LL-L "Language policies" 2004.12.21 (01) [E]

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language policies" 2004.12.20 (02) [E]


Heather Rendall wrote:
"In 1326 John Trevisa opens the first English speaking grammar school a year
after an Act of Parliament ( a proclamation ?) stated that the teaching
medium in schools had to be French in order to improve the quality of that
spoken language. Sounds like a last ditch attempt at saving a language that
only a few / elite used. And John of Cornwall's grammar school was not so
much a 'slap in the face' for Parliament but the act of a hard nosed
business man with
an eye for the main chance! If French was having to be protected by Acts of
Parliament, it really must have been on its way out! So his school was sure
to be a winner."

To mutilate a well-known Irish saying, then, English's difficulty was
Trevisa's opportunity. It is a shame his entrepreneurship was so effective
although, as you point out, he was merely riding the crest of a revival.
There has been some discussion about the actual slough English was going
through in the early Middle Ages, particularly as that recession relates to
Cornish - it is reckoned that Cornish actually managed to retake some of the
linguistic ground it had lost to English in the previous centuries, and that
trade on the Tamar (the border between Cornwall and England) had to be
conducted in Cornish because English was no longer the power language in the
area.

Personally I believe the advance of Cornish in the period to be overstated.
If domination of commerce did take place, it did not last long: a generation
or two at the most, and only around Saltash and Devonport, whose fortunes
have always been one anyway. It also ignores the fact that a significant
part of north east Cornwall (the old hundred of Stratton, based around Bude)
was English-speaking at this time and had been for quite a while, having
been anglicised early on.

Perhaps we'll re-Cornicise England yet though!

Go raibh maith agat,

Criostóir.

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