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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">===========================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 22 August 2008 - Volume 01<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);"><a href="mailto:clarkedavid8@aol.com">clarkedavid8@aol.com</a></span></span></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language use" 2008.08.21 (02) [E</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">From: <span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Paul Finlow-Bates</span>
<<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</a>><br>
Subject: LL-L "Art" 2008.08.19 (01) [E]</span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">I've often wondered what language(s) Holbein spoke when he
first came to England.
Certainly no English; nobody outside the Anglo-Scots area of Britain
did. Would he have used Latin, or some form of Court French? or maybe a
Continental lowlands language would have been similar enough until he learned
English?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">In fact,
both George I and George II had problems with their English and spoke it with a
heavy German accent. Their inability to understand it properly was
constitutionally important, as being unable to follow cabinet meetings of
their ministers, they stopped attending them, leaving the prime minister and
other ministers to determine policy without royal interference. When George
II's grandson, George III, who was a native speaker of English, tried to become
involved again, he was accused of undue interference ("The power of
the king has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished") and
caused a constitutional crisis. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
David Clarke<br>
<br>
----------<br>
<br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Paul Finlow-Bates</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe">
</span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language use" 2008.08.21 (02) [E]</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">The only
German communites in England
in late Mediaeval/eraly modern times that I know of were German miners in
Derbyshire, though they seem to have assimilated pretty quickly. Fixed
surnames weren't widespread amongst common people then, so there aren't even
name traces.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">The
Derbyshire term "toadstone" for basalt is possibly from <em><span style="font-family: Arial;">totstein</span></em>, i.e it was "dead"
because it had no ore in it, though a more plausible origin is "t'ode
stone" - "the old stone"</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Lowlanders
were widespread in East Anglia,
bringing their skills as drainage engineers and dam builders, and we have
English Van Dykes etc. to this day. I also read that "nitwit" for a
foolish person was from "niet weet", though I don't know how true
that is.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Paul<br>
<br>
----------<br>
<br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Mark Dreyer</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:mrdreyer@lantic.net">mrdreyer@lantic.net</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language use" 2008.08.21 (02) [E]</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Hi
Paul, Ron!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Subject:
LL-L: Language use</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Referring
to how the Continental luminaries managed when they came to England:<br>
<br>
I wouldn't attribute a specific animus against English, except that until very
recently indeed that small island race lay very low on the cultural horison,
but no local speech enjoyed the patriotic backing of a 'nation'! A man who
was literate was presumed to be literate in Latin, & we do them wrong to
suppose that body was a rarified elite throughout the Late Middle-ages even.
Desidarius Erasmus presumably had no trouble whatever communicating with Thomas
More or his entire family, not to mention his total circle of
friends. I expect the same applied to Hans Holbein & all the rest
until well into the eighteenth century.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Even
so it appears that as late as Caxton's day there was not a notably greater
distance between the dialect of the Flemings of Ghent & the burghers of London than there was between the same of
Edinborough or even Nottingham.
Englishman weren't always monoglots - they could muddle through, & the same
to the foreigners, though a man from the next shire might be deemed 'foreign'
in the 'provinces'. It doesn't seem to me that it would be all that much of a
strain to the reader, let alone the printer, to recast 'Van Der Vos Reynarde'
or 'Til Eulenspiegel' (Howlglasse) in a more local tongue.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">I'm
willing to bet, as well, that the the native English staff of the Hansa
'Steelyard' in London no more than merely (metaphoricaly) kincked their tongues
to the left when they went to work each morning, & back to the right on the
way home. 'Business Hansaeatic' <strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">can't</span></strong>
have been harder than Scottish, after all. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Then
let us bear in mind that the Plantagenets planted Flemings in the Insular territories
they were determined to dominate, like South Wales & Southern Scotland.
English was surely close enough at that time for a high degree of mutual
intelligibility.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Pardon
my penny-worth.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Mark</span></p>
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