| View previous topic :: View next topic |
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
 |
|
Yes, an interesting point, reminiscent of the old joke about the bloke who invented the telephone but chucked it away when he found there was nobody to ring. The point about The Alphabeticals is that, pretty much by definition, it must be a group decision because you have to invent a language as well as the technology (ie the alphabet) and nobody would set out on that individualistically.
But a billion (English-speaking) Irish sitting at their individual kitchen tables might (after all it is an interesting crossword type exercise) but wouldn't be able to agree on a single orthographic convention, so would have nobody to write to. Though we ought to explore the possibility that it might be Irish English-speakers that might agree to get together to do it simply on the grounds that they were the first English-speakers who knew it was at least technically possible, it is much more likely to be a group of English-speakers newly given power (probably English-speaking monks in England).
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mick Harper wrote: | | Though we ought to explore the possibility that it might be Irish English-speakers that might agree to get together to do it simply on the grounds that they were the first English-speakers who knew it was at least technically possible, it is much more likely to be a group of English-speakers newly given power (probably English-speaking monks in England). |
Maybe the average Irish man-in-the-street was more intellectually engaged. I came across this yesterday while reading an article about the possibility of Shakespeare being Irish. I wonder if it's true:
Anew McMaster was an actor that owned a playing company in England in the 1920s which nearly went bankrupt trying to put on Shakespeare plays in the provincial towns in that country. He found that they didn't seem to understand Shakespeare whereas when he brought the company to Ireland in 1927 he found everybody understood the plays, as reported by the Irish Times:
"Many readers will learn with surprise that Shakespeare is being played almost continuously in Irish country towns, steadily drawing large audiences. Mr Anew McMaster, an Armagh man and the leader of the company, told our correspondent that recently houses of 600 persons a night attended his performances for a week in a western country town with a population of only 5,000 persons. He finds that a very different class in Ireland attends Shakespearean plays from that which attends them in England. Instead of audiences made up of strictly intellectual ranks of society and school and college students, it is the Irish "man-in-the-street" who throngs to "Hamlet" and "Othello"."(5) |
It's from here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/79358
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
|
|
|
|
| Instead of audiences made up of strictly intellectual ranks of society and school and college students, it is the Irish "man-in-the-street" who throngs to "Hamlet" and "Othello"." |
What else did they have to do?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
| Maybe the average Irish man-in-the-street was more intellectually engaged |
There is plentiful anecdotal evidence that the Irish talk more and better than (say) the English. Presumably, following the example of the Chinese being cleverer because they have to learn a five thousand sign writing system, there should be a systemic reason for this superiority. Which we ought to isolate. It cannot be, just for instance, that the Irish had the advantage of living in a half-Celt/half-English country because so did the Welsh and the Welsh are thick as planks.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mick Harper wrote: | | Maybe the average Irish man-in-the-street was more intellectually engaged |
There should be a systemic reason for this superiority. Which we ought to isolate. It cannot be, just for instance, that the Irish had the advantage of living in a half-Celt/half-English country because so did the Welsh and the Welsh are thick as planks. |
Maybe the Irish took Catholicism a lot more seriously.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
|
|
|
|
| Presumably, following the example of the Chinese being cleverer because they have to learn a five thousand sign writing system... |
I thought you were gonna say Irish spelling is just as opaque.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
| Maybe the Irish took Catholicism a lot more seriously. |
Rocky, you have to make some sort of connection with the subject in hand. Though the idea of the Irish taking Catholicism seriously -- apart from when it was a convenient badge of anti-Britishness in the brief period (1580 - 1980) of British superiority -- is risible.
| I thought you were gonna say Irish spelling is just as opaque. |
I was in fact toying with the idea. The problem is that, as per usual, the linguists have not bothered to come up with a way of measuring alphabetcial complexity. Irish spelling seems incomprehensible to us but is this because
a) the Irish language is miles away from the twenty-four (is it?) sounds permitted by the Latin alphabet or
b) the Irish were first in the game so were unnecessarily convoluted or
c) there is no complexity, it is just us being unfamiliar with the general scheme.
In order to answer these points, compare and contrast with for instance Polish.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
|
|
|
|
c) I measure the complexity by noting the pronunciation guide in my Irish dictionary is the longest I've ever seen: must be 10 times longer than the Welsh one.
a) There might be something to the extra-foreignness of Irish, but we are all rather far from an alphabet's worth: Irish, being the first, just didn't reach the level of compromise (re-emerging artifice) reached even by English, per b).
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mick Harper wrote: | It is certainly fascinating reading one bunch of scholars filleting another bunch of scholars in a way they think grinds their axe when it is really helping us with ours! I'll leave Ishmael to take up the detailed cudgels if he wishes but two things leapt out, one major and one minor, just from a quick run through of the opening sections.
1. It is clear that the entire authenticity of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle must now come under investigation (I do not mean to claim it as a forgery, but it's now provisionally prime facie). Just a passage like this should have us salivating.
| It should be mentioned that manuscripts A and E are again "associated" (G.N.Garmonsway's expression) with certain persons from 16th century - Archbishop Parker (1504-1575) and Archbishop Laud (1573-1645). |
|
All of the other Anglo-Saxon chronicle manuscripts are associated with Robert Cotton.
It's also interesting that William Cecil set up protestant printer John Day. John Day published Laurence Nowell's compilation of Anglo-Saxon laws.
As well, John Day was directed by Archbishop Parker to publish the gospels in Anglo-Saxon:
"The Gospels of the fower Evangelistes translated in the olde Saxons tyme out of Latin into the vulgare toung of the Saxons". London: John Day, 1571.
This Old English version of the Gospels went a step further in defending the Church of England. Along with the Protestant Reformation came the divisive issue of translating the Scriptures into vernacular languages. In printing this text, Parker, who directed its publication, proved that vernacular translations had been made in England centuries earlier. |
Day also published...
| ...Parker's edition of Asser's 'Alfredi Regis Res gestae (London, 1574), a curious production' a Latin text printed in Day's Anglo-Saxon types. The interest in English antiquities aroused by Parker became a consuming one for the next two centuries and the printing of texts continued rapidly. |
John Parker, Matthew Parker's son, and Parker's secretary, John Joscelyn compiled much material for a dictionary of Old English which was never completed.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
The Library Index 
FAQ 
Search
Register
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
