Sonnet Loan Words -- Surrey

[David Bergdahl]

I took my first linguistics course in 1959-60 using George A Miller's
Language and Communication.  I remember that the text used the
Thorndike 1000-word list of the most frequently occurring words in the
major classes (N,V,Adj,Adv) for an analysis of immediate (rather than
ultimate) origins and the results were roughly 2/3 Old English and 1/3
French with only a smattering of other languages, Old Norse, Latin,
Greek, Hindi &c.  Of course a different corpus were used, there might
be different results.  I think the over-estimation of the importance
of Latin and Greek words is the result of tracing words back to their
ultimate sources rather than from the language they were borrowed
from.

Our common vocabulary is still basically germanic although the more
intellectual one writes the more romance language vocabulary appears.
So the serf in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe does have a point when he
compares the good English words for the animals (cow, pig, sheep) with
the frenchy words for the meats derived from them (beef, pork,
mutton).
-db

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 9:52 PM, Robin Hamilton
<robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM>
> Subject:      Sonnet Loan Words -- Surrey
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Surrey, "Love that doth raine and live within my thought":
>
> DATE:   Surrey died in 1547, five years after Wyatt, at the age of 30.  If
> we assign the composition of Wyatt's sonnet to 1530, it seems reasonable to
> place Surrey's at 1540.
>
> 119  Actual Words:   97/OE   21/OF  1/Old Norse
>         %OE - 81%    %Loan - 19%    %OF - 18%
>
> 79    Distinct Words (66%):   59/OE   19/OF  + 1
>          %OE - 75%     %Loan - 25%       %OF - 24%
>
> 58    Strong Words (49%):   38/OE    19/OF  + 1
>         %OE - 66%     %Loan - 34%    %OF - 33%
>
> Of the 21 Originally French derived words, all but five are again first
> recorded in the period 1275-1386.  Unlike Wyatt, the Surrey sonnet has no
> later French-derived words, but like Wyatt, the majority of the earlier
> terms - four of the five - are found in the Ancrene Rule, with the fifth,
> again like Wyatt, appearing in The Life of St. Katherine.
>
> The Ancrene Rule would thus seem to be emerging as a text of interest, more
> probably because it records the currency of French loan words in the early
> 13thC than because it is the source of them.
>
> To summarise the results so far:
>
>                                   A Cheerful Little Table
>
> Author         Date     TOTAL     %              DISTINCT       STRONG
>                                  number    Derived     % Derived
>
> Wyatt             1530       104         20%            28%             42%
> Surrey            1540       119         19%            25%             34%
> Shakespeare   1600       114        12%             16%             22%
>
> Robin Hamilton
>
> ***************************
>
> Love that doth raine and live within my thought,
> And buylt his seat within my captyve brest,
> Clad in the armes wherin with me he fowght
> Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
> But she that tawght me love and suffre paine,
> My doubtfull hope and eke my hote desire
> With shamfast looke to shadoo and refrayne,
> Her smyling grace convertyth streight to yre.
> And cowarde love than to the hert apace
> Taketh his flight where he doth lorke and playne
> His purpose lost, and dare not show his face..
> For my lordes gylt thus fawtless byde I payine;
>   Yet from my lorde shall not my foote remove.
>   Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.
>
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