Re: Breton, Cornish & French

"Larry Swain" <giles@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:iaudnbtUiehJFCranZ2dnUVZ_o6knZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 snippage>

>> The point is that the continental usage of the term "Anglo-Saxon" (in 
>> Latin) *only* means people in England, as opposed to Saxony.
>
> I never disputed that.  If you read carefully you'll notice that I 
> addressed Alan's question of whether or not they whom we term
Anglo-Saxons 
> ever used the term of themselves.

Quite so; who indeed were the 'Mercians'?

>...  coined to distinguish the folks living on the isle of Britain from 
>those living in Saxony, true, but Alfred and subsequent use did not use
it 
>in that context or with that distinction. When Alfred uses it, it is a 
>political move in part to unite the "Anglo-Saxons" in contrast to the 
>Danelaw, Norse, not Saxons and to give the "English" an identity and
unity.

Alfred's sense of needing to unify people was based on his perception of 
their need to speak a common language, no? Old English is a term used by
the 
OED, and insensibly so - which region actually understood another? Did the

Cornish ever 'indulge' in Saxon?

And what we know of this is by the way of scribes - and in what language
did 
they write? Quite possibly in an English form but most likely in Latin. It

was not until about 900 that Kentish scribes attempted some unity of 
spelling as a thrid form of expression to Latin, then next Oldish French 
[with whom they traded] then a Saxon version for domestic consumption.

Is this sort of statement controversial here, or just unknown?

To continue with Bede, an atavist, but also a censor! Is to admit that he 
translated Caedmon into Latin, since the Saxon was too racy.

One should ask if only dealing with written records [which are small part
of 
any anthropology] wherefore things are known - and especially, to what 
degree do any records even attempt to indicate the all of things?
Certainly 
written Saxon records were eccentric to ordinary goings on, and only
raging 
librarians admit more.

Phil Innes

<yet more persnipped>