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Flying Chaucers (Linguistics)
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Donmillion


In: Acton, Middlesex
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Ishmael wrote:
From this video we learn that modern Hindi was once English but is now half-way toward becoming an indigenous language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-MQLFGNUBA&feature=related

I don't speak Māori, but listening in on Māori conversations or broadcasts, I can recognise the origins of many English terms in this Pacific Island language:

    te cellphone
    te moto-kā
    te radio ...

... and many other technological devices which the Euro- and Americano-centric members of this forum probably think were invented in the West.

We of Āotearoa-New Zealand know better. And it's abundantly clear that the English language is descended from Māori, probably introduced into Britain by settlers from the other side of the world (Up Over, as we call it) at the end of the last (until the next) Ice Age.
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Donmillion


In: Acton, Middlesex
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I wrote:
I suspect that there is no parallel case of the vocabulary and, particularly, grammar of a dead language being used for centuries, across the whole of a country, intermixed in such a way with the vocabulary and grammar of the native language.

Happy to be proved wrong.

Ishmael wrote:
From this video we learn that modern Hindi was once English but is now half-way toward becoming an indigenous language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-MQLFGNUBA&feature=related

But he overlooked this vital part.

I wrote:
Remember the grammar part of that, though, guys and gals.
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Donmillion


In: Acton, Middlesex
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Slightly more seriously--Why is your example inappropriate, Ishmael? Let's see ...

In India, as in many countries (take a trip to France sometime), a large amount of English vocabulary has been grafted on to local languages. But English grammar hasn't gone with it; and the English words represent innovations into those cultures, such as (in the case of French):

    le weekend
    l'aftershave
    le football
    le parking
    le shampooing
and so on ... terms for which (despite the efforts of the Académie Française) there are no equivalent native words.

The thing about "Middle English" is that, according to the emergent "Proto-English Theory" (PET, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon Hypothesis, ASH), the Mediaeval English wrote using a foreign vocabulary in place of their own, while continuing to use their native vocabulary in speech; and wrote using a foreign grammar in place of their own, while also continuing to use their native grammar in speech.

According to Mick's PET theory, the native vocabulary and grammar gradually emerged from the tyranny of post-Anglo-Saxon. Meanwhile, across several centuries, English writers continued to "mangle" the foreign grammar and vocabulary, but with amazing (but by no means complete) consistency throughout the country. Hence my suggestion of a National Academy of Bad English. How else to account for such widespread agreement of vocabulary and grammar? Now all we have to do is figure out where it was. Or come up with an alternative hypothesis to account for the facts.

Sorry, Ishmael, the amusing Hindi video offers no parallel at all ...
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Donmillion wrote:
The thing about "Middle English" is that, according to the emergent "Proto-English Theory" (PET, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon Hypothesis, ASH), the Mediaeval English wrote using a foreign vocabulary in place of their own, while continuing to use their native vocabulary in speech; and wrote using a foreign grammar in place of their own, while also continuing to use their native grammar in speech.


Hardly.

Sorry, Ishmael, the amusing Hindi video offers no parallel at all ...


You consistently mangle the thesis for which you imagine yourself heroically serving as quality control.

Sorry but I really couldn't care less about what you think. You are a Lilliputian. I am a Brobdingnagian. I can take no notice of what fascinates you.
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Donmillion


In: Acton, Middlesex
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Ishmael wrote:
Donmillion wrote:
The thing about "Middle English" is that, according to the emergent "Proto-English Theory" (PET, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon Hypothesis, ASH), the Mediaeval English wrote using a foreign vocabulary in place of their own, while continuing to use their native vocabulary in speech; and wrote using a foreign grammar in place of their own, while also continuing to use their native grammar in speech.


Hardly.

Meaning? That the "Middle English" writers didn't use the grammatical and vocabular forms we can see in their texts? Or that they spoke exactly as they wrote?

You consistently mangle the thesis for which you imagine yourself heroically serving as quality control.

Again you assign me (heroic) motives that don't motivate me.

And you have consistently shown yourserlf to be ignorant of that thesis anyway, assuming you mean "ASH", so how could you possibly judge whether I'm mangling it or not?
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Leon



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Chad wrote:
I have never quite understood what is meant by this Great Vowel Shift.

Which version of English are you using as your datum and how can the standardised spellings of the official written form tell you how the language (in its multitude of spoken forms) actually sounded.... let alone how much it has changed.

Surely at best it can indicate that the "establishment" in charge of the custodianship of the standardised written versions of the language may no longer pronounce its vowels as it did at the time of its inception... .


Yes of course, only written English is in question, and for times long before mass education that means the language of an elite in a certain region or certain regions where the text or texts examined are supposed to have been written. All this about the infinite variety of dialect pronunciation, however accurate the notion is, is a red herring to the extent that the argument is that because of it we can't determine anything about 12th- to 15th-century English pronunciation. It's irrelevant to Don's contention that some measure of this past pronunciation can be had from rhyming poetry, transference of English words to Welsh with its very consistent relation of pronunciation and spelling, and (other) commentary from the time in question on pronunciation.
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Leon



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DPCrisp wrote:
"English is not pronounced the way it is spelled" remains a fallacy.


Not exactly a fallacy, but certainly an erroneous way of stating the problem, which should be straightened out.

English vowel-letters, singly or in combination, with or without final silent e, can be pronounced in many ways (bear, heart, heat, stead; five, give) and conversely, the same pronunciation can be written in various ways (meet, meat), and in addition the same spelling can represent different words with different pronunciations (bow /bau/, bow /bou/ [roughly]). This we all know. Why don't we say that the relation of English spelling to pronunciation is highly inconsistent and even chaotic, admitting that there are some rules to go by, the point being that in most other languages using the Roman alphabet, or any other for that matter, this is not the case.

A more careful reading of Chaucer than anyone here seems to be doing will, I believe, reveal, or rather suggest strongly, for I mean not to bring unto ye Revelation, that the relation of spelling to pronunciation in the Canterbury Tales is much more regular than that of the present day, and therefoore rather different in quality. More on this later.
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Edwin



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Forgive me if this has been covered and I have missed it.

When a lad doing Eng Lit we were encouraged/ordered to vary the translation so that examiners could see we knew the difference and were not guessing.

Latoun sticks in my mind particularly as I wanted to put latten for it which is exactly the same metal alloy but was told that I must use brass to "show" I understood.

I can honestly say this sort of experience coupled with the weird mooing sounds that English teachers produced when reading Chaucer aloud convinced me back then that Chaucerian English differed from wot I spoke only in spelling, dialect and some intelligible archaisms.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Chaucer gets the chop

He's not woke enough in Leicester any longer.

The University of Leicester will stop teaching Geoffrey Chaucer's work and other medieval literature in favour of modules on race and sexuality, according to new proposals. Management told the English department that courses on canonical works will be dropped for modules “students expect” as part of plans now under consultation.

What has our Geoffrey done wrong?

Foundational texts like The Canterbury Tales and Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf would no longer be taught under proposals to scrap medieval literature. Instead the English faculty will be refocused to drop centuries of the literary canon and deliver a “decolonised” curriculum devoted to diversity.

And, of course, if Chaucer is not being taught, you don't need Chaucer teachers.

Academics now facing redundancy were told via email: “The aim of our proposals (is) to offer a suite of undergraduate degrees that provide modules which students expect of an English degree.”

If you, or anyone you know, can suggest a new job for redundant Chaucer teachers, please get in touch immediately.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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A real Hobson's Choice. On the one hand, anything's better than modern modish cant; on the other, the old stuff is all fake. I know! Close Leicester University.
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