LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 05.JAN.2001 (01) [E]

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From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 04.JAN.2001 (03) [E]

A chairde,

Thank you, Ron. Your comments were as intriguing as
ever, and I was captivated.

> Aren't you confusing "ethnos/ethnic" with
> "nation/national" here?  You seem to use them almost
> indiscriminately.  Or am I missing something?

Probably. I was using the terms "ethnos" (national
consciousness) and "ethnic" somewhat as synonyms. As I
understand it, all notions of supralocal "national
consciousness" were manufactured (to a lesser or
greater extent) in the 19th Century. Of course it
would be fatuous to over-generalise: many groups have
long held vague ideas of "nationalism" insofar as they
have recognised that there is something that they
share and belong to. I'm reminded of "Irishness"
beginning as a description of those who live on the
island of Ireland - Old Irish records "fer Érenn"
(Modern Irish "fir Éireann") as one of the earliest
expressions of pooled consciousness, if not nationhood
in the sense we understand it.

Within these "fer Érenn" (which was strictly speaking
only a geographical and not ethnic description) there
were concordant local identities, such as "fer Lagin"
(M. Ir. "fir Laighin" - "Leinstermen"), "fer Muma" (M.
Ir. "fir Mumha" - "Munstermen"), "fer Ultag" (M. Ir.
"fir Ultaigh" - "Ulstermen"), and, within these,
continually smaller divisions and identities that were
fiercely fought for, ultimately whitling down to one's
"baile" (townland or district). As it was rare that
people ever saw any non-Gaelic speaking foreigners -
those that were seen were lumped together as "Gaill"
("non-Gaels") - geographical distinctions served as
the only real source for identification. The point is
of course that the world was thus a very exclusive
one, and, in the context of the
proto-Frisian/proto-English debate the idea I am
trying to put across is that there might not
necessarily have been any *need* for "ethnic
consciousness".

It seems to me that the only reason our subject group
would consider themselves a separate community beyond
the usual local patriotisms and solidarities is
whether or not their language was sufficiently
different from surrounding groups so as to make them
self-consciousness. As we have seen in Ireland, Wales
and the Slavic peoples, mutual intelligibility is the
key to notions of "ethnicity": note how German
speakers are termed "Nemets" in all Slavic languages,
from the root meaning "dumb" - i.e., unintelligible.

> As far as I am informed, the notion of ethnos
existed > before the notion of nationhood as we now
know it,
> namely a political structure that is intended to
> unite people with various local and often ethnic
> identities. As far as I know, it was the notion of
> nationhood that was the 19th-century European
> construct, oftentimes in opposition to the wishes of
> certain ethnic groups.

Exactly. I should have made clear that in my previous
post I was not contending that the entire notion of
"ethnicity" is ridiculous: I was merely stating that I
think we should be careful when looking at the past to
remind ourselves that the way we may look at
"ethnicity" (i.e., belonging to a distinct group) may
not have always been how our proto-English or Frisian
migrants did. Things that matter to us might not have
mattered to them. If I may be allowed to digress a
little I would present the example of the north of
Ireland where it is almost taken for granted that
Protestant settlers and Catholic Gaels never mixed or
intermarried, reinforcing the presumtpion of ethnic
exclusivity and "purity". The fact is that very little
will stop two tandem populations enriching each other
over time or merging in tiny ways such as language and
customs. But because the two communities here are now
strongly resistant of each other, there has been a
successful revision of history to reinterpret it in a
sense of the complete segregation that is now only too
apparent in the Six Counties.

> I do not agree that ethnicity was and is a newish
> idea and was and is largely irrelevant to Europeans
> and other people.  If this were so, why is there and
> has for a long time been so much ethnic conflict?
> Why have some ethnic minorities always been apart
and > usually discriminated against?

Indeed. This is a good point well made. I agree that
there has always been ethnic conflict, but because of
the "nationalisation" of our attitudes in the 19th
Century there has been a tendency to reinterpret local
conflicts (i.e., conflicts based on irreconcilable
differences formed from reasons other culture, such as
economics) as "ethnic conflicts" if they are between
two ethnic groups, and deny certain collaborations as
unthinkable. I'm reminded of the historical record of
the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, when local
Albanians seem to have been fighting *with* the Serbs,
Bosnians and Hungarians (maong others) against the
encroaching (multinational) Turkish army. With the
current Albanian-Serb friction and the break-up of the
former Yugoslavia many nationalist historians have
sought to rewrite old local alliances between ethnic
groups who now hate each other or deny that they ever
existed. Similarly in Ireland in 1169 Diarmuid Mac
Murchadha sought Anglo-Norman aid for his own local
conflict (between groups within Leinster) which the
Normans then took advantage of and which the English
then followed up with their consolidation of rule
throughout the whole of Ireland (which was never
adequately achieved until Catholics and Protestants
had been set against each with the Penal Laws in the
19th Century).

> if you did your survey among dominated, i.e.,
> minority/minoritized, groups; e.g., Danes, Frisians
> and Sorbs in Germany, not to mention Rom, Jews and
> Turks -- or take Kurds in the various
countries.These > are not new notions.

Absolutely. I agree. I shall reiterate that I am not
trying to deny the ancient existence of nations nor
nationhood - I'm a strong self-determinist and Irish
republican as my record on here shows - but my
assertion is that we musn't assume that nations were
set in stone as ethnic absolutes. Nations are born,
become adolescent, age, and some even die. Who know
considers themselves to be Polabian, Prussian (that
is, Baltic Prussian), Pictish or so forth...? History
is littered, unfortunately, with ethnic groups that
have been whittled away by forcible assimilation and
annexation.

> The Old Saxons were not really a nation as such but
a > loose conglomeration of tribes.  They had local
> headmen, but the idea of a supremely ruling king,
> thus of nationhood, was alien and apparently
> distasteful to them.

This is precisely my point. Local groups within
linguistic groups, or ethnic groups, or nations, may
not consider themselves to be part of the nation
because their "tribal" identity is stronger. If we
look at the Szkelys and Csangos - Magyar-speaking
groups within Transylvania - we see that even when a
group appears under all our criteria to "belong" to
another ethnic group - in this case the Hungarians -
the people themselves consider their local importance
to over-ride our scholarly pretensions. And yet other
"tribes" (for want of a better term) can have all the
criteria for separate ethnicity and yet fiercely
believe they belong to one ethnic group - as the
Magyars must have done when they joined the "On Ogur"
Turkic horde that moved into western Eurasia from
central Eurasia.

In the context of our argument, then, it is entirely
possible that our wandering Frisian-speakers were
unintelligible to other "Saxons" and yet considered
themselves to be, nonetheless, Saxon or Angle or
whatever. Proto-English. Even today we see that a
Geordie, whose language is unintelligible ostensibly
to someone from Brighton, would fiercely contend his
right to be English, and the Brighton speaker
likewise.

> I personally do not believe in "race" (in the
> physical sense) but believe that a sense of
ethnicity > (i.e., linguistic and/or cultural
identity) is and
> always has been a powerful force throughout history
> -- and I am not saying that this is good or bad.  I
> do not see ethnicity as anything inherent but as a
> type of conditioning...

I don't believe in "race", either. There is only one
race and that is the human race. The point I was
raising is that when we move into "ethnic" territory
there is a subtle and often unnoticed risk of
regressing to 19th Century notions of *physical*
ethnicity. Ethnicity to me is merely a
self-designation, to be iterated by language, culture
and customs. Having said that, there are a vast number
of people who don't cleave to language as a crucial
facet of ethnicity - mainly because their ethnic
language has been schooled out of them or their
parents or grandparents. I am of course referring to
English-speaking Irish, Cornish, Welsh, and Manx,
because that is my main theatre of reference. I
understand that the same is true in Fryslan, however,
where only 55% of Frisians have managed to retain
Frysk as their language. Nonetheless a Dutch-speaking
Frisian is a Frisian, totally.

So we are left with the question: why did those
Frisians who invaded England (if we presume they did)
leave in the first place...?

Go raibh míle maith agaibh.

Críostóir.

----------

From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language varieties

Dear Críostóir,

Thank you very much for your amply illustrated explanation (above).  It
definitely was useful, for now I see (as you seem to have done already) that
it was mostly a problem of terminology and that there are no major conceptual
disagreements between us (though I am not qualified to comment about Celtic
ethno-linguistic politics).

I feel you are quite right in saying that "ethnic" tends to come all tangled
up with "racial," albeit to our dislike.  Here in the United States there
seems to be a euphemism-inspired shift in which many people mean "racial" when
they say "ethnic" and mean "ethnic" when they say "cultural."  I also agree
that there tends to be a blurry line between "ethnos" and "nationhood" in
European minds, with the old "one nation - one ethnicity - one language" ideal
still being basic in many mindsets, which is still reflected in the language
policies or at least in their realization (or lack thereof) in most European
countries - more in some than in others, as you well know.

I agree with you and Stefan in that we cannot be sure what sort of ethnic
awareness the early Germanic-speaking settlers/invaders of Britain had.  I
still contend, though, that there must have been *some* sort of sense of
ethno-tribal allegiance, for otherwise the designations "Saxon" and "Anglian"
would not have been continued in the "new" land.  However, as Stefan seems to
imply, this may have been a case of leadership-dictated group allegiance that
does not necessarily reflect the actual ethnicity of all its members, which
may very well have been mixed.  I suppose this is what might be termed
"ethno-political allegiance."

> Having said that, there are a vast number
> of people who don't cleave to language as a crucial
> facet of ethnicity - mainly because their ethnic
> language has been schooled out of them or their
> parents or grandparents. I am of course referring to
> English-speaking Irish, Cornish, Welsh, and Manx,
> because that is my main theatre of reference. I
> understand that the same is true in Fryslan, however,
> where only 55% of Frisians have managed to retain
> Frysk as their language. Nonetheless a Dutch-speaking
> Frisian is a Frisian, totally.

Apparently this is true also of many Sorbs, Frisians and Rom (especially
Sinte) in Germany, where individual may identify with the minority groups even
though they themselves do not know the languages of these groups.  You might
even argue that East Frisians tend to see themselves as ethnically different
from "mainstream" Germans, including North Germans, at least as culturally
distinct, even though they have lost the East Frisian language.  I am not sure
if nowadays they see themselves as ethnic Frisians or as regional East
Frisians who have replaced East Frisian with Low Saxon (Low German) as their
linguistic banner.  (Eastern Friesland is currently perhaps the most important
stronghold of Low Saxon/Low German in Germany.)  Interestingly, Sater
Frisians, speaking the last remnant of East Frisian and doing so outside
Eastern Friesland, traditionally do not see themselves and their language as
Frisian but as specifically "Saterlandisch" (_Seeltersk_).  However, lately
Sater Frisians have been participating in inter-Frisian activities, especially
with Westerlauwer ("West") Frisians (of the Netherlands), and this may
eventually result in renewed ethnically Frisian awareness among that
population at large.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

----------

From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Language varieties

Stefan wrote:

>Frisian and Middle English were similar for the same reason that
Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are, or Italian, Spanish or Portuguese-  one
language splits into several, which gradually diverge. <

The implication of this seems to be that Old Frisian was extremely like the
Anglo-Saxon languages spoken in the British Isles, but since we know almost
nothing about it that can only be a supposition. Middle English is greatly
changed from these earlier languages, as regards both the simplification of
grammatical forms and the vocabulary. The status of English in a country
dominated by a completely different prestige language (Norman French) no
doubt influenced the particular ways in which it altered. I therefore still
find it difficult to see why Frisian, which developed under completely
different geographical and social conditions, should change in such a way as
to be similar to Middle English. (I have, of course, commented before on the
fact that the similarity of languages can often be exaggerated by careful
selection of texts and ignoring the fact that words which are written
similarly may be pronounced very differently.)

Stefan also wrote:
>I cant' find confirmation of whether OE [ae] was written <ae> from the
earliest times or not.  Kentish and Mercian OE routinely wrote <e> (thus deg
instead of daeg for "day"). <

I'm not sure whether by <ae> he means two separate letters or the ligature
"aesc". The "aesc" rune appears in inscriptions from the 5th and 6th
centuries, though since it is identical with the older "a" rune and
deciphering  these inscriptions seems to involve a lot of guesswork I
suppose there might be some doubt about this. Over the next few centuries
the ligature was often separated into its components in manuscripts.

It is interesting to look at the two versions of Caedmon's Hymn
(Northumbrian, mss ca 740 CE) which are given in both Sweet's "Anglo-Saxon
Reader" and his "Second Anglo-Saxon Reader" to see the different spellings
possible for a number of the words discussed in connexion with the baptismal
oath. One has "hefaenricaes/maecti/uuldurfadur/haleg/allmectig" and the
other has "hefenricaes [with "aesc"]/mehti/uuldurfadur/halig/allmehtig".

Regarding Anglo-Saxon spelling the following may be of interest. Sweet's
"Second Reader" contains a tenth-century charter or will from Suffolk. Many
of the bequests are to the testator's sister for her lifetime and thereafter
to a church or another person. There are five repetitions of a set of
phrases along the lines "mire swuster hire deg, ofer hire deg ..." ("to my
sister for her lifetime, after her lifetime ..."). (I have synthesised a
version without the "aesc" ligature.) Permuting all the spelling differences
which appear in these five occurrences there are 256 ways of writing the
last 6 words, not counting abbreviations! Not only that, but in a 6th
occurrence the scribe has put "aefter haera daege" ["aesc" in each case]
(which I take to be dative rather than accusative) for the last phrase, thus
multiplying the possibilities even further!

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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