AN ambitious project in Winchester to celebrate the story of English is set to step up a gear.

The English Language Project aims to create the first exhibition space to chart its history and development from the Dark Ages to the present day.

The aim is for the exhibition to become a tourist attraction bringing in thousands of visitors to Winchester every year when it opens in 2012.

Prof Chris Mulvey, of Winchester University, said an initial feasibility study had been positive, but that now they needed to raise £200,000 to draw up business plans by next April.

He said the ideal location would be Woolstaplers Hall, the 19th century warehouse currently owned by Marks and Spencer, and part of the Silver Hill redevelopment in Winchester city centre.

Using the very latest in IT technology, the exhibition would use virtual reality to show the development of the language from the tongue of two small Germanic tribes in the fifth century, to the global phenomenon of today, spoken as a first language by 500 million people and as a second by some 1.5 billion.

Prof Mulvey said estimates were that the cost of securing the building and creating the content would be about £10 million.

The steering group, which includes Winchester resident Evelyn Thurlby, the former boss of the Eden Project in Cornwall, also wants to create a groundbreaking interactive website at a cost of another £10 million.

Prof Mulvey was speaking at the annual public meeting of Hyde 900, the community project to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the final burial of King Alfred. It was Julian Chisholm of Hyde 900 who first suggested such an exhibition.

Prof Mulvey said: "We want you to tell us what fun ideas you want and what your children want.

"We would like you to speak up for us."

Ideas include talking map floors that show how dialects change around the country, and a recording booth that allow people to record their own voices to be analysed by a linked database.