Re: Breton, Cornish & French

"Larry Swain" <giles@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:eLidnb9rP4jtlCPanZ2dnUVZ_uWlnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 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".

Well, someone knows something heya! But Bede was a Latin, and used that 
Latinate form, which would suggest those by the wall, eh? Or rather small 
people? [Murch] Mure, Murl and Murenger, [Mergin /Norfolk, meaning;
mortar] 
referenced old walls, their superintendents. More interesting is the 
Northern word Murkins, meaning; in the dark, which references the A. Sax. 
MERKE; dark, murky

    For he was left there allone,
    And merké nyghte felle hymn upon.

        // MS Cantab Ff ii 38 f 240.

Indeed, there are 3 other distinct A. Sax. meanings for the wordl
including 
'a sign or mark', 'to be troubled or disturbed', and 'to strike, to cleve 
asunder'.
Can anyone tell me the orgin of the river's name, Mersey? Form Mere, lake,

or the directly Latinate Meres?

>>>...  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.

Perhaps we should halt here, since you view is uncited and eccentric to
any 
body of knowledge which holds that they neither spoke nor read commonly
and 
'Englisc'.

> 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.

These Cornish spoke A. Sax in Welsh [which is an A. Sax word!]
monasteries, 
too! And you think the visiting A. Sax people spoke their language in 
Cornish monasteries?

>> 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....

Kent was where commerce happened in an administrative sence, and there was

nary any unity in 900 nor 1000 on the island, learned people speaking
Latin, 
and wealthy people varieties of English, and the French forgivable not 
speaking English. These clerics therefore made multi-lingual copies of 
im****tant contracts, including bills of lading for ****ps, since the silly 
French, Belgians and Dutch don't have so good English.

You have only to look at simple transactions between the Englisc in Wes***

and the Norsc of the Danelaw to appreciate how uncommon they were.

>  then next Oldish French
>> [with whom they traded] then a Saxon version for domestic consumption.
>
> Still no clue what you're talking about here.

Neither is that a statement of /what/ it is you don't understand.

>>
>> 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.

Not racy to whom? Bede said so. So let us presume it was racy to him.

>  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.

A gloss, notwithstanding his other comments?

Phil Innes

>  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).