Movie Review: Episode 2 Identity

Ruquia Arjumand
The second episode of Frys planet world is named as Identity. In this episode the main question
that fry ponder upon is accents molded by where we are born and raised. He is then shown in
Yorkshire where a poet Ian Mc Milan displays stereotypical aspects of various accents inside a
country like UK. Then Fry tries to offer is own of UKs accent map tour by playing a
weatherman where demonstrate different accents of different areas.
Fry explains that within our own nation states there are so many diff ways in which we speak
which tells us a lot about our perception of others. Linguistics at the Stanford university say that
Language we speak shape the way we think. If people are told to act like the name of the days
then if they act like Monday they will act masculine compared to Wednesday which is
grammatically feminine.
The effect of being bilingual is also explained. Experiments tell that when an English speakers
speaks in one way while Russian in another. Russian has a diff perspective more collectivist
while English has a more individualistic.
All languages have same structure but dont mean they are all the same. Fry tells that some
languages are instinctively funnier than the others. Similarly some languages are more
descriptive than the others. Like fry explains the Irish language is extremely old and doesnt
contain many words however it is more descriptive.
However English still is a global language. As when fry went to school and ased irish children
they still used English when they texted or on the internet rather than irish.
Then another language from the region Basque is explained. the language is over a 1000 years
ago but still is being hard to keep it alive. A restaurant owner says language is the DNA of bask
cusine to be basque is You have to speak the language and eat the food. Fry explains that Bask
food is like language. As language has words from other countries similarly Basque food does
the same which helps in bringing people closer.
Fry then takes us to France where he visits the Academie Fracaise where the proper words that
have to be included in the French language. Though unfortunately Fry is not let inside while the
meeting going on. In the mean while a hip hop singer from Marseilles is shown. Fry tells that rap
language has had a massive influence on French language from small slangs being included in
small but significant ways.
The language Hebrew experiences similar mixing. Fry is shown to visiting a garage. He is
amused that how do these native people explain words that are not in the bible such as the word
puncture. Then he finds out that they too use modern English as well and Hebrew too has an
academy where some ancient words are modernized and some are borrowed from elsewhere. The
show ends in a football ground where Fry watches Norwich city and bonds with his chosen tribe.