Accomplishing Complete Boredom

            My eyelids were drooping and I could feel the weight of exhaustion burning through my skull. The sad reality is that while the second episode of  The Story of English might be very enlightening in all its historious (word?) glory, it just doesn’t do much for my attention span. If anything, it makes me rather contemplate the positive aspects of going comatose. Fine, that is but a mere exaggeration but I think my point has been otherwise made.

            It turns out that 2000 years ago, savage people spoke what is now the most spoken language in the world. And by that I mean they spoke various vowels and consonants through the air that would later develop into English. Oh, the beauty of knowing the origins of the English language, the peace that one feels when one is awakened to the fact that their language originated from one of seven tribes who sacrificed people to the mother earth by drowning them in rivers. Beautiful.

            I happened to study a unit in Human Geography based on language and so I knew before I saw this that English was an Anglo-Saxon language. (Points for Isa). What I didn’t know was that the connection between English and Sanskrit was found by a Sir William Jones in the 18^th century, which I guess was a very poignant discovery in the course of history seeing as it marked the change of how we view our culture today (I sincerely hope my sarcasm was noted as well as the fact that, had the narrator not pointed out that piece of information, I would have thought it useless to the argument). That sounds ignorant. I noticed. I thought, and then I came to the realization that, duh, that fact contributes to the puzzle pieces that make up the big picture of English’s origins. God, Isa, how can you be so dense? I shall now proceed to drown myself in the heat and horrific blush of embarrassment for playing the part of an ignorant bonehead. Let me reflect in peace.

            English arrived in 449 AD to Britain. Yep. Fun fact, ladies and gentlemen. Before that, the big and powerful British Empire didn’t speak English (or anything at all, I’m guessing--- my deducing skills are truly amazing, I know). This was interesting, I shall admit. But the effort to persevere in the task of not gashing my eyeballs out to escape the monotony of this episode was exhausting. Reading Italo Calvino’s The Uses of Literature gave me a more interesting outlook into the beginnings of language in two pages than this documentary did in a whole thirty minutes (if more). Yes, Calvino focuses more on the origins of language itself and general communication in his first chapter, which might not compare to the analysis of one language in particular, but still. The writers of this documentary should seriously work on their execution. They should make some artistic cartoons act out the scenes like in The History Channel, have the narrator have a cool Australian accent, make sarcastic remarks, change the tone a little bit to insinuate the drama and suspense of history, I do not know. But they should do something to make sure the viewer is not bored to the saltiest and most unwanted of tears. Make use of the ever-changing English language that will continue to change for years to come, maybe add new vocabulary, but do realize that they’re succeeding in turning a very interesting language into anything but.

The Story of English. Dir. Robert MacNeil, Robert McCrum, and William Cran. BBC, 1986. 27 Aug. 2009. Web. 13 Jan. 2013.