[geeks] English language [was: power (was Mr. Bill)]

[Mike Meredith]

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:16:25 -0400 (EDT), Sandwich Maker wrote:
> " I'm not sure how much Danish crept into the dominant Old English
> " dialect (Late West Saxon), but it certainly crept into other
> dialects " and influences later versions of English.
> 
> certainly english today - hide and skin for example.

Interesting examples. Skin is listed as arriving in the Late Old
English era from Old Norse. Hide is listed as arriving far earlier from
many possible origins including Old Saxon; the word itself is probably
older than any of them.

(source: OED)

"Danish" is a confusing term for that era given that Saxons are from
the area of Denmark and so are (later) Vikings. Of course what I meant
earlier was that words of Viking origin were unlikely to make much
inroads into Old English. Indeed the (West) Saxons referred to the
late-comers as Danes when they weren't "going Viking".

> yes, i know it's not goidelic like irish/scots 

Probably not a good idea to imply ("welsh gaelic") that it is then.

> the origin of brittany - when the saxons invaded britain, displaced
> britons were invited in by their cross channel cousins [armoricans?],
> but so many came that they changed the name...

It may have been a bit more confused than that. There's theories that
Brittany was occupied by large numbers of Romano-British soldiers well
before Saxons started occupying Britain. And a second wave that came
when the Saxons started kicking out the Brythonic ruling classes
(personally I think it is doubtful that many Brythonic peasants made it
to Brittany ... they were more likely to escape West or North;
certainly the Welsh were very slow to admit that they didn't rule
Britain as the native word for Wales (Cymru) is quite late in origin).

A more gruesome theory was that Brittany was settled by Welsh
mercenaries who married locals and tore out their tongues to keep their
language pure. The Welsh word for Brittany (Llydaw) has its origins in
the phrase "half silent".

> ireland, into a land already full of british celts.

Ouch! That implies that they were Brythonic celts and the ancient Irish
would have been less than happy about that!

> 
> not really fair, but does that count place names?

Nope. "Landscape features" would be a better phrase (some of which
later became place names) simply because they're less likely to change.
There's plenty still around, including my favourite ... the many river
Avon's ...

Saxon Invader: Oi! You. What's the name of this river ?
Brythonic peasant: (speaking slowly in the way that will be very
familiar to anyone used to the English trying to communicate to someone
who doesn't speak English) That's a _river_ (Afon in modern Welsh)
Saxon Invader: Ah! The River Avon (meaning River River).

-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
 Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from
 religeous conviction
  -- Blaise Pascal