Re: [tied] Re: Creole Romance?

At 5:58:59 AM on Tuesday, July 8, 2003, tgpedersen wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 8:01:33 AM on Monday, July 7, 2003, tgpedersen wrote:

>>>>> BTW the languages of the records of the North German
>>>>> cities switch from Low German to High German within
>>>>> the scope of twenty years in the 16th century. At the
>>>>> same time as the Hanse finally declines. Don't tell me
>>>>> there's no connection here.

>>>> Of course there's a connection, though that's obviously
>>>> not the only reason.

>>> And the other ones are?

>> The most obvious is the influence of the Luther bible.

> The Luther bible was published in two translations, a High
> German and a Low German one. There was no particular need
> to adopt the High German instead of the Low German one.

I'm aware that Low German translations continued to be
published into the 16th century. The fact remains that
Luther's version did have considerable prestige in the
Protestant North. To claim otherwise is to ignore the
facts. (Note that I do not ignore the significance of the
decline of the Hansa.)

>>>>> given alternative political developments, -eren might
>>>>> have survived in English, and the merchant would now
>>>>> stand condemned (and also by you) as the speaker of a
>>>>> corrupt, French-influenced substandard dialect that
>>>>> didn't make it.

>>>> Not by anyone who knew anything about the history of
>>>> the language. Both plurals are native to OE, and the
>>>> fact that we have <egg> instead of *<ay> or the like is
>>>> due to Norse influence, not French.

>>> I said _alternative_. Contrafactual history.

>> I know what you said. Your comment makes sense only if
>> you were talking about an alternative history that
>> diverges from the real one *after* the merchant and the
>> wife had their little contretemps, one in which a
>> southern dialect prevailed; in such a history the
>> merchant's <egges> is still due to Norse influence.

> Now you get it.

No. Possibly *you* have only just now understood what I
wrote before. Possibly *you* have only just now understood
the implications of what *you* wrote before. Apparently you
don't realize this response and your last are inconsistent,
though I suspect that to save face you will now offer some
implausible interpretation of your previous one, as you do
below.

>>> You can't infer anything from a non-contradiction, and
>>> we both know that. I'm saying this story doesn't
>>> disprove my theory.

>> That is significantly weaker than your original claim
>> ('You might even interpret ...'), for which the story
>> contains about as much evidence as for the claim that the
>> moon is made of green cheese. In any case the story is
>> *at best* irrelevant to your theory:

> To be read as 'you might even get away with
> interpreting...' (since this piece of evidence won't
> contradict it).

If that's how you intended it to be read -- and I have my
doubts -- that's what you should have written.

>> The rest of the prologue further emphasizes the diversity
>> of dialects and Caxton's perplexity at having to choose
>> among competing usages. Had your market standard existed
>> on any wide scale, it would have been an obvious choice,
>> worth mentioning if only to explain why something else
>> was chosen.

> Obviously it was the one Caxton chose. And it might have
> been so mmuch used in the North as to become the standard
> there.

Completely ignoring his failure to mention such a thing,
despite his obvious interest in such matters.

<shrug> You're entitled to your religion, I guess. I'm not
going to argue it any further, at least not on this
go-round.

Brian