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The Mother Tonque

46 important questions on The Mother Tonque

Explain Defoe’s phrase: English is your Roman-Saxon-Danish-Norman English’?

He lists all the invasions which have contributed to making the English language what it is today.

What is the Raj, and what was Sir William Jones’ function in it? What was his (then) daring suggestion and how well have his ideas stood up to further research?

The Raj is the British rule in India after the Government had taken over from the East India Company. Jones was a judge who, in his research into Sanskrit law, saw the similarities between Greek and Latin and Sanskrit. He guessed (correctly) that they all derived from a common source (Indo-European)

Mention at least three other languages or language groups that share this common source.

French, Spanish, Slavic, Celtic and Germanic.

What is ‘Grimm’s Law’? How do we commonly know the Grimms who formulated it?

That p becomes f in the change from Latin to German (and English). We know them as fairy- tale collectors.

Where did the Indo-Europeans originally live? How do we know? Why did they start moving and where did they move? c

In the steppes North of the Black Sea (and not in Mesopotamia as was first thought). This was discovered when people noted the words they had for things that you only find in a colder climate. They started moving when they had discovered using the horse and the wheel. They were pushed to move, as many other peoples were between 500 BC and 1000 AD in what we call ‘volksverhuizingen’ in Dutch.

What is the link between the river names Rhine and Rhone?

They are both variations of the Indo-European word for ‘flow’.

What was the language of most of the British isles before the Roman-Saxon-Danish invasions?

Where is it still spoken? Gaelic (Celtic). It is still spoken in the so-called ‘Celtic Fringe’, the lands the Celts were pushed into by successive invasions. The Frin ge is Cornwall, Wales, Scottish Highlands, Ireland and French Brittany (Bretagne).

What percentage of Welshmen are still speakers of Gaelic? Do you consider that figure high or low?

In what ways do the Welsh ‘defend’ their language? 20%. It is low when compared for instance to Dutch Frisians. The Welsh language is protected by equality in law, it is taught at schools and there are Welsh radio and tv broadcasts, road-signs. Welsh culture is stimulated (songs poetry etc.)

What Roman legacy to the language is mentioned?

Place-names mainly. Endings in –chester (for castro) See Dutch Castricum.

What is the relationship between ‘English’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ?

Angles were one of the nine tribes which crossed to settle in the lands in Britain abandoned by the Romans. The Angles were a bit more ‘high-profile’ hence their name was give to ‘English’ eventually.

What reason is given for the fact that Dutch speakers traditionally seem to master the English language really well, better than many other European speakers?

The invading tribes were all part of a German-speaking culture that spread from present-day Groningen to Denmark.

What kind of people were the Anglo-Saxons? Give a few examples of words in English that show this clearly.

They were farmers. Many words that we recognise as Anglo-Saxon in the English language have to do with farming and farm-work, e.g. earth, plow, wood, field, cow etc.

What role has the legendary King Arthur played in the history of the English language? Has his role made any difference in the long run?Explain.

He mounted a Celtic resistance to the Anglo-Saxon invaders. It kept them out of Southern England for another generation but in the long run he made little difference.

How can we still see vestiges of the Celtic resistance to the Anglo-Saxon invasion in present-day attitudes?

First in words describing nature and names of towns which still survive. But more importantly in attitudes in the Celtic Fringe, for instance in the derogatory word ‘Sassenach’ (for Englishmen) in Scotland, in which we can recognise ‘Saxon’.

In what ways is the Anglo-Saxon contribution still dominant in the English language?

The basic building-blocks of English, the 100 most common words that appear in almost every sentence are Anglo-Saxon, think of words like ‘the’ and ít’.

What is the most important contribution of the arrival of Christianity in Britain to the English language?

The Latin vocabulary, and, with it, the capacity of expressing abstract thought. Before, English had been very basic, describing what you see. Now a vocabulary had widened with all kinds of exotic borrowings that enabled people to describe new concepts.

What kind of words were adopted once Britain had become Christian? And which name for a Christian celebration is the ‘odd one out’ (i.e. not from the church languages)?

Biblical words, words used in church hierarchy (bishop) and exotic words from Greek and Hebrew. The odd one out is Easter (Eostre).

How does the co-existence of Old English terms and words imported later from, for instance, Christianity, help to make English a very versatile language?

You have got two sets of words to choose from to describe precisely what you mean.

21. Who were the ‘Danes’ who invaded 9th-century Britain?

More than just people from Denmark, Scandinavians in general.

How did King Alfred (The Great) use language as an asset for his political agenda?

He had only power in Wessex, but in the neighbouring lands of Mercia and Essex were many people who were Énglish’as opposed to ‘Danish’. Alfred promoted the idea of being English to give him control where he did not really have it. His translations of religious works helped to suggest sovereignty where he did not really have it.

The great contribution of the Danes to the English language is not words, but rather ‘simplification’. Explain

. It gets rid of inflections /word endings. Rules for, for instance, possessive and plurals become set.

Look up a number of (at least six) English place names with typical Viking endings.

Words in –ing, -ham,-by, -brooke, -thorpe, -thun, -toft, -scale

What strikes you about the fragment from ‘Beowulf’?

Its alliteration

How could William of Normandy change the English culture and language so completely after his victory at Hastings? How did he subdue the English?

He introduced a systematic linguistic ‘apartheid’ in which the upper – ruling – powerful class (the Norman invaders) spoke French and the subdued, servile population spoke English. He had fortresses built that grew into enclaves. Rule was ruthless.

What happened to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle after nearly 100 years of Norman rule? What does it tell us about how French and English were regarded, respectively?

It was abandoned by the monks because French and Latin had become the dominant tongues, the languages in which to write. English was seen as having low status. It was hardly written in anymore.

Explain how the French influx brought even more synonyms to the language, give an example.

English was a rather ‘direct’ language then, it did not have many words for concepts, just for things (call a spade a spade). French was more nuanced, had many words that described concepts, the example given is ‘king’, for which we have royal and regal.

But English survived. List the three reasons why, given in this chapter.

English was too well-established, there were just too many speakers of English compared to speakers of French.

Then, there was intermarriage and the French knights were surrounded
by English-speaking servants etc.

Finally, when the Norman knights lost their French lands they turned more and more to their English belongings and became more ‘English’ themselves.

What does the textbook of Walter of Bibbesworth make clear?

That children of (Norman) knights had to learn French, so they did not grow up in a French-speaking environment as one would suppose.

How did the Hundred Years’ War help to minimise the use of French in England?

The French were suddenly the enemy, so (nationalistic) pride made the descendants of the Normans use English.

And how did the plague deal yet another blow to French?

It killed off so many people that English workers (think of farmers) were in demand. The rise in status of the speakers of English also caused a rise in the status of the English language.

What exactly is Middle English? What are the dates associated with it?

It is the written form that expresses the changes that had crept into speech over the centuries, the dates we associate it with 1150 to 1500

How is Middle English different from Old English? Mention only the most important differences.

Main differences are the word endings have been replaced by prepositions such as by, with and from, and sound changes such as the long and short ‘y’ sounds =mychel becomes much but fyre goes through fuir to become fire, kin is ken/cyn/kun.

How does the change from Old to Middle English explain some of the confusing differences between spelling and pronunciation we still encounter in the English language? Give an example.

Sound changes occurred but were regional. See examples under 35.

Did the coming of Middle English mean all English people spoke more or less the same now? Explain. No regional differences that we still find today, the North, the East and West Midlands, the South and Kent. No standard yet, later the standard was derived from the Oxford-London- Cambridge triangle.

No regional differences that we still find today, the North, the East and West Midlands, the South and Kent. No standard yet, later the standard was derived from the Oxford-London- Cambridge triangle.

Why is Chaucer so important to the history of the English language?

He made the conscious choice to write in English and therefore he has come to symbolise the re-emergence of English as a written language.

Who are the famous people he might (or might not) have met on his diplomatic work in Italy, and how may they have influenced him (still supposing he did indeed meet either of them?)

Petrarch and Boccacio. Both were collectors of stories which they re-used in more ‘modern’ settings. They were influential Renaissance writers and the Renaissance had not yet reached England.

What is Chaucer’s most famous work, how is it construed? Is it all original material?

The Canterbury Tales. It is a frame-and link story.

Transcribe (translate) into present-day English what Chaucer writes about the Summoner.. How does that tie in with what we have read before about the position of French in those days?

He liked onions, garlic and leeks as well. He also liked to drink wine red as blood. When he did he would talk and shout as if he were an idiot. And when he had drunk the wine he would only speak Latin. The poem shows the pretentiousness (silliness) of speaking a language other than English just to seem more important than you are.

How did people’s names start to change in Chaucer’s time? What did most people use as the basis of their new surname?

People could no longer be recognised just by their name, they needed a surname and one that was clearer that those made by adding ‘son of’. So they made names from their trade, from the places or countries they came from, etc.

What important break did King Henry the 5th make?

To write official documents in English.

Who was William Caxton and in what ways was he much more than just a printer?

He was a merchant and diplomat who learned about the printing process on the Continent and introduced it to England. He was also editor, publisher, translator and writer.

What difficulties did Caxton run into when he tried to translate classic works?

There was no standard English so he could not be sure who would understand his translation into the specific dialect he had used.

What was it the merchant in Caxton’s little story wanted of the housewife? Why did they not understand each other? Who was, do you think, speaking the ‘older’ dialect?

The merchant wanted eggs. He was of a higher class and used the French-derived word ‘eggs’ from oeuf. The woman was of a lower class and used the Dutch-derived ‘eyeren’. The woman’s word is older.

Why did the first attempts to clean up the English language (by Bishop Pecock) fail miserably?

His idea to purge the Latin words only led to very cumbersome new words, very often more words had to be used to express the same thing one Latin word would do for.

How and by whom were plays performed until the mid-16th century?

Strolling (wandering) players would perform on church porches and inn-yards (think of the troupe in Marieken van Nimwegen).

Do you agree with the writer that ‘Mankind’ is thoroughly and recognizably English?

You have to read it out aloud to find that it sounds relatively modern, more than it looks.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

The story of English | 9780140154054 | Robert McCrum, et al

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