The usefulness of a language

--- In cybalist@..., x99lynx@... wrote:

> Piotr wrote:
> <No _essential_ disagreement here, but I think you overestimate the
> importance of "effective communication". I agree that the

explanation of

> directional borrowing in terms of "prestige" is often circular. So,

alas, is

> explanation in terms of communicative needs.>
>
> Piotr, if two people are speaking to each other and neither are

using

> "prestige" words they should get along just fine. If neither is
> communicating, on the other hand, their language is useless. There

is

> nothing circular about that. I cannot believe that with your

obvious writing

> skills you wouldn't immediately endorse the priority of

communication. The

> Mainstream Linguist Police must be lurking around here somewhere.
>

But which situation are we talking about here? The average Anglo-
Saxon is not likely to correct his Norman lord and master by pointing
out that he is using a dative for an accusative or a masculine for a
feminine. Nor is he likely to try to browbeat him by using fancy
prestigious Anglo-Saxon words. That won't get him anywhere, at least
not anywhere nice. Better use a Norman French word that you have
picked up somewhere and which you know your boss will understand.

> <<Did Chaucer and other Middle English writers use French words to

improve

> communication with fellow Englishmen? There's little reason to

think so.>>

>
> Yikes! Actually there is every reason to think so. The remarkable
> masterpiece that is the Canterbury Tales carries no excess

baggage. Every

> word is efficient, effective and advances meaning. There is no

indication of

> a word chosen because it was the "prestigious" word. Chaucer used

the right

> word to convey pin-point meaning - in English - even though it

might have

> been a borrowed word. And the reason he could do that was because

English

> finally had the tools (including the borrowed ones) to tell that

story. If

> you'd like to substitute "Saxon doublets" into Chaucer (or

Shakespeare) be my

> guest. But don't expect it to tell the same story. Or tell it

very well.

Oh no. When I read "Jyske lov" of 1241 or the Medicine Book of Henrik
Harpestreng, I am struck with clarity of expression, how he has
chosen exactly those words of Low German that survived into Modern
Danish and therefore make sense to me. Oh wondrous joy! It's like
looking at your family album and marvelling that all these people had
to meet by what looks like coincidence in order to produce oneself so
that the medieval mist over linguistics should be disspelled. What
grand plan did they follow? How was it revealed to them? By divine
inspiration (anyone getting annoyed out there?)?

>
> A good example of how much English had been powered up thanks to

its

> borrowing is Poul Anderson's essay "Uncleftish Beholding" which

describes

> "Atomic Theory" using "only Anglo-Saxon words" and is reproduced in

part on

> the web. The Journal of Irreproducible Results in 1979 noted

that "essay"

> was "legendary among physicists because of how well it illustrates

the total

> inadequacy of naked 'English' in communicating modern scientific

concepts..."

> Naked English here meant English without words borrowed from

Latin, Greek,

> French or Arabic.

That is a very good example. Now all you need is some quotes from
those physicists, eg. Einstein and Bohr, who have actually tried to
formulate a modern physical theory in such nakedly Germanic languages
as German and Danish, to the effect that such languages are unsuited
for that purpose.
(weird fact: the unit prefixes for 10E-15 and 10E-18 are femto- and
atto-, respectively, from Danish <femten> "15" and <atten> "18";
Danish was used as a Lingua Franca in the discussions among students
in Bohr's "Copenhagen school").

>
> Piotr wrote:
> <<Innumerable French loans replaced perfectly functional Anglo-

Saxon

> synonyms...>>
>
> Piotr, don't believe it for a minute. The words you list were not
> equivalent. That is an artifact of dictionary definitions and

convenience.

> When you look at context, you can see that these words served

different

> functions and had different connotations from the start.

The "substitution"

> actually reflected material changes and new meanings in English

culture at

> the time. Calling them "perfectly functional Anglo-Saxon synonyms"

is just

> not accurate.
>
> Here are just three examples, but I'm sure this can be done with

every

> two-some you mentioned. In each case, the new borrowed word

signaled a

> change in meaning and context that did not merely replace the old

word:

>
> Arn > Eagle
> "Erne/eagle give all the indications of initial usage in English as

two

> different words. Of the earliest references given to "eagle" in

the

> OxEngDict almost all refer not to the bird in the wild, but to

foreign coins,

> emblems and symbols. The main exception seems to be Wyclif

(c.1380) who used

> both words in his sermons, Eerne and Egle, suggesting that he may

have

> thought they were two different birds. Since most Englishmen would

rarely

> see the native erne in its limited native habitats and possibly did

not know

> it was the same bird, it is logical that the word associated with

the more

> common imported symbols - eagle - would eventually prevail."
>
> Inwit > Conscience
> "Some of the earliest references to "inwit" in ME already attempt

to make it

> equivalent to "conscience", but it is clear from the texts that was

not the

> case. Wyclif uses "inwit" as the five "inwyttys" ("Wyl, Resoun,

Mynd,

> Ymaginacioun and Thogth...") and also as equivalent to the

Christian soul

> itself. There are many other examples which make any simple

equivalency to

> conscience unacceptible. This is also clear in that conscience is

attested

> before "inwit" in MEnglish, but in OEnglish, inwit meant "deceit" -

which

> seems a pre-Christian notion that directly conflicted with the

Christian conc

> ept of conscience. It may be that early sermoners substituted

conscience for

> inwit in order to attempt a "conversion" in thinking in their

listeners.

> What we may actually have here is an overall change in ethical

concepts, with

> inwit eventually losing usage because its actual common meaning was

ethically

> ambiguous, though its most accurate early sense was retained in

modern

> English "wits" and "wit," neither of which have ethical

connotations."

>
> Eme > Uncle
> "Under civil and canon law, "avunculus/uncle" denoted only the

mother's

> brother and demarked the rights and duties of that person in the

event of the

> father's death. This may be the source of the early use of "to

uncle" as

> meaning to cheat or swindle, as an "uncle" could divert the normal

course of

> inhertance . There is no indication that such rights and duties

existed under

> Saxon law in the designation "eme." Thus, when English written law

revised

> the rights of inheritance, it extended the legal status of "uncle"

to mean

> both the lines of mother and father."
>
> I'll try to get to the rest of your post later.
>
> Steve

Words are borrowed with a slightly different sense and the old word
dies out. And?

The technical designation for what the English language is, is this:
it is a


partially Norman-French re-lexified, mixed AngloSaxon-Norse-based
creole.



Torsten