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English
Feb 16, 2008 11:00:57 GMT -1
Post by megli on Feb 16, 2008 11:00:57 GMT -1
'celtic' christianity is a bit of a vexed concept these days....
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English
Feb 16, 2008 20:59:15 GMT -1
Post by arth_frown on Feb 16, 2008 20:59:15 GMT -1
'celtic' christianity is a bit of a vexed concept these days.... Ok then, non-roman christianity
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English
Feb 17, 2008 22:18:09 GMT -1
Post by poseidia on Feb 17, 2008 22:18:09 GMT -1
One observation I have is that "Middle English didn't appear until 1200". In fact the Anglo Saxon Chronicle was kept in perfect Anglo Saxon with little change until 1200 when the Peterborough monks took over and the familiar Anglo Saxon suddenly converts into stangulated English. MJ Harper puts forward two potential reasons for this:
"1. This is clear evidence of the spectacularly rapid change Anglo Saxon underwent as it converted into English proper (the orthodox view) or
2. Once the Normans had conquered, Anglo Saxon was no longer the language of the ruling elite and no longer therefore the administrative language leaving the Peterborough chroniclers able to record the language they actually spoke - English."
He goes on to point out that Layamon was writing poetry in Anglo Saxon in the West Midlands in c1200 by which time from other manuscripts English had achieved its modern form elsewhere. This time he suggests three possible explanations:
"1. There was a small but obscure West Midland market for poems in the traditional idiom even though nobody by then spoke it (the orthodox explanation)
2. The demand for medieval poetry was in medieval times exclusively for a literate and well-to-do audience. Most of it was written in French or Latin for the Norman ruling elite but since we know from Norman records that many pre-conquest Anglo-Saxon families retained some or all of their lands, they presumably continued to commission poetry in their own language (Anglo Saxon) from their own (Anglo Saxon) poets, exactly as they had done for centuries past.
3.Brummies have always been slow on the uptake and prone to talk in a way incomprehensible to the rest of the country"
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Feb 18, 2008 14:48:47 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Feb 18, 2008 14:48:47 GMT -1
One observation I have is that "Middle English didn't appear until 1200". In fact the Anglo Saxon Chronicle was kept in perfect Anglo Saxon with little change until 1200 when the Peterborough monks took over and the familiar Anglo Saxon suddenly converts into stangulated English. MJ Harper puts forward two potential reasons for this: "1. This is clear evidence of the spectacularly rapid change He goes on to point out that Layamon was writing poetry in Anglo Saxon in the West Midlands in c1200 by which time from other manuscripts English had achieved its modern form elsewhere. Layomon didn't write in Anglo-Saxon but in early Middle English: A prest was in londe. Laweman. was hote. he was Leucais sone. lef him beo Driste. He wonede at Ernleie wid þan gode cniþte. uppen Seuarne. merie þer him þohte. faste bi Radistone þer heo bokes radde. Hit com him on mode. & on his þonke. þat he wolde. of Engelond þe ristnesse telle In spite of the orthography this is interpretable by looking up the odd word in a gloss rather by recourse to a grammar as with Old English (Anglo-Saxon). It is true that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was kept going written in Old English long after Middle English was being spoken (though without the authority that it had had under Alfred). This illustates the fact that the written language can often be a brake on the spoken language, but here, given that the written language was only exceptionally being used for a very limited purpose, the spoken language was able to develop without this brake, so that, when it did come to be largely written again, what was written was not constrained by conservative influences from previous texts, so was closer to the spoken language than written language usually is. I'm not sure about what you call the 'orthodox' explanation of language development. But the 'Brummie' one sounds compelling!
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English
Feb 20, 2008 11:07:51 GMT -1
Post by Tegernacus on Feb 20, 2008 11:07:51 GMT -1
icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/02/20/800k-payout-for-dictionary-update-91466-20498830/ACADEMICS from Wales have been awarded more than £800,000 to study the influence of French on the English language.
Linguists at Aberystwyth University are updating the Anglo-Norman Dictionary which was begun in 1947. The first edition of the dictionary was published between 1977 and 1992 but is now being entirely revised.
Experts from Wales have been given a £873,669 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to look at letters J, K and L for the new dictionary.
The new version will be more than three times the size of the original. It will also cover new areas of language such as, legal texts, scientific literature and administrative documentation. Interesting, although it's beyond the scope of us mere mortals to understand...
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English
Feb 20, 2008 12:51:01 GMT -1
Post by megli on Feb 20, 2008 12:51:01 GMT -1
Yes the dead giveaway about Layamon writing in Middle English and not A-S is that there are no cases (or very limited traces of them.) It's already a long way from A-S linguistically, though it doesn't look very different when one comes at it from Modern English. It's also a different dialect of Middle English to that of Chaucer, for instance. (Compare the language of Chaucer with that of the Gawain-Poet for example - the latter of full of Scandinavian words, and is tricky to read, whereas Chaucer is quite straightforward.)
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English
Feb 21, 2008 8:31:51 GMT -1
Post by Tegernacus on Feb 21, 2008 8:31:51 GMT -1
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3405939.eceThe English Project — which is due to open in 2012, as part of the Olympics cultural programme, with support from the British Library and the BBC among others — will aim to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the richness of the English language. It will trace its development from the mixed tongue of three tribes — the Jutes, Saxons and Angles who crossed the North Sea to make their homes in Britannia in the 5th century — to the global lingua franca of today.
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Feb 22, 2008 19:37:32 GMT -1
Post by poseidia on Feb 22, 2008 19:37:32 GMT -1
From the Wikipedia:
"Layamon's poem is also remarkable for its abundant Anglo-Saxon vocabulary; the scholar Roger Loomis counted only 150 words derived from Anglo-Norman in the 16,000 long-lines. Many scholars believe the language of the poem to be intentionally archaised, rather than indicative of the Middle English commonly written and spoken during Layamon's lifetime. The Brut's versification has proven extremely difficult to characterise. Written in a loose alliterative style, and sporadically deploying rhyme, as well as a caesural pause between the hemistichs of a line, it is perhaps closer to the rhythmical prose of Ælfric of Eynsham than verse per se."
From "Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Volume ll" by Henry Hallam :
"Layamon's age is uncertain; it must have been after 1155, when the original poem was completed, and can hardly be placed below 1200. His language is accounted rather Anglo-Saxon than English "
From another website: "Layamon is generally considered the first major Middle English poet, but his lexicon is almost pure Anglo-Saxon. In the 32,341 lines of the Brut, scholar Robert Lomis counts only 120 words of French or Latinate origin."
So I still favour the argument which suggests this was written in Saxon for his Saxon-speaking masters. Also if you read his poem it talks of British, Welsh and Scottish as different peoples during the time of Arthur and the invasion by the Saxons. So could it be that the British in this context spoke English, a language full of latin words because they had lived alongside the Romans for 400 years, the Welsh spoke Welsh and the Saxon overlords spoke Anglo Saxon? Then when the Normans replaced the Saxons as overlords, the language spoken by the vast majority of inhabitants in England became more acceptable and middle-English texts began to appear.
Now every Welshman worth his salt knows that he is known as a Cymro because he is a descendant of Gomer who left the Tower of Babel speaking Welsh. Wikipedia sets this legend out quite well:
"After the Tower of Babyl incident, Gomer and his family migrated northward from Shinar with their own language [Genesis 11:1-9], passed over the Urartu Mountains and settled around the Caucusus Mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas (ca. 2300BC).
He is traditionally identified with the Cimmerians who dwelt on the Eurasian steppes. Welsh traditions also posit that the Welsh people, who call themselves Cymry, are descended from the Cimmerians and from Gomer. The Welsh language is also traditionally called Cymraeg (or Gomeraeg). Josephus placed this legendary Gomer and the "Gomerites" in Anatolian Galatia (Antiquities of the Jews, I:6): "For Gomer founded those whom the Greeks now call Galatians, but were then called Gomerites)." "Galatia" takes its name from the ancient Gauls (Celts), from whom the modern Welsh trace their cultural ancestry."
Today, we Gauls live in Brittany, Cornwall and Wales (the latter known as "Pays du Galles" to the french). Now our history records the arrival of another tribe (the English) at around 1,000 years before Christ. My revered source now is Theophilus Evans from his book "A view of the Primitive Ages" written in 1740:
"It is not known at what time, after this island was in the sole possession of the Welsh, Brutus from Troy landed here. Be that as it may, it is certain that, being able to read and write, and being well versed in many of the sciences, he was, shortly after his arrival, unanimously appointed Chief of the old inhabitants. He gave them instructions (for at that period they were ignorant and illiterate) on many subjects, moral and political: he taught them to plant, to build, and to till the ground and, especially to read and write - arts with which but few nations in the world were then acquainted, and which the Welsh have never since entirely lost. It is said that Brutus and his followers landed in Britain about a thousand years before Christ. The language of these men was Greek and doubtless it was from them that we received many of the Greek words which are still intermixed with our language..."
So it is possble that the Welsh arrived first in Britain as one of the lost tribes - sons of Gomer and the English arrived - one of the lost tribes on the live of Javen, both Javen and Gomer being sons of Japheth and grandsons of Noah.
For a thousand years before Christ, the British (from Brutus) lived happily alongside the Welsh and the original Greek they spoke developed throughout this time and then through 400 years of Roman influence - bringing in Latin and then 500 years of Saxon influence followed by Norman influence to become the rich language we know and love today.
So I must apologise that I can't follow the accepted line of thinking on this occasion, but I hope you will forgive an ill-educated old Welshman and indulge me in my fantasies. Anyway arguing the counterpoint does make for an interesting thread!
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Feb 23, 2008 11:04:41 GMT -1
Post by poseidia on Feb 23, 2008 11:04:41 GMT -1
One tenuous piece of evidence to support the fact that the British spoke Greek in the 5th century BCE (though hardly surprising if you believe they arrived from Troy) was the visit of Abaris the druid to pythagoras when it was noted with some surprise that he spoke to them in fluent Greek.
Himerius , a Greek orator, gives the following description of him: "Abaris came to Athens, not clad in skins like a Scythian, but with a bow in his hand, a quiver hanging from his shoulder, a plaid wrapped about his body, a gilded belt encircling his loins, and pantaloons reaching from his waist to the sole of his feet. Moreover, he addressed us in our own tongue."
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Feb 23, 2008 12:34:36 GMT -1
Post by Tegernacus on Feb 23, 2008 12:34:36 GMT -1
Abaris is described as a Hyperboreian. Greeks believed that the mythical tribe of Hiperboreians , those who dwell on the other side of the north wind actually inhabited the inaccessible northern lands. Hiperboreians, according to them, worshipped Apollo, who wais said to spend a significant part of the year among them. Those most favoured by the gods could enjoy immortality and live among Hiperboreians.
In the original sources there is no mention about Abaris being a Celt and even more so, a druid. It was John Wood who in 1747 stated that Britons and Hyperboreinas are one people, taking Hecatajos of Miles, who claimed that hiperboreians dwelled in the British Isles, for the authority in this matter.
In 1723 Reverend Henry Rowlands, basing on rather dubious linguistic evidence maintained in Mona antiqua Restorata(Ancient Mona restored) that Abaris had been a Welsh druid by the name of ap Rees. Later, John Toland in A Critical History of the Celtic Religion made Abaris a Scottish Gael ignoring the fact that at that time there had been no Gaels in Scotland yet.
Toland made an attempt to authenticate his theory by translating the Greek word chalmid as plaid Also John Wood, the architect of Bath expressed his view on this subject in his work Choir Gaire, Vulgarly called Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain described, Restored and Explained where he describes a mythical Celt from Britain, King Bladud, identical to abaris or Aguilla. According to Wood, Abaris after his stay in Greece, returned to Britain and set up a druidic order there. For the English antiquarians Abaris the Hiberporeian became the counterpart of the druid Chynodax of Dijon, an ancient wiseman and philosopher, a character invented by the French antiquarians.
One should note, perhaps, that in the classical sources we find no mention whatsoever of the meeting between Abaris and Pythagoras. thats not to say that someone who spent 20 years of literacy training wasn't capable of speaking Greek, and maybe many in Southern Gaul could. But you have to be careful where you get your actual evidence for this. If it is from a 5 AD manuscript, then fine. If it's from an eighteenth century romantic-antiquarians, then double check it. This notion that the druids could speak Greek lead to the romantic image of them gathered around Stonehenge, with their white "Greek" robes and beards, looking not unlike a bunch of classical Greek philosophers. (Something that is STILL the popular image today). As for all this "English descended from tribes of Moses" and such... well, that was often the Monarchy's reason (excuse) for all kinds of barbarity and ethnic cleansing. Wishful thinking, methinks.
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Feb 23, 2008 13:05:15 GMT -1
Post by megli on Feb 23, 2008 13:05:15 GMT -1
The history of pseudo-history (as it were) is fascinating. (There's a nice book by T. Kendrick, I think, on this.) But of course there's not a grain of truth in it anywhere. The Trojan pseudo-history was enthusiastically fostered in Wales right up until the 18th century, Evans' Drych y Prifoesoedd being its last gasp really. I rather like the splendid false etymology of Cymraeg as Cam Roeg, 'crooked greek' - which goes back to Geoffrey, I think. It's funny to think that Evans noticed these resemblances to Greek in Welsh but completely mistook the reason; there are similar words like 'dagrau/dakrua', 'tears' in the two tongues because they're both Indo-European languages, not because the Britons spoke Greek, which of course they didn't. A few decades after Evans, people began to understand that most of the languages of Europe and norther India were related, and so the real reasons began to emerge into the light. Dear old Theophilus Evans. Potty.
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