Fry’s Planet Word, Another Nice Stephen Fry Project

One Star Wars fan figured he would try an experiment on his young son. He taught his toddler Klingon, making up names for various objects he didn’t have words for. When he used one such Klingon name for bottle, the kid knew what his father meant and went and picked up the bottle. For a while – don’t remember how long, anywhere from half a year to two years – both father and kid were happy using Klingon to communicate. And then as the kid learned more English elsewhere and communicated in English with his friends, he stopped being interested in Klingon. His father let it be, understanding that the fun was over.

In his study of language and communication, Fry spent a while to learn a few things about sign language. He had a conversation with three people, one using ASL, another the German Sign Language, and the third translating all ways. The discussion was a lot of fun. Sign languages are concept-based, so a word like Obama is translating using a sign for a waving flag (if I remember correctly). You can guess what the sign for Hitler is: the mustache. Two fingers (the index and the middle finger) pointing to the mustache, or, in German, the thumb over the mustache and the hand reminding one of a Heil Hitler gesture.

In his episode on literature, Stephen Fry highlights wonderful bits and pieces in the work of some of his favorite authors: Homer, Shakespeare, James Joyce, and others. It was one of my favorite episodes in the series, with comments on performing the most famous of Shakespeare’s monologues and questions, “To be or not to be,” fascinating insights on translating “to be or not to be” in languages where you can’t translate it as tersely as that, and so on. He sits down with actors and Chinese literates – it’s all very interesting. He also interviews an expert on James Joyce, which does the trick – I’ve developed an even greater appreciation for James Joyce.

There’s an interview with the Chinese guy who created Pinyin (who is now a few years past 100), a visit to the MIT Media Lab where they envision new, tactile ways to tell stories (one of them involves a jacket), a trip to Jerusalem to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a stop at the British Museum to see cuneiform tablets and learn some rudiments of this ancient script, which may be the oldest writing system we humans have developed.

He also traveled through Africa and by car through London with the author of Belle du Jour, who wrote The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl.

It all seems a typical Stephen Fry affair, very flamboyant and exciting.

Unfortunately, the 2 DVDs of Fry's Planet World are not available as Region 1 DVDs, but the great news is that looking on Amazon for them I discovered there's a Planet Word tie-in book by J.P. Davidson, which should be interesting on its own terms, since it can expand the commentary on all the fascinating topics that the BBC series engages with.

The drawback to the book is the desultory nature of Stephen Fry's collage in the TV series, which doesn't fare too well in a book, all the more so as it's not written by Stephen Fry himself, who pulled off a great book commenting in an equally desultory fashion about what makes America America in Stephen Fry in America, the first half of which I discussed in another article.