Re: Breton, Cornish & French

Chess One wrote:
> "Larry Swain" <giles@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
> news:iaudnbtUiehJFCranZ2dnUVZ_o6knZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 
> 
> <vast 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'?

According to Bede, the "Middle Land Saxons, the Merci".

> 
>>...  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? 

They already spoke a common language.

Old English is a term used by the
> OED, and insensibly so - which region actually understood another? Did
the 
> Cornish ever 'indulge' in Saxon?

Seemingly yes, we have re****ts both of Anglo-Saxons in Cornish 
monasteries and Cornish and Welsh in Anglo-Saxon monasteries...so unless 
they all spoke Latin all the time (doubtful), there was some interchange 
of languages.
> 
> And what we know of this is by the way of scribes - and in what language
did 
> they write? 

Depends on the scribe and the text of which we are speaking.

Quite possibly in an English form but most likely in Latin.

See abpve/

  It
> was not until about 900 that Kentish scribes attempted some unity of 
> spelling as a thrid form of expression to Latin,

Not sure what you're talking about here....

  then next Oldish French
> [with whom they traded] then a Saxon version for domestic consumption.

Still no clue what you're talking about here.

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

It sounds just plain wrong to me.
> 
> 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.

Hardly.  The Old English version of Caedmon's Hymn is hardly racy in any 
sense of the word.  As for translating the Hymn into Latin: Bede tells 
us that this is just what he did and as for why, because he was writing 
a Latin text.  Interestingly enough, it isn't until Aelfric that we have 
  extensive quotations of Latin in an Old English text, and so far as I 
know for the period I don't know of any extensive Old English passages 
in a Latin text.  (Besides glossed texts which I haven't included in the 
above).