Re: Brithenig misunderstood
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, April 17, 2005, 15:04 |
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On Saturday, April 16, 2005, at 08:01 , damien perrotin wrote:
> Skrivet gant Ray Brown:
>
>>
>> The situation with Brithenig is very different. Latin was _not_ the
>> substrate language. Also Brithenig starts from a real situation that
>> actually existed in our world: the almost four centuries of Roman
>> occupation of Britain (from the Claudian invasion in 43 CE till
>> Constantine III withdrew the legions in 406).
>>
>> There is no doubt that in the urban centers of Roman Britain, Vulgar
>> Latin
>> had replaced native languages, just as it had in Gaul, the Iberian
>> peninsular & elsewhere.
[snip]
> just as an aside, the titles of the post-roman leaders before or just
> after Hengist's revolt were celtic (vortigern, riothamus)
But not Arctorius (Arthur) or Ambrosius (Emrys) :)
Nor AFAIK do we know Vortigern's full name. It is possible that
Vortigernus was his cognomen & that he had a Roman praenomen & nomen.
There were no contemporary accounts of this period, and by the time they
were written about any nascent Britto-Romance had disappeared.
> so it is not
> so sure that vulgar Latin has replaced British, even among the
> aristocracy (and riothamus is generally thought to have been rather
> pro-roman).
OK - I do not want to get into an argument this. I guess I overstated the
position a bit. But when one considers that Lingua Romanica took root,
flourished and has survived till modern times (Romanian) in Dacia, which
was occupied at a later date than Britain, I still think it likely after
about 4 centuries that Lingua Romanica had taken root in urban Britain.
But whether it had or not, that is the position from which Brithenig
starts, which is what is relevant in this context.
Ray
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
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