LL-L "Language minorities" 2004.03.04 (02) [E]

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Thu Mar 4 15:29:48 UTC 2004 

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: Language minorities

A couple of months ago, I remember, there was some reporting in this list
about Flemish as language used in the UK. Earlier this week I found an
article about the subject. Sorry in case it is the same source as people
referred to some time ago.

I must confess I'm rather sceptical about this kind of things. It is very
well possible a scientist in the year 2200 will, after reading a travel
journal of a Limburgian,  who accidentally found a Limburgish speaking
emigrated family while traveling in Patagonia, state that Limburgish was one
of the Patagonian languages.

The article I found is reproduced below (Annex 1) as well as the complete
contents of the book it has been scanned from (Annex 2):
Languages in Britain & Ireland, Edited by Glanville Price, 2000, Blackwell,
ISBN 0-631-21581-6 (pbk), xi + 240 pp.
(SEK 354 on sales, originally SEK 418, at Akademibokhandeln in the Nordstan
mall in Göteborg)

Flemish is dealt with at the same level as Scots.  All Indian languages,
so very much present in the UK, are just dealt with in chapter 19 "Community
languages".

Regards,

Roger

--- ANNEX 1 ---

[p. 184]
[Chapter] 15      Flemish in Wales
Lauran Toorians

' [...] and I have also spoken with some who still spoke Flemish well, as
they have learned it from their parents and from  father to son.' Lucas de
Heere (1534-84), a lesser known painter from Ghent, wrote these words, in
Flemish and partly in the margin, in his manuscript 'A short description of
England, Scotland and Ireland, gathered from the best authors by L.D.H.' (
Chotzen and Draak 1937, 48; Chotzen 1937, 102). As a Protestant, de Heere
was formally banned from Flanders in 1568, by which time he was already in
England where he remained in exile until early 1577.

De Heere probably wrote his 'Short description' in the early 1570s and added
the words quoted above to his brief account of  how Flemings came to eastern
England in 1106 and were transferred from there to West Wallia by the
English king. As a source of this historical information he refers to
Humphry Lhuyd. Apparently de Heere travelled a great deal and visited
Pembrokeshire in person. His remark that some people there still spoke
Flemish in his own time should be taken seriously. After all, Flemish was de
Heere's own mother tongue.

How did people from Flanders come to south-western Wales and how did they
manage to keep their own cultural identity, including their language?
Scarcity of historical sources makes these questions hard to answer in great
detail, but an outline is possible. Tradition has it that a large group of
people was forced out of Flanders by flooding, but this detail seems to rest
mainly on folk-tradition. Though inundations were frequent in the Low
Countries, in the period in question no such flooding was disastrous enough
to force a substantial part of the population to emigrate. In fact, large
numbers of Flemings had already come to England in the army of William the
Conqueror. Later they were welcomed as merchants, as citizens for new
boroughs or as colonists in new settlements. It seems true that Henry II
found the influence which Flemings gained in his kingdom threatening and
banished them to south-western Wales. The details, however, are not very
clear.

In reality these people seem to have left the Low Countries for various
reasons. For the nobility this was a means of acquiring land and
opportunities for their younger sons. Other adventurers, and especially
farmers, escaped the over-populated and highly urbanized county of Flanders
and found a new frontier in the Anglo-Norman kingdom in Britain. Merchants
were welcomed with their expertise, which was unrivalled in north-western
Europe. They could secure trade of, especially, wool and fleeces for the
Flemish market. This way Flemings ended up not only in England and in Wales
but also in Scotland and even in Ireland (Toorians 1996, 1998).

--
Flemish in Wales [p.]  185

What makes Pembrokeshire special among the areas with Flemish settlers is
the fact that it was only here (and perhaps, but surely on a lesser scale,
in upper Clydesdale south of Glasgow) that they retained their identity as a
group for several generations and even managed to cling on to their own
language. Closer in time to their arrival than Lucas de Heere we have the
important comment by the Welsh historian and geographer Giraldus Cambrensis
or Gerald of Wales (c. 1146-1223) that his brother, Philip de Barri, was
once addressed in Flemish by a local knight in Haverfordwest, and apparently
was able to understand the language.

Strictly in relation to the language, this is all the evidence we have.
Neither the English nor the Welsh dialects of the area have preserved
elements which could with any certainty be labelled Flemish. Only
place-names reveal the presence of the sturdy settlers who once conquered
and kept this area from the Welsh. In the course of time their language
became English and the area became known as 'Little England beyond Wales'.
Places with names like Flemingston or Flimston clearly recall the Flemings.
Wiston is Wizo's town and can boast one of the best-preserved
motte-and-balley castles in Britain. Because of its bloody history this is
also the best-documented place in the written history of the Flemish
settlement in Pembrokeshire (Chotzen 1933; Toorians 1990, 1998).

Especially interesting is Walwyn's Castle, where early spellings of the
place-name, like Walewynecastle from 1307, suggest a Dutch/Flemish
pronunciation of the name. As I have argued earlier (Toorians 1995, 99-103)
this may be the place where the Welsh personal name Gwalchmai was equated
with the Continental name Wal(e)wain, thus laying the foundation for the
Gawain of Arthurian romance. Since also a mysteriously lost book by the
author of the Middle Dutch Reynard may have had a Welsh connection (all we
know is the title Madoc, which is a Welsh personal name), the most lasting
influence of the Flemish presence in Wales may well be of a literary kind.

That, on the other hand, fighting remained an important occupation for the
Flemings in Pembrokeshire explains how Irish annals can describe Strongbow's
invasion army in 1169 as 'a fleet of Flemings'. Probably all the Flemings we
find in twelfthand thirteenth-century Ireland will have come from (or
through) south-western Wales. Wool from the area remained important for the
Flemish cloth industry well into the fourteenth century and when in 1353
Carmarthen was made the sole staple town for the wool trade in Wales,
Haverfordwest was recognized as an 'English town' and as such was exempt
from this new regulation. Thus the Flemings created their own 'Little
England beyond Wales'.

References

Chotzen, Th. 1933 1934. Willem van Brabant en Owain ap Cadwgan. Annales de
la Société d'Émulation de Bruges, 76:65-82.
- 1937. Some sidelights on Cambro-Dutch relations. Transactions of the
Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 101-44.
-and Draak, A. M. E. (eds) 1937. Beschrijving der Britsche Eilanden door
Lucas de Heere. Een geïllustreerd geschrift uit zijn Engelsche ballingschap.
Antwerp.
Toorians, L. 1990. Wizo Flandrensis and the Flemish settlement in
Pembrokeshire. Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 20:99-118.

--
[p. ]   186      Lauran Toorians

-1995. Nogmaals 'Walewein van Melle' en de V1aarns-Keltische contacten.
Queeste, 2:97-112.
-1996. Flemish settlements in twelfth-century Scotland (with an Appendix:
Handlist of Flemings in Scotland in the twelfth and thirteenth century).
Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, 74:659-93.
- 1998. V1aarnse nederzettingen in Keltische gebieden. In Toorians, Lauran
(ed.), Kelten en de Nederlanden van prehistorie tot heden, Louvain, 69-88.

--- ANNEX 2 ---

[p. v]

Contents

The Contributors  vii
List of Maps and Figures viii
Preface ix
Editor's Acknowledgements x
Note on References  xi

Introduction   1

1 Prehistoric Britain 3
  Glanville Price
2 Irish in Ireland 6
  Cathair Ó Dochartaigh
3 Irish in Early Britain 37
  Glanville Price
4 Scottish Gaelic  44
  Kenneth MacKinnon
5 Manx   58
  Robert L. Thomson
6 British   70
  Glanville Price
7 Welsh   78
  Janet Davies
8 Cornish   109
  Philip Payton
9 Cumbric   120
  Glanville Price
10 Pictish   127
  Glanville Price
11 Latin   132
  Glanville Price
12 English   141
  Glanville Price

--
[P. ]  vi  Contents

13 Scots       159
 Jeremy  J. Smith
14 Norse and Norn  171
 Michael P Barnes
15 Flemish in Wales 184
 Lauran Toorians
16 French in the Channel Islands 187
 Glanville Price
17 Anglo-Norman  197
 D. A. Trotter
18 Romani   207
 Glanville Price
19 Community Languages 213
 Viv Edwards
Name Index   229
Subject Index   237

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