Re: Scandinavia and the Germanic tribes such as Goths, Vandals, Angl

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...>
wrote:

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

>> At 10:47:40 PM on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, Andrew Jarrette
>> wrote:

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

>>>>> I said "foreign element in its _identity_", meaning the
>>>>> ancestry,

>>>> That's not a way in which I would use or understand the
>>>> word 'identity'.

> This is where I got the word "identity" from in Davis:

[snip examples]

All of these seem perfectly normal usages; it's your equation of
identity and ancestry that does not.

[...]

> The idea of the Anglo-Saxons welcoming foreign elements comes from
> this and later:

I know where it came from. I just think that you've turned a
molehill into a mountain.

[...]

> From the quotes above as well as much else in the text, I would not
> say that I have misread Davis.

I would.

[...]

>>> I just meant that we English have always seemed rather
>>> eager to celebrate, praise, pay tribute to, or adopt
>>> foreign elements, whether in words, ancestry, or political
>>> affiliations.

>> I'm not at all sure that I agree with this, but in any
>> case it's very different from what I understand by
>> 'identity-challenged'.

> Davis uses the term "identity" several times in making his
> argument about "the failure of Beowulf to establish itself
> as an effective contribution to the English nation's sense
> of itself in the tenth century."

Indeed he does. He also argues effectively that it failed
because it was incompatible with stronger identity-forming
elements. I'm not objecting to the word 'identity'; it's
the notion that the Anglo-Saxons were 'identity-challenged'
that I find absurd (and entirely incompatible with Davis's
discussion).

[...]

>>> But I would like to know why then have we borrowed so
>>> profusely from outside sources, compared to other Germanic
>>> languages for example? Germany is close to France, the
>>> Netherlands are close to France, not separated by an arm
>>> of the sea, yet they have borrowed nowhere near as many
>>> words from French and Latin as we have.

>> For starters, they had very different historical
>> relationships with the French.

> What about what I said about Greece and its conquest by the
> Romans? Is there no parallel there?

Anti-parallel, so to speak: the Romans admired Greek culture,
and the borrowing went in the other direction, from Greek to
Latin.

Brian