459
because if I'd a known what
a trouble it was to make a book,

1103
00:48:54,564 --> 00:48:58,056
I wouldn't a tackled it
and ain't a-going to no more.

1104
00:48:58,167 --> 00:49:01,000
But I reckon I got to light out
for the Territory

1105
00:49:01,104 --> 00:49:02,366
ahead of the rest,

1106
00:49:02,472 --> 00:49:05,270
because Aunt Sally,
she's going to adopt me

1107
00:49:05,375 --> 00:49:08,401
and civilise me
and I can't stand it.

1108
00:49:08,511 --> 00:49:10,843
I been there before.

1109
00:49:10,947 --> 00:49:14,041
[Choir vocalizing]

1110
00:49:18,321 --> 00:49:20,585
BRAGG: And the vigour
continued to increase

1111
00:49:20,690 --> 00:49:22,851
in the late 1 9th century.

1112
00:49:24,994 --> 00:49:27,519
New waves of immigrants flooded
into America.

1113
00:49:27,630 --> 00:49:30,565
Germans, Italians,
Greeks, Russians, Jews.

1114
00:49:30,666 --> 00:49:32,531
From all across Europe
they came,

1115
00:49:32,635 --> 00:49:34,660
to a land that promised to give
a new home

1116
00:49:34,771 --> 00:49:37,331
to the tired, poor,
huddled masses

1117
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:39,340
longing to breathe free.

1118
00:49:39,442 --> 00:49:41,239
To become American
was their dream,

1119
00:49:41,344 --> 00:49:42,709
and for almost all of them,

1120
00:49:42,812 --> 00:49:44,507
that meant that they wanted
their children

1121
00:49:44,614 --> 00:49:46,878
to speak the language
of the new country.

1122
00:49:46,983 --> 00:49:48,974
They would power
the adventure of English

1123
00:49:49,085 --> 00:49:50,848
into the 20th century.

1124
00:49:50,953 --> 00:49:53,888
Subtitling made possible by
Acorn Media