LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.23 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * 23.SEP.2004 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
=======================================================================
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================
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)
=======================================================================

From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Language varieties

Re Mark Dreyer's response to my posting about Francis Prior's TV programme.

1. I never said that Bede lied. The concept of historiography in his time
was very different from ours. See Shockspure's "Richard III" for a possible
later example.

2. The influence of the Irish church on learning and in particular the
transmission of Classical Latin texts was a tremendous contribution to late
mediaeval and even modern culture. Bryson makes the horrendous error of
implying that the literary side of the Carolingian Renaissance was
attributable to St Augustine's conversion of England, rather than to the
Irish church, though Northumbria was a staging post. (Actually, reading
Bryson it would be easy to believe that Alcuin of York gave the Carolingians
OE rather than Classical Latin.) But the fact that Mark is "tickled" by the
use of the half-uncial script to write OE shows how much the Irish
contribution has been neglected - something which suited Rome very well.

3. According to Mark's theory of the perpetual genetic dominance of the
substrate population the most common genetic inheritance in the USA is
Native American, in NZ Maori/Polynesian and in the W Indies Carib. But there
have been plenty of studies which show that there are distinct genetic
markers by which population changes can be traced. The UCL studies seem to
rely on general similarities in (part of) the DNA of the Y chromosome but
the principle seem to be the same.

4. "Meadow" seems to be an IE word related to "mead", "math" (as in
"aftermath", not sums) and "mow", and "skalk" is not in my dictionary.

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

==============================END===================================
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at
  http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================