Celtic Influence Revisited

[iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu]

	Or re-conceptualized, so as to break out of the recent "is not /
is too" cycle ...
	The proposition that OE was a class dialect is to some extent more
assumption than conclusion.  No, this does not make the argument circular.
There is evidence, such as the forms and usages found in ME texts, that
allow it to break out of itself, so to speak.
	The basic idea is that if we assume certain things about
socio-linguistics, secondary languageu acquisition, and the nature of the
two languages in contact, the evidence found in ME becomes in a sense
predictable rather than simply random.	
	The main assumptions are:
		1) That OE was a class dialect.  That is to say that
		suppression of sub-standard features would not
		surprising, until the Norman Conquest made old notions
		meaningless.
		2) That secondary language-acquirers tend to model their use of
		the secondary language upon a primary language.  (This
		is not controversial, I include it only for
		clarity).  This modeling DOES extend to non-sound
		features.
		3) That the Celtic language that the Anglo-Saxons found in
		England a) had severely reduced nominal morphology, and b)
		made extensive use of periphrasis in its verbal system.
		4) The the language the Anglo-Saxons brought wih them
		was of the familiar Old Germanic type.
		5) That there was extensive "Celtic survival" in what
		might be called "the Greater North and West", a term which I
		mean to include much of the Midlands.
		6) That there was extensive Norse influence in the North
		and East (East Anglia), which would have tended to produce
		both something superficially similar to creolization and,
		less obviously, to suppress the use of periphrasis in the
		verbal system, as such usages were alien to Norse.

	With these assumptions, the pattern of non-sound innovations seen
in the ME dialects pretty well falls out, as has been noted.  (I am not
going to say things that might be prefaced by "Let me reiterate ..")  So
the question becomes, since it works to explain something which has not
previously been explained, is it falsified, or even made improbable, by
anything else?  Since we are dealing with the Dark Ages after all, which
are not called dark for nothing, to demand direct "proof" one way or
another would be unreasonable.  It is only be using such indirect evidence
as is provided by the ME dialects, our general knowledge of
socio-linguistics and secondary language acquisition, Higham's
non-linguistic arguments in favor of substantial Celtic survival, etc.,
that the darkness can be lifted at all.

	Anyway ... I wrote about a hundred pages worth of material on this
subject over ten years ago, and I do not think anybody (including me)
wants anything close to a repeat performance here and now.  Yes, more
could be said ...

					DLW