LL-L: "Language varieties" 09.JUL.2000 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 09.JUL.2000 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Language varieties

It seems to me that the idea that a bilingual generation grew up in the
Danelaw actually contradicts the notion of the development of an
English/Norse hybrid.
However, I'm glad that Stefan has joined in this discussion because I
wanted
to ask him about a message he posted back in May. He wrote:

>Beowulf was written in Old English (written from the 600's till the
1100's), which was indeed a Lowland language.  Old English/Old Frisian/Old
Low German/Old High German/Old Norse were all similar, since they'd only
been diverging from a single language for only 2-4 centuries, whereas their

modern descendants have had many times that time to diverge<

The quotation from Claiborne which I cited seems to put the period at
closer
to 1000 years for English and Norse. Other books I have looked at are very
vague about when Germanic broke up. What reasons does Stefan have for his
2-4 centuries? There is of course a confusing element as regards English
and
(Danish) Norse in that their speakers arrived from much the same place, but

I think the Danes had spread into Jutland and further south from Sweden in
the meantime.

I found the following in the article "Norse" in the "Oxford Companion to
the
English Language".
"In its origin and earliest form, English is classed with the West Germanic

languages, a group which comprised the ancestors of Dutch, Frisian and
German, but a detailed comparison of the languages in their present form
might place English nearer to the North German group."

Although the article lists some words which were borrowed it gives, I
think,
the wrong impression to say that "much of the everyday vocabulary of
English
is of Norse origin". I think it also goes too far in saying that "kirk" and

"skirl" are part of general English: we know them but normally apply them
in
a Scottish/regional context (I've never heard of anything but bagpipes
"skirling"). These things may cast doubt on the foundations of the above
suggestion. I'm not at all convinced by it but I'd like to know what other
people think.

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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