OFF: English (was Mountain Grill)

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 23-Feb-2005 10:18, Stephe Lindas wrote:
> Would the Saxon part of Anglo-saxon, not be German? I'm no historian, but weren't alot of the Romans that occupied Briton of Sarmatian and German descent, rather than Italian?

As far as can be told, post-Roman Britain received a fair deal of
immigration from the European coasts of the North Sea -- the areas that
are today the Netherlands, Friesland, northern Germany, and Jutland.

Most of these immigrants probably spoke dialects of a language ancestral
to those lanugages still spoken in those regions today (Dutch, Frisan,
Low German, etc.).  Parts of Northern Germany are known as a "Saxony" in
English (German "Sachsen"), and there are still many in this region who
speak Niederdeutsch (or Plattdeutsch), a Germanic language more closely
related to English than Standard High German (Hochdeutsch).  Dutch
(Nederlands) is also closer to English than is Hochdeutsch, though
English's closest relative is Frisan (with relatively few speakers
today, but not yet extinct).

In reality, what we think of as "Old English" was probably created
through a bit of a mish-mashing of features from the various dialects of
"North Sea Germanic" -- which were probably very similar anyway, at
least mostly mutually inteligible -- sifted and leveled over time until
we see written Old English.  Imagine, for example, if you took the
populations of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark (whose various languages and
dialects have a lot of similarity), moved them to Mars, and mixed them
all together in a bubble-city :)  You might end up with common language
that clearly originated in the current Scandinavian lanugages, perhaps
with more from Swedish since there are more Swedish speakers than Danish
or Norwegian speakers, but that was not clearly descended from a single
particular Scandinavian language.  (Probably a good sci-fi novel there ;)

So it's not really right to say that Old English is "German", but it's
much easier to see the relation between Modern English and Modern German
when you see it through the medium of Old English.  English lost a lot
of its German-looking grammar in the course of the Viking Age (absorbing
influences from Old Norse) and particularly after the Norman Conquest
(gaining lots of French vocabulary and losing yet more German-style
grammar.  Thanks to all these changes, by the time you get to the later
Middle Ages, English is starting to look _reasonably_ comprehensible to
the modern speaker:

In 1385, John Trevisa wrote:
> Also Englischmen, theigh hy hadde fram the beginning three maner speche
 > -- Southeron, Northeron, and Middel speche in the middel of the lond,
 > as hy come of three maner people of Germania -- notheles by commixstion
 > and melling, furst with Danes and afterward with Normans, in many the
 > contray longage is apeired, and som useth strange wlaffyng, chytering,
 > harryng, and garryng grisbittyng.

And then soon you get on to Shakespeare, who -- apart from using words
like "wherefore" when we would use "why" -- is pretty straightforward.

Mmmm, must stop off-topic ramblings! :)

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
http://www.carlaz.com/