From: Rick McCallister
Message: 62933
Date: 2009-02-09
> From: tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>Keeping in mind that the Danelaw occupied roughly the same territory as the Angles, can any of the difference be ascribed to the Angles, who supposedly came from Jutland.
> Subject: [tied] Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Sunday, February 8, 2009, 6:59 PM
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette"
> <anjarrette@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud
> Fournet" <fournet.arnaud@>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > What about natives? The loss of gender makes
> English a lot
> > > easier to learn for its natives, but I'm sure
> it did not occur
> > > for foreigners' benefit. I think you're
> greatly overmagnifying
> > > the importance of foreigners for the development
> of a language.
> > > Just my opinion.
> > >
> It made it easier for the foreigners, and they ran England
> then.
>
>
> > > Never forget what the central issues about a
> language are the
> > > substrates and the non native speakers.
> > > They actually run that particular language.
> Native speakers are
> > > by-standers.
> > > This is the Dane Law principle.
> > >
> > > A.
> > >
> >
> > I don't think non-native speakers "ran"
> German or Russian, otherwise
> > these languages would be very different today,
> wouldn't they? I
> > think it depends on the language, each language's
> particular
> > situation.
>
> Turkic-speakers 'ran' Bulgarian and Macedonian, and
> today they have no
> case system, unlike all other Slavic languages.
>
>
> > You are saying that the Scandinavian invaders
> controlled the
> > development of English within the Danelaw? I would
> argue that, as
> > Brian said, there was mutual influence both ways
> between
> > Scandinavian and English, and would also say that I
> wouldn't go so
> > far as to say the Scandinavians "ran"
> English as opposed to
> > "influencing" English.
> > But I think you're right that that influence was
> strong, because in
> > Northumbrian and Midlands texts after the 9th century,
> which were
> > probably in the Danelaw or in areas of strong
> Scandinavian presence,
> > there is much confusion of grammatical endings, which
> I would guess
> > would primarily be due to confusion between English
> and
> > Scandinavian.
> > I would imagine that the Scandinavian spoken in these
> regions also
> > experienced much grammatical confusion. This scenario
> could be the
> > start of the great simplification of English grammar
> and the loss of
> > grammatical gender, I don't know, someone has
> probably written a
> > paper on it.
>
> I don't think anybody has.
> In the situation with OE and ON in Northern England I
> don't think
> there was much confusion, since the two languages were no
> more
> different then than Danish and Swedish today, and Danes and
> Swedes
> trying to intercommunicate using their native tongue do not
> abandon
> grammatical devices of their native tongue (like eg.
> baby-talking).
> It's only when the two languages are so different that
> one of the
> speakers has to switch to a non-native language that
> grammatical
> categories break down, since he won't have any clues
> from his native
> language for the grammatical categories of the language he
> tries to
> speak, like an English-speaker trying to guess the plural
> type of a
> German noun.
>
> > But I don't know if there's any support here
> for
> > Torsten's idea of shibboleth-induced loss of
> <-s> plurals, which is
> > the original issue.
>
> The loss of s-plurals happened in the south, says Brian.
> They must
> have had issues with the Northerners.
>
>
> Torsten