Re: Kench & Para-British, was Re: Missing Listmembers...

Skeat's "Our English Dialects" might be of help; as it has a little
chapter on Kentish and some pointers to other sources. Here's some
13th century Kentish:

Tho kinges hem wenten and hi seghen the sterre thet yede bifore
hem, alwat hi kam over tho huse war ure loverd was; and alswo hi
hedden i-fonden ure loverd, swo hin anurede, and him offrede hire
offrendes, gold, and stor and mirre. Tho nicht efter thet aperede an
ongel of hevene in here slepe ine metinge, and hem seide and het,
thet hi ne solde ayen wende be herodes, ac be an other weye wende
into hire londes.

The kings them went and they saw the star that goed before them,
until he came over the house where our lord was; and also they
had found our lord, so him honoured, and him offered their offerings,
gold, frankincense and myrrh. The night after that apeared an
angel of heaven in their sleep in dreaming, and them said and
commanded, that they should not again wend by Herod's, but by another
way wend into their lands.

Padraic.

On Sun, 15 Oct 2000, Rik Roots wrote:

>Although a local, I know almost nothing of the development of the Kent
>dialect, except that it would have been rooted in the language of the
>Jutes rather than the Angles or Saxons, and that it would probably
>have been more receptive to loanwords, given the amount of trade with
>the continent that has always taken place.
>
>I did read in a local history book (not a clue about its title, sorry)
>that people in Kent were very inventive about words (18-19 century?),
>and would makeup words as a sort of game (well, winters were long in
>those days) - a bit like cockney, but inventing words rather than
>finding rhyming slangs...
>
>Rik
>
>
>--
>http://homepages.enterprise.net/rikroots/gevey/index.html
>The Gevey Language Resource.
>