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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

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Start the Week: Language and Culture

Language and Culture

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Language and Culture

Andrew Marr with Jhumpa Lahiri, April De Angelis, Katrin Kohl and Marcus du Sautoy

Jhumpa Lahiri, April De Angelis, Katrin Kohl and Marcus du Sautoy discuss the complexity of language and culture with Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr discusses the complex interplay between language and culture. The prize-winning American author Jhumpa Lahiri has spent many years living in Italy immersing herself in the language.  She has brought together 40 short story writers – many translated into English for the first time – in a collection that reflects the regional landscapes, private passions and political events of her adopted country over the past century.

April De Angelis is a writer steeped in translation and adaptation: she brought Elena Ferrante’s novels of Neapolitan life to the stage. And she is now involved in the English National Opera’s production of The Merry Widow – a French comic play re-imagined by an Austro-Hungarian composer.  
 
The power of translation is explored in a new exhibition at the Bodleian Library curated by the academic Katrin Kohl. At the centre is the story of the Tower of Babel, an origin myth in the Bible which explains why people speak different languages.  Kohl argues that studying how a story is translated from one language to another allows us to glimpse the rich diversity of life and culture around the world.

Many people now rely on computers to translate from one language to another. The mathematician Marcus du Sautoy looks at how AI is being programmed to be creative in language and the arts, and what that means for the human touch. 

Producer: Katy Hickman

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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