allthingslinguistic: Thanks to Linguist Twitter for finding this example of how some things just don
allthingslinguistic:Thanks to Linguist Twitter for finding this example of how some things just don’t change!Modern historians tend to characterize the time where English borrowed a lot of words from Norman French as a period of richness and innovation, but sure enough, writers at the time were grumbling about how kids these days were speaking absolutely terrible Anglo Saxon. Full quote, from Bokenham in 1440 (notice how he’s ironically using lots of Latinate words in his complaint, like “corruption” and “familiar” and “augmentation”):And þis corrupcioun of Englysshe men yn þer modre-tounge, begunne as Iseyde with famylyar commixtion of Danys firste and of Normannys aftir,toke grete augmentacioun and encrees aftir þe commying of Williamconquerour by two thyngis. The firste was: by decre and ordynaunce of þeseide William conqueror children in gramer-scolis ageyns þe consuetudeand þe custom of all oþer nacyons, here owne modre-tonge lafte andforsakyn, lernyd here Donet on Frenssh and to construyn yn Frenssh and tomaken here Latyns on þe same wyse. The secounde cause was þat by thesame decre lordis sonys and all nobyll and worthy mennys children werefyrste set to lyrnyn and speken Frensshe, or þan þey cowde spekynYnglyssh and þat all wrytyngis and endentyngis and all maner plees andcontravercyes in courtis of þe lawe, and all maner reknygnis and countis ynhowsoolde schulle be doon yn the same. And þis seeyinge, þe rurales, þatþey myghte semyn þe more worschipfull and honorable and þe redlierecomyn to þe famyliarite of þe worthy and þe grete, leftyn hure modre toungeand labouryd to kunne spekyn Frenssh: and thus by processe of tymebarbariʒid thei in bothyn and spokyn neythyr good Frenssh nor goodEnglyssh.Here’s a translated version if you don’t feel like puzzling through the Middle English:And this corruption of Englishmen in their mother tongue, begun, as Ihave said, in the every-day admixture of first Danish and then Norman,was greatly augmented and increased after the arrival of William theConqueror by two things. The first was by the decree and ordinance ofthe aforesaid William the Conqueror that children in the grammarschools should leave off and forsake their own mother tongue and learntheir Donatus in French and construe it in French and do their Latin inthe same way, which is something which goes against the habit andcustom of all other nations. The second cause was that in the samedecree the sons of the lords and the children of all the nobles andworthy men were first set to learn and speak French, before they couldspeak English and that all writings and indentureships and all manner ofpleas and controversies in courts of law and all manner of calculationsand accounts in households should be done in the same (language).And seeing this, the rural people [saw] that they might seem to be themore esteemed and honorable and the more easily open to theacquaintance of the worthy and the great, abandoned their mothertongue and labored to be able to speak French: and thus in the courseof time mutilated them both and spoke neither good French nor goodEnglish.The translation is via these course notes (pdf), which also make interesting reading about the history of English in general (see also these pdf exercises for other quotes). You would think eventually we’d learn to just chill out about how people are talking. -- source link