Re: Roots of English (Was: Intro and other)
| From: | Elliott Lash <al260@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Monday, December 31, 2001, 22:06 |
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Gregory Gadow <gadow@...> writes:
> Changing the subject to keep things on track.
Good Idea!
> >From: Elliott Lash <AL260@...>
> > > > > > As for Gaelic being related to English... interesting. I've never
> > > > noticed the similarity. It would make sense, though; the origins of
> > > > English should be related to Cornish, Kentish, Welsh, Manx, Scotch,
> > > > Irish and other languages of the British Isles. The question is,
> > > > where does Frisian fit in?
> >
> >
> >Someone does not understand the inner-workings of the language of the
> >British Isles!!
>
> (Excellent information snipped so as not to be redundant)
>
> <pouts and looks shamefaced>
>
> Nice way you have of educating me, using *two* exclamation points :-(
It's all in good fun. :) I assure you.
> Seriously, I did not know just how English was related to the other
> languages in the region; all the books I've read started with the Roman
> Occupation and went from there to the northmen and Norman invasions with
> little to no information on the root language (except to mention such
> curiosities as having a peasant word (Older English) for something as it is
> and an aristocratic word (Norman) for using/eating that thing, thus
> pig/pork, flax/linen, etc.)
>
> All a fascinating history, but not complete. How did Frisian, natively
> spoken (if memory serves) in the northern provinces of the Netherlands, come
> to England, and how did it surplant the native Celtic languages? If it was
> an ancient language on the island (I seem to remember reading about a
> Kentish tongue), at what point did it supplant the older languages?
Well, like someone said before Frisian (or..the dialects of West Germanic that
developed into Frisian) stayed on the continent, while the closely related
dialects of the Saxons and the Angles (and the perhaps the Jutes) sailed over
to England. This was around the 5th century AD. The roman occupation of Britain
had ended about a century before IIRC, and the Celtic 'tribes', by then quite
urbanized due to Roman influence put up alot of resistance against the Germanic
invaders. This resistance has passed into legend and become Arthurian Romance.
Anyways, eventually however the repeated raids by the Germanic Angles and
Saxons took their tole on the Celts and they retreated to the west of the
island. That is, they were pushed into Wales and Cornwall. In these areas, they
built large amounts of strongholds and kept the English (Angles and Saxons) at
bay for a long long long time. Eventually they became part of the English
Kingdom, while retaining their Celtic language. So, basical!
ly, English began supplanted Celti
c tongues on the island around the 5th/6th century AD. However, the process is
still not complete even today, since Welsh is still a living language, as is
Breton (though it's no longer spoken in England).
As for Kentish...I always thought that was a dialect of Old English, hence it
must have been imported by the German invaders as well.
> Any recommendations on books that would have such linguistic history?
Since this isn't my field of expertise..I only have a few resources on this in my library:
1) The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson
2) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language edited by David Crystal
3)A Linguistic Introduction to the History of English by Morton W. Bloomfield and Leonard Newman.
The last is a bit old fashioned and probably out of print..but..for what its
worth, I think it's very good.
Elliott