quote:

How easy is it to establish unequivocally which people or languages he was referring to and whether spoken or written?

Here's what Bede says:

quote:

At the present time, there are five languages in Britain ...These are the English, British, Irish, Pictish, as well as the Latin languages; through the study of the scriptures, Latin is in general use among them all. To begin with, the inhabitants of the island were all Britons, from whom it receives its name..

All of the languages to which he refers can be accounted for. British = Welsh, Irish = Gaelic, Pictish = Pictish. If we claim that one of them was really Mr Harper's English, we are left wondering why Bede missed out Welsh, Gaelic or Pictish.

Bede of course can be questioned, like any other text. But there is no particular reason to do so here. (Except of course for those fanatically devoted to Mr Harper's view. )

quote:

I'm sure you're not suggesting that the name by which the posited English-in-England-before-the-Anglo-Saxons was known enters into the argument at all.

I'm simply providing evidence that Old English was described as English.

Now THAT is an error of scale, Harry.

For English speakers, it is English that provides the framework within which we discuss such technical matters, coin new terms, clarify issues, enquire about and implement new innovations...

Is a wiggly line pretty much straight or pretty much the opposite? It depends.

The linguistics industry focuses on the level where English has changed because we no longer use soote/suit in the way that Chaucer did -- not that "April with his showers suit" was necessarily ever anything other than a poetic rendition of "April Showers" -- but when I look at it, I find it is perfectly familiar enough (that is, plain enough English) to be able to pick out the little oddities as the few trivial changes!

Jean, you clearly have this stuff at your fingertips. Can you tell us when Bede first wrote (and how do we know the date)? Was it in Latin? When and where was Anglo-Saxon first written (and how do we know the date)?

Not that it will make any difference ..

but I thought to listen to Chaucer.. to Middle English... after all when german is written down I can read it quite well... and understand many of teh words .. but when spoken.. it becomes another language... try listening to it.. without looking at teh translation... now that I have no idea what is being said.. only fragments

You're hanging by two very slender threads, Harry. On the question of Chaucer you know perfectly well that the argy-bargy was over one per cent or ten per cent. I allowed for that. But if you really want to be picky, I'll say Shakespeare and claim (what would you like?) ninety-eight per cent over four hundred years. Whichever way you look at it the written evidence says it's sl-o-o-o-w. Way too slow to get Anglo-Saxon into English or Latin into French in a bare few hundred years.

So you increasingly rely on this idea that in the background the spoken speech is changing like the wind while the written version goes like a glacier. First of all, let's face it, this is completely unevidenced. It's just a wheeze on your part to avoid the issue. Nothing wrong with that!

But it's gotta be a good wheeze. You still haven't explained how the people writing down the language can keep remembering the old word for something when the current word is ringing in their ears (never mind why they should want to). Nor, if the demotic is racing along, how for instance everyone can read Shakespeare then and now, or Luther then and now.

And just to cap it all, even your all-change-the-speechifiers theory doesn't have time! Supposing your Anglo-Saxon speakers were changing into English-speakers the moment they stepped off the boat in 495 AD... they still get nowhere near English a thousand years later. Remember, Anglo-Saxon is ninety per cent different from English not ninety per cent the same.

quote:

when Bede first wrote (and how do we know the date)? Was it in Latin? When and where was Anglo-Saxon first written (and how do we know the date)?

Bede wrote many things apart from his Ecclesiastical History. The first appears to be his Commentary on the Apocalypse (c.703-9). He wrote his Ecclesiastical History in 731 and it was his last major composition. He gives the date at the end of book 5, chapter 23. The text survives in more than 130 complete manuscripts.

Bede always wrote in Latin. That was the language of the Church and scholarship, until Alfred set his mind to translations of key works into the vernacular and the cobbling together of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

First written Old English? I wouldn't care to say. You need an Anglo-Saxon scholar for that.

Now folks, I must call it a day. I need to work. And read. And stuff like that.

<<try listening to it.. without looking at teh translation... now that I have no idea what is being said.. only fragments
Chaucer Audio>>

BAJR, you're one of the most trusting souls I have ever come across. The bloke reading it is trying to convince you it's "Middle" English. He is straining every sinew to make it as DIFFERENT as possible from ordinary English, because he truly and sincerley believes it's halfway to Anglo-Saxon.

But luckily for us we've got Chaucer's word for it, not his.

phew... another problem neatly brushed aside...

I put it up for the benefit of others, as I could go back in time to teh 9th century, bring back a real life person from Sussex and let him tell you, and you would probably say... ah.... you picked up the wrong person...

You won't be convinced... I no longer want to convince you or debate (as debate involves restructuring theories as evidence is produced) I just think others should know that what is written and what is spoken is very very different...

I speak an English that is different from what I write... and some people (like Aberdonians) speak an english I have no idea what is being said... but they write the same as me.

I take it I could give you all manner of people speaking Chaucer... and they would all be dismissed (quite handily) by saying ah... but... they are trying to make it sound different...

You are an expert only in ignoring/dismissing things that don't agree... this one at least is not on the same scale as saying the Russians bought fakes... but hey... if it helps to propogate pseudo science.. go for it...

I would respect you more if you did not see yourself as one of an enlightened few... straining against the bounds of establishment.. I can do that too... but am more than happy to admit when I am wrong... go away and come back with a revised... better plan.

It all comes back to a matter of scale. Either you believe there's been a massive shift or you think there's been a tiny shift. It's no use people going on about Aberdonian or any other kind of English...they're just kinds of English. And they all bear a close relationship to written English whether they're spoken in London or in California, in the twenty-first century or the fifteenth century.

Hey, I know, let's ask an Aberdonian to write down his speech. I expect it'll be recognisably English. Let's ask a fifteenth century Aberdonian to write down his speech...oh, we can, it's called Doric and we have lots of it...it's recognisably English.

And then there's Anglo-Saxon. It's a different language.

No one can listen to Middle-English now. All you can do is listen to an academic best-guess on what it may have sounded like. It might be bang-on, but there again it might not.
Amd PMB. what are the similarities in terms of time-scale between the spread of the Anglo-Saxon language in this county and that of the Slavic language in , say, Poland? (I did go to the website you suggested before, but it was just a place to place an order for your book)

I'll be happy to, Harry, if you'll give me a version in the ordinary Latin alphabet and using modern spelling conventions. And while you're doing that, check to see how much Anglo-Saxon is in it.

Less of bliss may none o’us bring
That bear this pearl upon our breast,
For they of mite couth never mind
Of spotless pearls that bore the crest.
Although our corpses in clothing cling,
And wear raiment for rot without rest,
We throughout-ly having knowing;
Of one death full our hope is dressed.
The Lamb o’us gladens, our care is cast;
He mirthing o’us all at church and mass.
Each one’s bliss is brim and best,
And never one’s honour get never the less.

quote:

Bede always wrote in Latin.

I looked up the St. Petersburgh Bede and was intrigued to learn that it includes Caedmon's Hymn in OE, written in a slightly different hand from the rest of the text. This doesn't invalidate your dating of the original MS but it does raise the question of how many interpolations or alterations might have been added, and when.

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I'll be happy to, Harry, if you'll give me a version in the ordinary Latin alphabet and using modern spelling conventions. And while you're doing that, check to see how much Anglo-Saxon is in it.

I'll take that as a no then MJ.

To prove your assertion that middle english is 99% the same as modern english, you'd have to be able to take a piece of text like that into say your local comprehensive and ask the year 11 GCSE class to read it. If they all understand 99% of it, then you're correct.

I maintain hardly any of them would understand much of it at all.


best

Harry A

Ishmael,

I'm sure MJ appreciates your efforts.

Unfortunately, it's MJ who keeps saying middle english is 99% the same as modern english so it would be nice to see his attempts.

best

Harry A

quote:

Originally posted by Harry Amp:
To prove your assertion that middle english is 99% the same as modern english....

I think this problem is being approached from an entirely one-sided angle. While MJH and his revisionist sidekicks may have few problems reading Middle English, what chances would Chaucer have had understanding ours? Would HE say that the language of today is "99%' the same as his? Although its too late to ask him, my bet is that he would not be of the same opinion as MJH. It seems to me that by concentrating on whether Chaucer is understandable in HINDSIGHT, you are ignoring a number of things in modern English. Like for example (just to take the most obvious example) what would Chaucer have made of the label "Applied Epistemologist" or "Revisionist historian"? Surely in measuring "change" it is all the changes that have to be taken into account.

There are a number of other things which to my mind make MJH's assertions about slow versus fast linguistic development naive nonsense, but I really cannot be bothered what he thinks, and certainly see no evidence that he really is interested in what others think.

quote:

Originally posted by Caedbaed:
Amd PMB. what are the similarities in terms of time-scale between the spread of the Anglo-Saxon language in this county and that of the Slavic language in , say, Poland? (I did go to the website you suggested before, but it was just a place to place an order for your book)

So you want me to read it to you too? I was using the case of the Slavs as an example. If you dont understand the example and want to, why not have a rummage around in some books and webstuff and try and find out for yourself? It should not be too difficult, even if you dont go for the easier option to which I pointed you, where its all set out in between two covers of one book.

<<I'll take that as a no then MJ. To prove your assertion that middle english is 99% the same as modern english, you'd have to be able to take a piece of text like that into say your local comprehensive and ask the year 11 GCSE class to read it. If they all understand 99% of it, then you're correct.>>

Well, I've done the next best thing and asked a classroom of Applied Epistemologists to do it. I think they pass the 99% test but I'll let you be the judge. Since we are now dealing with some real nitty-gritty, I'll take it line by line. Here's your first line

<<'Lasse of blysse may non vus bring>>
Loss of bliss may none us bring

Fairly straightforward English.

The next line is a bit trickier because it contains some letters of the alphabet we no longer use. But here goes

<< Þat beren þys perle vpon oure bereste >>
that bear(en) this pearl upon our breast

An interesting point here is that the past participle has changed. We found in the Chaucer example that this is the chief difference between fifteenth century English and our own. And equally interesting, Harry, this is also the bit of standard grammar that dialects most often deviate from (and for that matter, that children most often get wrong).

<<For þay of mote couþe neuer mynge>>

Definitely the most interesting line in the whole stanza. 'Mote' means 'speck' and we still use it in this sense in a well known saying about "beams and motes". Or as here in the King James Bible "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye" (Mathew)

'Couth' we now only use in the word 'uncouth'. As to 'mynge' I think this is just 'manage' but my colleagues prefer various other things. The whole line reads something like:

<<For þay of mote couþe neuer mynge>>
For they of mote couth never manage

But I hesitate to offer this as a 99% hit.

<<Of spotle3 perle3 þat beren þe creste.>>

Of spotless pearls that bear(en) the crest

Straightforward enough. But the next line is a real doozy

<<Alþa3 oure corses in clotte3 clynge>>

A word-for-word trascription comes out as
Although our corpses in clods cling

Which is a memorable line but I am not sure 'although' is correct. Any suggestions?

<<And 3e remen for rauþe wythouten reste>>

Most of the sentence is obvious English
And there remain for [duh?] without rest

but this word 'rauþe' caused some grief. Usually simplest is best so I think it is just their rendition of the word 'rather' but how the line now scans is anyone's guess. We have to bear in mind that poetry always plays fast and loose with syntax and there's no guarantee that one generation will like what another generation does with word order.

<<We þur3outly hauen cnawyng>>

Another tircky one because of the change in the past participle. It seems to say something like "we used to have knowing" but what that makes 'þur3outly' is frankly one for you, Harry.

But fortunately the next line is pretty well standard English

<<Of on dethe ful oure hope is drest>>
Of on death full our hope is addressed

though the 'on' might be 'one' and 'drest' might be 'dressed'. Both work fairly well.

quote:

Bede wrote many things apart from his Ecclesiastical History. The first appears to be his Commentary on the Apocalypse (c.703-9). He wrote his Ecclesiastical History in 731 and it was his last major composition. He gives the date at the end of book 5, chapter 23... Bede always wrote in Latin.

Thanks Jean. Very interesting. Only... I'm confused now, since Wikipedia says

Old English began, in written form, as a practical necessity in the aftermath of the Danish invasions...

and

From about AD 800 on, waves of Danish assaults on the coastlines of the British Isles were gradually followed by a succession of Danish settlers.

which seems to suggest Anglo-Saxon was not in use in Britain for another, say, seventy or a hundred years after Bede was writing. (I'll save that for later.)