Melvyn Bragg is back on the trail of our linguistic origins, but this time with the help of a computer.
It's not news that English is a mongrel tongue, with bits of Latin, French, German, Old Norse, Hindi and a dozen others forming a rich language-compound that has swept round the world. But today there's evidence that particular sorts of people instinctively favour words with a particular pedigree. A new language analyser allows Bragg to do a full scan on the linguistic make-up of rappers, advertisers, academics and that doyen of expressive English, Terry Wogan.