In praise of our English Language…
Two, too, to - ‘homonyms’ that must drive adults attempting to learn English as a second language (ESL) just plain NUTS!
Why ‘do’ we say “do you have any bananas?”… (”yes, we have no bananas” ;-})
Or even “How do you do?” instead of “How are you?”
What is the function of ‘do’?
What is it actually ‘doing’ there?… well… nothing really - It just IS!
NO other European language has this construction except for… you may have guessed it, the ancient Celtic languages of Wales and Cornwall…
Why does some of the best English writing come from Ireland and Wales? There is something just ‘flavorful’ about the way these folks play with language…
James Joyce and Will Shakespeare are generally considered to be the best writers ever:
James Joyce (from “Finnigan’s Wake”):
“Quark! Quark! Three Quarks for Muster Mark!”
(which Murray Gell-Mann adopted for the sub-sub-atomic entity of that name)
and (a personal favorite from Macbeth):
“The multitudinous seas incarnadine. Making the green one red.”
(notice S’s brilliant conversion of a Latin/French noun into a verb)
It’s worth recalling that ‘back in the day’ as it were, there was NO ’standard’ English… people just spoke… Few could read and write… and those who could used whatever spelling seemed ‘right’ (originally pronounced how it’s now spelled… something like ‘rikt’) according to their own peculiar dialect…
Well, Joyce was from Dublin, Shakespeare was from Warwickshire (second ‘w’ is dropped… leaving something like ‘warikshur’)…
The name of his hometown was ‘Stratford on Avon’ - and therein lies a clue! There are four separate ‘Avon’ rivers in Britain… why?
Well, it turns out that ‘avon’ or ‘afon’ was Celtic Briton for ‘river’… so the ‘River Avon’ is really the ‘river River’… goofy eh?
It pains me that most Shakespearean actors put on these ‘high-falutin’ upper-class Brit accents… Nothing could be further from the truth! And much of the rhythm (great Welsh word there) and flow is lost in the translation! Many of the pithy and (very) bawdy jokes fall flat when spoken in modern English. To wit:
(Hamlet to Ophelia): “shall we speak of country matters?”
Hamlet is talking about “cunt” - a good old Anglo-Saxon word - and pretty devilish in its context! Shakespeare wasn’t writing for History! He was writing for the ‘groundlings’ and trying hard to make a buck!
Does it strike you as weird (cool word!- Old Norse I believe) that almost ALL movies about ancient Rome feature people speaking with upper-class ‘received’ grammar (Eton &c) accents?
Even in their day, regular Roman folks weren’t speaking ‘Latin’ - but somthing more like modern Italian!
Well, I could go on (and I probably WILL later! ;-}), but hopefully I have caused a few of the cogs in the ‘canyons of your mind’ to turn a few degrees!
full disclosure: byronius has seen an earlier version of this screed previously in an e-mail I cc’d him on….
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 8:59 am
MORE-LANGUAGE-RANT:
Although most linguists minimize the contribution of the various Celtic tongues to the English language, I beg to differ…. As I pointed out in my earlier missive, some of the basic structure of English is NOT Germanic but Celtic. So even though there are relatively few Celtic words in common use today, the Celtic languages live on in the very guts of Modern English… and it is no accident that many English expressions are direct translations of Irish terms and phrases… they translate back and forth almost literally and fairly easily (or so I’m told… I don’t speak Gaelic ;-})
More on ‘English’ genes: The common wisdom has been that the the bulk of English genes are of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French origin, having supposedly ’swamped’ the existing Celtic genes, but recent DNA analysis proves this to be incorrect! There remains a very healthy Celtic genetic component throughout the British Isles, including England.
This only reinforces my own theory of the ‘Peopling of Britain’. Remember that England in particular was invaded time and again by successive waves of Romans (many of whom were [Celtic] Gauls), Angles/Saxons/Jutes, Norse Vikings and finally by the Norman (’Norsemen’… yep, more Vikings) French… These invaders were almost exclusively young MEN… and after a hard day of raping and pillaging, a young man’s fancy tends (after a few more flagons of mead) to turn to young WOMEN (well, most do anyway… a ‘flaming’ Viking is a rather comic image! ;-})…
So it seems obvious to me that these wild young guys would have taken native Celtic wives and that it would be MOM’s Celtic language that would most often be spoken around the hoose… (oops ;-}) The kids, being Language SPONGES would have very naturally created a ‘creole’ mixture of both the languages of the Invaders and Invadees (as it were).
They would thus merge in important ways.
This is why (IMHO) that English became so much more simplified (in syntax and structure anyway) than any of the other West Germanic languages.
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 9:03 am
Aaak! I can’t keep up. Too much great content to absorb. (Please keep it coming)
That said… one quick note you brought to mind. Our son Jeremy, now 13, has been raised on a mix of his Mom’s native Russian and the predominant English drone of culture (and his Dad’s babblings). He recently was taken with the English word “peoples” and started applying it to various Russian words anbd phrases. ‘Good night’ is ’spokoiny noche’ (quiet night) and he would say ’spokoiny noche peoples’ to us before bed. Sometimes ’spokoiny noche to the peoples of the Mama kingdom’ ‘.. peoples of the Dada kingdom’ etc., but usually the short form. Now he’s shortened it further to just ’spokoiny noches’. Now he has fun adding an ’s’ to many Russian words, a practice that drives his Mom crazy because Russian words are not pluralized in this way.
BTW- I like your theory Sky. Makes total sense to me. I like to think my Pictish ancestors live on in some way. What wild dudes they was.
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 11:26 am
For some reason a flaming Pict is quite easy to imagine.
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 11:27 am
PreMax:
Can you elucidate re ‘Flaming Pict’? I can’t find a reference.
This engraving by Theodore de Bry looks EXACTLY LIKE YOUR BROTHER ALDOUS IN REAL LIFE, severed heads, etc.
Striking.
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 11:57 am
Great x Grand Paps!
How he loved that habit of waving peoples severed heads around.
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 12:01 pm
Before gnawing on them, presumably.
Wait. That’s A Myth ™.
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 12:02 pm
On “peoples”…
One person, but two people… many non-native English speakers make the ‘peoples’ ‘double plural’ kind of error.
Once upon a time, English was as heavily inflected as German still is today. So while ALL modern words are pluralised with a simple ’s’, some common old words retain this linguistic ‘fossil’ of inflection… man/men, ox/oxen and person/people. I’m sure you can come up with many other examples.
I’m reminded of one of Bela Lugosi’s last performances in the ridiculously BAD Ed Wood opus “Bride of The Monster”.
Mad-doctor Bela raves about ‘world conquest’ using his ’super-men’ that he refers to in his inimitable (Hungarian) way as “a rice of pipples”… Hilarious!
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
No relation whatsoever to Christie Cleek.
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
Nice ‘flaming’ Scotsman by the way! ;-}
Although it seems perfectly OK to say things like ‘the peoples of Asia’… go figure!
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 12:18 pm
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/peoples
Comment on December 7, 2009 @ 12:26 pm