Not exactly. As I understand it (bear in mind I'm not a scholar of OE) we can see plenty of change in OE over the period of its use.

What Hildegard Tristram seems to be pointing out is that OE literary efforts were the product of an elite. So we shouldn't take the written language as exactly representing the spoken language. She seems to be proposing Old English (High) and Old English (Low).

Michael Swanton describes the late OE standard literary language as a "conservative archival language" which eventually fell into disuse. So the scribe maintaining the copy of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle at Peterborough after 1131 chose to use the contemporary colloquial speech, making his text among the earliest examples of Middle English.

That is different from a process of standardisation affecting a whole population through education and modern media. The process of standardisation does begin with "court" speech or that of the capital tending to be used in literature (which seems to be Hildegard Tristram's point re written OE), it is only when the literature becomes more widely available through printing and the spread of literacy, that we are liable to see the gradual subjugation of dialects and the slowing of language change.

Sorry - this thread is moving so fast, I can't keep pace! My response above was to

quote:

So Anglo-Saxon was standardised and showed scarcely any change over several centuries... English was standardised and showed scarely any change over several centuries... But for a little while there it was all up for grabs?

If you actually read ol' Hilde's words instead of genuflecting at her academic shrine you will see she is actually backing us to the hilt.

<<This paper suggests that diglossia in caste-like Anglo-Saxon societies consisted of O[E.sub.H] used by a very small elite of largely Continental Germanic ancestry and O[E.sub.L] spoken by the bulk of the population.>>

Just think about this for a minute. She is either saying that there are a bunch of Anglo-Saxon toffs speaking one language and a whole population speaking something else... or she is saying that the Anglo-Saxons were the toffs and the rest of the population aren't. Which is of course exactly what we say. But either way she now says:

<<These shifted from British (Low) Latin and Late British to Old English (OE) after the Anglo-Saxon Conquest, in some areas over a period of about 300 years.>>

There! Even she says it! The process is completed three hundred years after the conquest ie at exactly the moment that Caedmon composed his piece! Bring on the next Great Authority Figure.

"The percentage of speakers of the high variety must have been very low..."
"The low variety of Old English would already have featured most if not all the basic grammatical characteristics of Middle English..."
"...because of the essential caste character of Anglo-Saxon society and because of the elite's exclusive control of the technology of writing."

Yes, "must have... would have..." on the assumption that there was a transition from Anglo-Saxon to English to be explained.

Pigs can fly. But their wings are so small we can not even see them. Hence, when they land, they hit the ground hard. That's why pigs are found where the ground is chopped up and muddy.

Anyone can argue from false premises and make their explanations fit. (Shall I demonstrate that fire-breathing dragons existed?) That says nothing whatsoever about the soundness of the premises.

Have they changed logic since I was at school?


"...because of the essential caste character of Anglo-Saxon society and because of the elite's exclusive control of the technology of writing."

An élite class with a written language ruling a peasant class with a different, unwritten language has both of these things. However, they are not required to keep an unwritten vernacular out of the written record any more than roofs are required to keep showers of candy floss out of houses.

There were ruling classes and control of the technology of writing when it was turned over to the writing of English.

quote:

There! Even she says it! The process is completed three hundred years after the conquest ie at exactly the moment that Caedmon composed his piece! Bring on the next Great Authority Figure.

LOL MJ, except that she is not arguing your case if you read it. It's a celtic case.

best

harry A

quote:

As I understand it (bear in mind I'm not a scholar of OE) we can see plenty of change in OE over the period of its use... it is only when the literature becomes more widely available through printing and the spread of literacy, that we are liable to see the gradual subjugation of dialects and the slowing of language change.

So Anglo-Saxon does show a great deal of change. That make sense. Except that
• Middle English is called Middle English because it appears to be the fast, transitional phase;
• it has been argued right here that written Anglo-Saxon was ossified;
• fast-changing Anglo-Saxon would be unique among languages for which we have long continuous records, listed earlier;
• the dictionary typically gives the OE version/origin for a word, not a suite of them;
• we have seen English moving at monolithic speed since the ME period, at the very start of widespread literacy and before the introduction of printing.

Please don't say it takes an OE scholar to make sense of this. Academe has no special privileges with logic: we can all see there is something fundamentally wrong here.

<<LOL MJ, except that she is not arguing your case if you read it. It's a celtic case.>>

I am well aware of that, Harry, she is a pillar of orthodoxy. Now please address the point she makes, which is that everybody was speaking the same by the time Caedmon wrote.

quote:

she is not arguing your case if you read it. It's a celtic case.

The language of the masses was Celtic is a separate issue. What she says here is that as soon as we have evidence of the demotic language, circa Caedmon, it's ordinary English; and she can only make sense of this by assuming that the Anglo-Saxon on record up until circa William the ******* was rather different from the majority tongue.

quote:

William the *******

How sweet of the forum to edit this.

Why don't you guys just read the whole paper instead of guessing from snippets. You have the references above.

best

HA

quote:

Why don't you guys just read the whole paper instead of guessing from snippets.

Why, is it more true when it's repeated in the full text? I don't think anyone would wish to accuse her of drawing an unreliable abstract from her own work.

quote:

"The percentage of speakers of the high variety must have been very low..."
"The low variety of Old English would already have featured most if not all the basic grammatical characteristics of Middle English..."
"...because of the essential caste character of Anglo-Saxon society and because of the elite's exclusive control of the technology of writing."

This is, in fact, exactly what we have been arguing. Exactly. It is spooky in fact – as I had not anticipated any establishment figure coming so close to our complete perspective.

I want you to think about that for a moment. We are laying claim to this precise argument. Precisely as quoted above. Read it again if you have to. It’s important.

Where we differ is in just one relatively small matter. We consider presumptuous (and empirically unlikely) the notion that this "high" dialect was ancestral to the "low". We contest only this detail. It is our position that the "high" and "low" languages were kin but neither was directly ancestral to the other.

Beyond that difference, there are only some minor perspective matters concerning just how "Englishy" is Middle English. Yes. We do characterize Middle English as essentially English but I would not want you to get too hung up on that point. Just concentrate on the larger issues. There you can gain a better perspective on what it is we advocate and (hopefully) recognize that it isn't so far-fetched as your instincts may initially lead you to judge.

If parts of our argument strike you as irrational, drop them. If much of what we advocate appears too speculative, ignore it. Look for the essence that you can acknowledge as rational and then determine if some small part of that is acceptable. You might be surprised to realize we’re not so crazy after all.

If any of you bother to page back, you'll see I stated this some time ago. However, people who like to avoid hard work do prefer snippets. They select the bits they like and draw conclusions which have nothing to do with what they think it has.

If you think Hildgegard Tristram is arguing a case for a pre roman english, you're sadly mistaken.

But, I am pleased to see that you have made the first tentative steps towards more mainstream thinking.

best

harry A

Give up, Ish. He's been told three times by three different people that we are not saying Hildy is arguing for pre-Roman English but the bee is firmly in the bonnet.

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
Give up, Ish. He's been told three times by three different people that we are not saying Hildy is arguing for pre-Roman English but the bee is firmly in the bonnet.

It's odd how Harry criticizes us for supposedly not taking on board some obscure point made three pages back, premised on ignorance of what three persons have separately written in direct reply to his own posting.

I could not possibly put the case more plainly. I could not possibly place the case more firmly within a context likely to be understood here. With this last post, I believe the time has come to, once again, pull back the drawbridge.

Harry.

I hope you will read my last post at least one more time and think about it. I have most confidence in your ability to give honest consideration to new points of view.

I hope all participants in this discussion have sensed nothing but respect from me as well at all times. Best wishes.

Christopher F. Ash
a.k.a.

quote:

This is, in fact, exactly what we have been arguing. Exactly. It is spooky in fact – as I had not anticipated any establishment figure coming so close to our complete perspective.

There's nothing spooky about it Ishmael. It's entirely mainstream. I said as much a dozen pages back.

"But written language is far more conservative and changes at a much slower rate than the spoken language. The problem is that we don't know what spoken old english of the 10th cent sounded like. We only know what the 10th cent written texts are and they may already be 2 or 3 centuries out of step.

Now, you can use that to say that written OE texts reflects the language of an elite and, when we return to middle english, the written language reflects more accurately the spoken language, but we still don't know what the spoken language in the 10th cent was, let alone the language of the 6th cent."


So, pardon me for being confused why any of you thought I held a different view.

Moreover, if you do read Tristram's Diglossia, you will see that she also says that we don't now what the spoken language sounded like.

You lot just like arguing for the sake of it :-)

best

harry A

<<Moreover, if you do read Tristram's Diglossia, you will see that she also says that we don't now what the spoken language sounded like.>>

Thank God somebody is admitting there's no evidence for this line of argument. Still, if you could name one society anywhere in the world which has this weird two-tone language situation, one being several hundred years behind the other, we could at least begin to believe in the possibility of this hypothesis. I understand you have to believe it because it's the only thing now left holding the whole paradigm together, but the rest of us are getting a mite impatient.

<<You lot just like arguing for the sake of it :-)>>

Yes, a lot of people here seem to think that arguing is unhealthy. Dear old Jean thinks I'm clinically insane for doing it. How do you think intellectual advance is made? By cosy consensus?

quote:

Yes, a lot of people here seem to think that arguing is unhealthy. Dear old Jean thinks I'm clinically insane for doing it. How do you think intellectual advance is made? By cosy consensus?

Contension is only one of several historiographical methods.

best

HA

quote:

Dear old Jean thinks I'm clinically insane for doing it.

Actually it was Harry who suggested that you see a shrink. What I said was

quote:

A burning desire to understand is what drives scholarship. Scholars accept the discipline of science, for it is more important to them to understand, than to win an argument or defend a theory. Odd that objectivity should be underpinned by desire, but so I believe it is.

I do beg your pardon, Jean. Perhaps I can make amends by commenting on your statement.

<<A burning desire to understand is what drives scholarship.>>

This is definitely not true. Academics (at least) have a burning desire at the outset to be scholars but it quickly shrivels under the quite lamentable way universites operate. There are some scholars with a burning desire but they are mainly outside academia. Us, for instance.

<<Scholars accept the discipline of science>>

This is, I'm afraid, bordering on the pernicious. Even scientists do not typically accept the discipline of science. Non-scientists accept only the discipline of peer review which is as far from the scientific method as it is possible to imagine. Indeed, it is the mirror opposite for practical purposes.

<<for it is more important to them to understand>>

Definitely wrong. The important thing is to agree with one peers since most of the rewards lie in that direction. Academics soon learn to understand that.

<<than to win an argument>>

One of our major gripes against academics (and scholars) is that they scarcely ever engage in argument. Their day job is to teach students who never argue back, and then to repair to the common room or the conference where agreeable conformity is the watchword. Very occasionally some academics engage in ferocious arguments over relatively minor matters. If you don't know that winning such arguments is everything then you don't know many academics.

<<or defend a theory>>

No, that is the problem. Since a discipline is called a discipline because essentially everybody toes the same line, it follows that they will only ever have to defend a theory against outsiders. And academics never defend their theories against outsiders (it gives them the oxygen of publicity etc etc).

<<Odd that objectivity should be underpinned by desire, but so I believe it is.>>

I really do not understand this. Academics are human beings and human beings are led by their desires. I expect everybody desires "objectivity" all other things being equal. But they rarely are. Rarer in academe than outside I would say since the outside does enforce a certain rough objectivity in the hurly-burly of life.

See - you can't resist the desire to argue!

Nor you! In fact it's true of you all. You hear the tocsin summoning up some long-forgotten joy. Let's face it our lives our bland enough without taking away this last precious arena -- and that's what the Academy has done now that everybody is so damned educated.

In the nineteenth century there were auto-didacts on every street corner but now...everyone's watching BBC-2. Um...sorry... Channel Four. Everyone's got a dgree. But, and it really is a huge but, you must learn to enjoy arguing. That's why we get such a lot of personal flak, people are so unused to arguing that they find it distressing. But it ain't. And it's educational (honest).

So what the hell...let it rip!

I'm glad to know that the experience of arguing here has not left you too distressed Mr Harper. I can't help feeling though that your combative intellect is wasted in this arena. There is so much more scope in politics. Look at the House of Commons! It's your natural milieu, I'd say.