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Flying Chaucers (Linguistics)
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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berniegreen wrote:
...it is a claim that is wholly unnecessary.


I feel so relieved.
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Brian Ambrose



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Bernie,

I'm not convinced by this charge of hyperbole - leaving aside the question of poetic style, which of the following lines do you regard as not being the exact same English as TS Elliot's (or ours)?

A sword and buckler bore he by his side
A white coat and a blue hood wear-ed he
A bagpipe well could he blow and sound
And there with all he brought us out of town
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berniegreen



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Brian Ambrose wrote:
Bernie,

I'm not convinced by this charge of hyperbole - leaving aside the question of poetic style, which of the following lines do you regard as not being the exact same English as TS Elliot's (or ours)?

A sword and buckler bore he by his side
A white coat and a blue hood wear-ed he
A bagpipe well could he blow and sound
And there with all he brought us out of town

You are pulling my leg, aren't you? If you are not, could it be, perhaps, that we have different understandings of the meaning of the word "exact"? Are you, for example, using it in the sense of "approximate"?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Brian, how could you allow yourself to be sucked in?
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admin
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Mick, how could you allow yourelf to be sucked in?
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berniegreen



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Mick Harper wrote:
Brian, how could you allow yourself to be sucked in?
No, I don't want to go there again, either. But what struck me on the re-reading was the idea that because the term "Middle English" was unacceptable because it implied an endorsement of the "Old English" aka Anglo-Saxon, it was felt necessary to pretend that The Canterbury Tales were necessarily "Modern English" and to pretend that Chaucer and his contemporaries spoke exactly the same way as we speak today. But this is just the same old cooking of the books even if it is with a different recipe.

A more thoroughly revisionist approach might be to challenge the very idea of language development per se (which is implied by terms such as old, middle and modern) and insist that languages do not develop at all they merely change over time. Accordingly we should be saying that English is English is English even if it changes according to fashion. And we can clearly date these changing styles of language in just the same way as we can date the changing styles of costume or architecture.

Thus we might conclude that The Canterbury Tales is not written in Middle English it is just written in the style of English that was fashionable in and around 1400.

This would of course completely shoot to pieces the current orthodoxy of language family trees. Oh dear!
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Brian Ambrose



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berniegreen wrote:
Brian Ambrose wrote:
Bernie,

I'm not convinced by this charge of hyperbole - leaving aside the question of poetic style, which of the following lines do you regard as not being the exact same English as TS Elliot's (or ours)?

A sword and buckler bore he by his side
A white coat and a blue hood wear-ed he
A bagpipe well could he blow and sound
And there with all he brought us out of town
You are pulling my leg, aren't you? If you are not, could it be, perhaps, that we have different understandings of the meaning of the word "exact"? Are you, for example, using it in the sense of "approximate"?


Hi Bernie,

No, I'm not pulling your leg, in fact it was a very simple question. Which line do you consider as not being exactly English?
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berniegreen



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which of the following lines do you regard as not being the exact same English as TS Elliot's (or ours)?

Which line do you consider as not being exactly English?
These are two different questions.

I am absolutely clear that the transliterated quote from Chaucer is English - 14th/15th century English.

It is equally clear that 20th century English differs in vocabulary and grammar from 15th century English.

Thus the Waste Land can never be said to be written in "the exact same English" as the Canterbury Tales (transliterated or not)
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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berniegreen wrote:
It is equally clear that 20th century English differs in vocabulary and grammar from 15th century English.


Bernie, exactly which version of 20th century English are you using to make the comparison?

In my uneducated opinion the differences you perceive are no greater than those between randomly chosen dialects of 20th century English.

Spose being an Aussie you are unfamiliar with the various dialects of Engish commonly spoken in the British Isles.
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Brian Ambrose



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Bernie said:

I am absolutely clear that the transliterated quote from Chaucer is English - 14th/15th century English.


But you still haven't explained to me how you would have reached this conclusion (assuming you didn't know the source). What evidence do you have that this ('transliterated') poetic text is from the 14th/15th century, and not from last week?
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berniegreen



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Chad wrote:
berniegreen wrote:
It is equally clear that 20th century English differs in vocabulary and grammar from 15th century English.


Bernie, exactly which version of 20th century English are you using to make the comparison?

In my uneducated opinion the differences you perceive are no greater than those between randomly chosen dialects of 20th century English.

Spose being an Aussie you are unfamiliar with the various dialects of Engish commonly spoken in the British Isles.
It is true that I left England 30 years ago and I now consider myself Australian but I regularly visit the Old Dart. Apart from the difference in accents, which still exists, it seems to me that the regional differences in vocabulary and grammar that used to exist within the UK have nearly disappeared. I don't think, for example, you will find anybody these days under the age of, say 35, talking about "siding the dishes" or "being nesh". I am open to being proved wrong, of course.

In answer to your first question, Elliot was an American who lived in London and Chaucer was from ??the midlands?? but ended up with an appointment at court and, presumably, lived mainly in and around London. So the reference version would have to be whatever is the version of "London educated English" current at the time or writing.
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berniegreen



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Brian Ambrose wrote:
Bernie said:

I am absolutely clear that the transliterated quote from Chaucer is English - 14th/15th century English.


But you still haven't explained to me how you would have reached this conclusion (assuming you didn't know the source). What evidence do you have that this ('transliterated') poetic text is from the 14th/15th century, and not from last week?


Enow goodfellow Brian, prey tell me at where dost thou wereest thine buckler? Eek by the bye whatfor dost thou bear it?
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Brian Ambrose



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Ah, Bernie... I was asking how you could tell that the poetic text

A sword and buckler bore he by his side
A white coat and a blue hood wear-ed he
A bagpipe well could he blow and sound
And there with all he brought us out of town

was from the 14th/15th century and not from last week. Am I to deduce from your response that you would date this text based on its use of the word 'buckler' (since it exhibits none of the other attributes of your reply)?
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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berniegreen wrote:
Apart from the difference in accents, which still exists, it seems to me that the regional differences in vocabulary and grammar that used to exist within the UK have nearly disappeared.


So you truly believe that in the nineteen hundreds (don’t forget it was you who specified 20th century English), the only differences in Modern English, as spoken in the various regions of Great Britain, were those of accent… remarkable!

Even now, just because Ant and Dec speak Standard English (for the sake of their audience) in a Geordie accent, it doesn’t mean the Geordie dialect is no longer spoken… far from it.

Not everybody who speaks Modern English speaks the standard version, but they are speaking Modern English none the less.

The differences between the English of Elliot and the English of Chaucer are no greater than those of any two geographically isolated dialects of 20th century Modern English.


Elliot was an American who lived in London and Chaucer was from ??the midlands?? but ended up with an appointment at court and, presumably, lived mainly in and around London. So the reference version would have to be whatever is the version of "London educated English" current at the time or writing.


So you must surely agree that the two could be using the exactly same Modern English... encompassing the current norm of regional variation.

Don't forget, there are many well educated modern poets, quite capable of speaking Standard English, who choose to write in their local dialect.
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berniegreen



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Chad,
I think that you must misunderstand my view. Were you to go back and read again the post I made in response to Mick's comment, you would see that I simply do not think it is meaningful to talk about "Modern English" as opposed to any other sort of English. It is all just straightforwardly English in my view and there are many versions of it. In fact you could construct a three dimensional matrix with Time, Place and Class as the indices yielding millions of versions of English. This is true in principal for all languages but is especially marked in English because of its genuinely global role.

I accept your point about dialects in that I had specifically said 20th century English. I do agree that regional dialects (as opposed to mere accents) were alive and well up to, say, the 1960s or 70s. But they do seem to have died a fairly rapid death since that date. Indeed I could (and still can if I am drunk enough) conduct a reasonable conversation in a genuine Wiltshire dialect.
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