Re: Were the Dark Ages a time of chaos?

John Briggs wrote:
Larry Swain wrote:



John,
This will have to be my last post on the subject, so you may have the last word should you wish. Let me quickly outline some issues and then turn to your comments directly.

The question is whether or not linguistics can tell us anything about the so-called Adventus Saxonum. The problems, as you know, are that neither Old English nor Old Welsh and its fellow descendants from Brittonic show much if any influence on each other. It has long been supposed that languages in such close proximity would impact one another significantly, particularly in the lexicon. There are several problems with this view: such influence does depend on a number of factors, including the openness of the language speakers to adopting from other languages. Surprisingly, Old English, unlike later phases in the language, does not seem to have been very open: the number of words from Latin during this period is surprisingly low, and we even have in the later period concerted efforts not to use Latin words but to invent OE words for Latin concepts.

So how do we explain this lack of influence? The chief model of much of the 20th century was the traditional view that Gildas and subsequent authors painted: wholesale replacement of the native British population with an Anglo-Saxon population. This seemed confirmed by place name evidence in which in the south and east at any rate there were far fewer Celtic place names surviving than in other parts of the island.

In the last third of the last century, this model began to be reexamined from a number of vantage points. There's been reconsideration of the population of Roman Britain in the late period and the evidnece is now read, that partiucarly in the east and south, that before there was a significant inroad of Germanic peoples, there was a slow decrease in the population of Britain caused in large part by the economic difficulties of the third and fourth centuries elsewhere in the empire. These difficulties resulted in a slow but persistant drain of resources from the fringes of the empire in order to sustain the middle, one of those resources being people. This doesn't mean that whole cities were left as ghost towns, so please don't go from one extreme to the other, but it does mean that there probably were not as many Romano-Celts in Britain to face the Germanic peoples as previously thought.

Further, the traditional view has been challenged by the evidence now that there were Germanic peoples settled by the ROmans as mercenaries in Britain BEFORE the Roman pull out. We know little and have to base conclusions on what we know of the general Roman practice in the Late Empire, but it does seem that this was the case.

Further, increased archaeological activity at various sites began to reveal in some areas that Celts and Saxons were buried side by side dating from the same time period. If there was replacement, that seemed unusual and odd; but just as odd for "Celts" to give up their Romano-British culture and adopt and adapt so completely and so quickly to their new Germanic overlords.

Add to that some new studies in "contact linguistics" which suggested that the lexicon is the least affected when languages come into significant contact, rather it is syntax and morphology that are more affected. As mentioned in a previous post, there are those who have argued, to my mind convincingly, that the differences between Old English and its neighboring Germanic languages in terms of greatly simplified morphology and syntax centuries ahead of other Germanic languages is best explained by originally Celtic speakers or Latin speaking Celts learning Old English. And while most of these linguists do not look at this example, I'll compare it to the situation with Koine Greek: non-native Greek speakers learning the Greek of their day vastly simplified the syntax and had an impact on morphology and even on the forms used (unless one is deliberately being classical, there is far less use of the optative for example, and less distinction between subjunctive and future), though Koine Greek did NOT adopt a large vocabulary from Latin or from other languages in the empire.

We also know that at least in some areas, Brittonic Celts lived in and owned land in Saxon kingdoms and maintained some kind of identity for some centuries, and yet there again we find few Celtic words borrowed or Old English words borrowed into Welsh/Breton/Cornish etc.

We also seemingly have possible direct analogues of both conqueroring languages leaving little trace in the adopted language and more appropriately to A-S England, conqueroring languages that take little from the conquered.

And of course, there was the DNA evidence published in 2003.

All in all, the model of displacement, while not necessarily wrong, can not be simply stated as bald fact or even as most probable model. As our knowledge has grown, the traditional model no longer is the best explanation of all the evidence. Whether there is another model to take its place that does is immaterial at the moment. More importantly for the immediate discussion is whether or not the loanwords (as opposed to place-names) tell us much if anything at all regarding the Brittonic population under early Anglo-Saxon rule.

Let me turn then to your claim about the loanwords from Celtic. You originally claimed 4. You then increased it to 9. There are 12 that are all but beyond doubt, and another 2 dozen or so that are Latin words that either Brittonic speakers gave to OE or borrowed into Brittonic and thence to OE. I've based my list below on a number of sources, full bibliography given when I get around to it: 5 History of English texts, 6 Old English grammars, Cambridge History of the English Language for the OE period, and a number of articles, the majority of which are by Richard Coates and Andrew Breeze. Coates tends to be rather conservative on these matters, and Breeze has argued for a large number of words in OE to be of Celtic origin, but it remains to be seen whether his arguments are accepted in a number of cases.

Uh, no....current count of Brittonic words taken into English is 30,
with a few more suggested and argued over. This does not include a
number of Latinate words that are believed to have probably entered
Old English through Brittonic transmission rather than directly from
Latin.


No, it's not as many as that *undisputed*. I may have miscounted,
but these are the only ones I can find as generally accepted:

binn 'manger'
brocc 'badger'
coble 'ferry-boat' [not actually recorded in OE]
crag 'rock'
cumb 'valley'
funta 'spring' (from Latin fontana)
luh 'pool'
stor 'incense'
torr 'peak'




To those 9 add:
bratt,

Irish


Concedo. You're right on this one, my mistake.



dun,


dunn 'dun' - this has been suggested, but is disputed

By whom? What publication?


cyrtel,


I can't find that anyone has suggested that - direct from Latin (and probably late)


Perhaps you're looking in the wrong places? Roger Lass, Old English,
Baugh and Cable, History of English Language, among other texts. In any
case, probably early, and more importantly, not "from Latin" in the
sense that they took it from the continent, but rather from Latin as
spoken in the island of Britain, and so shows contact between the Celtic
population and the Anglo-Saxon.

stropp,


Or that - direct from Latin (but early)

Perhaps, but if so, same as above. The "debate" is whether it came
directly from Latin or through Brittonic first. In either case however,
it shows contact because again it didn't come into OE from Latin on the
continent or borrowed from teh Franks. It came from Latin spoken in the
island of Britain, i. e. those darn Brittonic speaking folk who also
spoke Latin.


punt,


Direct from Latin (but probably early)

See above.

> oele,

From Latin, but found in other Germanic languages

See above. Found in other Germanic languages, only in West Germanic
languages, and not even all of those, those W. Ger languages in touch
with Bretons, in fact. Don't confuse this form with another form
borrowed later that gives us modern oil.


cest,


Non-Brythonic - a direct borrowing from Latin (but fairly early)

Same as above, likely borrowecd from Britain's speaking Latin


mortere,


Direct from Latin - pre-OE

No, borrowed in early OE period from Latin speaking Brits

paegel,


Direct from Latin (early)

Same as above


tunne,


You must be joking. Possibly from Irish, but widely found in Germanic world.

No, no joke. In other Germanic languages, the main sense of the word is
"hedge, fence, enclosure". In OE, the main sense of "hedge" does not
occur, but the Celtic, specifically Brittonic sense, of "camp, fortress,
enclosed collection of dwellings" does. The notion of a "town" in OE is
due to a semantic shift to absorb a cognate and homophonic morpheme from
Celtic. The phonology tells us that it is likely the voiceless dental
from Brittonic rather than the voiced from Old Irish. See your comment
above about "dunne", the cognate of Germanic tunne.



caester,


Only found in place-names. In any case, it is non-Brythonic - a direct borrowing from Latin.

Nope, found as a real, generic word. Borrowed from Latin through Brythonic.

cerfelle,


Direct from Latin, but late.

Probably early and mediated through Brythonic.


coccel,


'cockle, darnel' -

Spelled coccel in OE, hence the form I chose.

I am not aware that anyone has suggested that this is
from the Brythonic. It is most likely direct from Latin.

Probably not, and even if so, very obviously mediated through something
else, probably Brittonic or at least O. Welsh


fann,


Direct from Latin (late)

See above.

forca,


Direct from Latin - pre-OE borrowing

Probably not direct, and probably not pre-OE (i. e. the appearance of a
word in multiple Germanic languages does not automatically indicate that
the word was borrowed pre-OE, though there are certainly words that fit
that bill such as wine), and so likely borrowed through an intermediary
language such as Brittonic, where in fact it appears as a masculine (or
so I'm told) just as it does in OE, instead of a feminine.

catte,


Catt 'cat'? Non-Brythonic

But most likely borrowed from Brythonic cat, borrowed from Latin, catus.


cocc,


Which word? You probably mean coc 'cook' - a direct borrowing from Vulgar Latin (very late)

Nope, I mean the word of obscure origin "cocc" which has surprisingly the same form in Brittonic, think OE, not modE

truht,


Direct from Latin.

Not direct, no, mediated as once again the phonology shows



muscelle,


From Vulgar Latin (very late?)

Prob not: a) who do you think was speaking that there Vulgar Latin to
them thar Anglo-Saxons about a creature found in streams and the coasts
of the isle of Britain? Probably not the Italians....prob the Britons,
who by the way have this form in British texts in the 8th cent...most
likely from there.

Laeden,


Direct from the, er, Laeden...

Oh, come John....show me a Latin text that calls "Latin"
Laeden....phonology again points to an intermediary, prob Brittonic
pronunciation


Saetern,


Direct from Latin - pre-OE

as with Laeden.......

gafeluc,


Irish

Breeze has suggested this and makes a good argument, but if he's correct then we have an intermediary between the Irish form and the OE form and he posits that intermediary as Old Norse. Remains to be seen if he's correct, but the majority still think of the word as more likely coming from Welsh.

bannoc,


Probably Goidelic

Nope. bannuc is Welsh bannuc. It was reborrowed later from Irish as bannock.



mattuc,


This has been disputed. Usually said to be "perhaps from Vulgar Latin".

Through Brytonnic again


brittas,


Not necessarily from Brythonic. Is it actually found early?

But probably so

pull


Found only in place-names

Actually, no, though most commonly there.


That's 35, and even if we quibble about one or two, or say that
there's only an 80% probability, we still have a lot more to work
with than *4*

from OI dry,, druid, cine, cross as a placename, clugge, gabolrind,
ass, staer, cursian, rice, ancor, munuc, mynster, nun


The point at issue is Brythonic, not Irish - except to contrast the larger number of words from Irish.

You're being disingenuous here. If we treated the OI as you have done with Brittonic we'd have to cut out ass, staer, cross, munuc, mynster, ancor, and nun as all coming from Latin leaving 7 words, less than your 9 and we'd have to cut our "druid" since that's a title or name of an office. If you accept all these as from OI, then you need to provide grounds for not accepting Latinate words coming through Brittonic as you have done above.

There are other points I could make, but have no time to carry on this discussion. So I want to say thanks, its been interesting.





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