The History of English Podcast

Documentary series on the history and global spread of English AI summary

Kevin Stroud Visit website › History · EN · 204 episodes · latest 2026-10-30

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What it is about

The Spoken History of a Global Language

Publisher’s own description, taken unchanged from the podcast feed.

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Latest episodes

Episode 192: English in the Celtic World

2026-10-30 · 1 hr 16 min

In this episode, we look at the aftermath of the English Civil War in the British Isles. Fear of a royalist insurgency in England and support for Charles Stuart in Scotland and Ireland led to a renewal of war and the…
Episode 191: A Vision of the Future

2026-08-30 · 1 hr 18 min

As the English Civil War raged in the 1640s, English grammarians wrote about several developments in the language, including a new sound appearing in the word “vision” and new ways of describing future actions and…
Episode 190: Union, Division and Unusual U

2026-06-30 · 1 hr 20 min

During the decade of the 1640s, England was divided by Civil War. At the same time, the sound of letter of U was also experiencing its own division, ultimately resulting in two distinct ‘long’ sounds and two distinct…
Episode 189: Stressed Out

2026-04-30 · 1 hr 23 min

As we conclude our look at the 1630s, we explore the events leading to Civil War in England and the expansion of the English colonies along the eastern coast of North America. We also examine the evolution of syllable…
Episode 188: Old England and New England

2026-02-27 · 1 hr 24 min

In this episode, we explore the first large-scale migration of English settlers to North America in the early 1600s. The settlers arrived in the newly established Massachusetts Bay Colony. We explore the events that led…
Episode 187: Islands and Sea

2025-12-31 · 1 hr 13 min

In this episode, we explore the influence of seafaring on the English language in the early 1600s. We also look at events in the latter half of the 1620s, which included the first permanent English settlements in the…
Episode 186: A Dutch Treat

2025-10-31 · 1 hr 26 min

In this episode, we explore two important developments in North America. First, we examine the legendary story of the Pilgrims’ arrival in New England in 1620 and the establishment of the Plymouth Colony. Secondly, we…
Episode 185: Spelling Says a Lot (Part 2)

2025-09-01 · 1 hr 18 min

In the second part of our look at the sound of English in the early 1600s, we continue to explore the letters of the alphabet and the sounds that each letter represents. We explore the letters K through Z and examine…
Episode 184: Spelling Says a Lot (Part 1)

2025-07-15 · 1 hr 21 min

Over the course of the 1500s, English spelling started to become standardized, but the pronunciation of the language continued to change. By the early 1600s, English scholars noticed that spellings no longer reflected…
Episode 183: The Fabric of Our Lives

2025-05-13 · 1 hr 17 min

In the early 1600s, cotton fabrics made in India were in high demand throughout Asia and Africa. When the English and Dutch arrived in India and Japan, they realized how popular the fabric was, and they soon began to…

Episode details from the publisher’s feed. Playback happens at the publisher.

Publisher details

Oldest episode in feed: 06/2012 · over 14 years
Typical length: 59 min
Format: Episodic Newest first, episodes stand alone

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