The Cambridge History of the English Language Volume 1 Part 8 potx

Thomas E Toon and talk of childhood, the language of formal classroom, we are in fact learning different language systems In so doing we become sensitive to the fact that the appropriateness of the language we use depends on a number of factors Although that learning process seems to require no special effort, the knowledge we internalise in our early years is quite complex For example, we 'automatically' adjust our language in terms of whom we are addressing (a parent, a stranger, a friend), where the interaction is talking place (at home, in a schoolroom, a playground), the genre (a conversation, a narrative, an argument, a report), the purpose (persuasion, play, friendship building) In addition, each of these language settings and uses has its own cadences and levels of formality expressed in lexical, phonological and syntactic choices Linguistic maturity involves expansion of the range of such styles and registers M A K Halliday summarised this whole process very well when he observed that a child learns his/her language not because of what it is, but because of what it does While we might think of most of these adjustments as embellishment to our language abilities, they are in fact central to our ability to communicate effectively While we intuitively control and manipulate our speech in those ways, there are aspects of speech performance over which we apparently have a great deal less control The speech patterns we acquire early (of course) include markers of regional and social dialect That is, our speech contains pronunciations, word choices, styles that convey information about our gender, our nationality, our region, our ethnicity, our socio-economic class We are able to change these patterns only with considerable overt effort, or under strong external pressure (influence from a new social group, a major geographical or social move) Even under the most extreme of conditions, we are rarely able to alter these speech habits completely An American who has lived a number of years in England may sound British to his American family but would be readily detected as a 'colonial' by most Britains For these reasons, linguists consider that all speakers of English have a dialect, or better, control a whole range of dialects which include many registers and styles The linguistic use of the term 'dialect' is different from the everyday usage in which 'dialect' often means some nonstandard or otherwise stigmatised variety Dialectology then is the speciality devoted to studying the nature, range and uses of variation in speech A major aspect of the work is to provide descriptions of regional, social and stylistic varieties In the process of description, dialectologists hope to understand further how and why distinctive 410 Old English dialects speech communities develop and then why speech differences are maintained or lost Clearly differences can arise when groups begin to feel the effects of geographical, political, cultural, social or ethnic isolation North American and antipodean varieties of English have diverged significantly because of geographical distance from their insular sources; while the Scots, the English, the Canadians and United States Americans have developed recognisable national standards of speech which reflect their national identities Indian and Singapore varieties of English reflect cultural isolation, just as many so-called nonstandard varieties reflect social isolation from 'mainstream' society; these are highly complex language situations in which English is the mother tongue of relatively few but an important second language for many The formal study of English dialects began well over a hundred years ago and was an integral part of the development of modern linguistics Because early philologists were able to identify patterns of regional continuity over centuries, the study of English dialects was closely allied with the study of the history of the language Historical documents were localised and then analysed as sources of data for reconstructing earlier pronunciations (Ellis, Sweet, Wright) At about the same time scholars began systematically to conduct extensive regional surveys of local speech habits As a result the regional dialects of modern Britain are extensively documented Traditionally such studies focus on the geographical distribution (often displayed in maps) of individual features of pronunciation, word ending, word choice or sentence structure In recent decades, studies have been based on random samples selected in order to give representative geographical coverage of the areas being considered Using data collected in this fashion, dialectologists have mapped the salient regional features of British and American speech communities Figure 6.1 demonstrates regional distribution of speakers who pronounce [r] in such words as thirdfloor.The map displays by means of shading the fact that most English varieties of English are 'r-less' (nonrhotic), while a strong post-alveolar approximant / r / can be heard in the north and the southwest, where a retroflexed variety can also be observed Such maps are statements of probability; the shaded areas are not to be taken as exclusively populated by [r] pronouncers, but rather areas in which there is better than average chance that the feature will be found In fact we are not even dealing with general patterns of pronunciation Even in the shaded area, [r]-ful (rhotic) speakers are 411 Thomas E Toon Figure 6.1 Map of areas of rhotacism 412 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Old English dialects regularly non-mobile, older, and rural - also individuals whose speech tends to be less influenced by received pronunciation The boundary of such a dialect feature is known as an isogloss If a number of such features are displayed on a composite map (as in the case of the lines in the same modern map), we discover that many isoglosses converge and divide the country into areas where speakers share similar habits Thus bundles of isoglosses help dialectologists identify dialect boundaries and state the regional distribution of dialect criteria This map illustrates the standard division of English dialects into northern, north-midland, midland, southwestern and southeastern varieties, the basic dialect distribution which Old English data also attest Whenever possible, dialectologists try to trace the history of the spread or decline of the selected features They also hope to explain those changes by relating them to contact among speakers of different varieties, to the mobility of significant population groups or to changes in social, political and economic influences Thus the description of some contemporary varieties of London English might begin historically and describe modern features in terms of what is known about the speech habits of those who migrated in large numbers into the cities during the industrial revolution Similarly, the first dialectologists who studied American English were able to explain the North American patterns of [^-pronunciation (or deletion) in terms of well attested migration patterns from [r]pronouncing/deleting regions of Britain Often one variety, as in the case of the London Cockney dialect, becomes associated with a single social group and further becomes the means of defining group membership - establishing and maintaining group solidarity Labov and his associates initiated the work of studying contemporary language variation in terms of how it relates to processes of ongoing language change They not only studied [r]-pronunciation in terms of historical development, but they collected data on how a variety of New Yorkers from a range of social backgrounds spoke in number of different speech contexts The following graph (Figure 6.2) demonstrates that such a linguistic habit is not simply absent or present Deletion of [r] is a matter of degree and a function of social class, context and use Each speaker has a range of pronunciations; he or she can automatically, often even unconsciously, make subtle changes which communicate status to hearers 413 Thomas E Toon 80 r 60 40 20 CS FS RPS WLS Style Figure 6.2 New York City (r) by class and style (after Labov 1966) 6.2 Old English dialects: origins and sources The modern study of dialects requires careful analysis of copious data Its methods have evolved to include extensive surveys, carefully designed field interviews, tape recordings collected from a number of controlled settings Because of the nature of the sources and our distance from them, the study of Old English dialects must proceed along very different lines, and with different expectations about results All of this will become much clearer below, but some initial contrast of methods and possible results will be useful To begin with, the data sources for Old English are themselves written texts, rather than recordings or reports of speech That is, the Old English texts were written by people whose intention was to conduct their day-to-day affairs; they were not written by trained linguists whose intention would be to record nuances of linguistic forms (see chapter 1, pp 19-24) While students of the Old English period know quite a lot in general about manuscript production in early England, the knowledge about specific texts is very sparse, especially for the earliest documents We might know the general area in which a text was produced, but we can only make educated guesses about most details We can assign a rough geographical region and know the likeliest sites of production within that region, and we can propose the quarter or half century 414 Old English dialects within which the text was produced But we not know such specific information as who wrote the text or whose language it reflects Nor we know about the scribe's origins, training or social aspirations What we see through the mists of a thousand years will seem only the bare outline when compared with descriptions of modern dialect patterns Even when Old English patterns are quite distinct, we still have data for only one limited set of styles and registers The scribes who wrote the texts are not to be taken as representative of the whole population, about whose general levels of literacy we can only speculate Occasionally the data and our knowledge about them permit attempts to produce sketches of greater detail In these cases the efforts of historical dialectologists can be informed by recent advances in the methods of contemporary socio-linguistics, but only when tempered with a firm appreciation of our limitations Without disregarding diversity and pluralism, our view of modern England is determined by such facts as a strong national self-image, easy communication, a stable central government, a uniform educational policy and a received pronunciation of its dominant language AngloSaxon England on the other hand was sparsely populated and travel was very difficult The Germanic peoples from whom our language stems were comparative newcomers who brought social and political traditions by which they viewed themselves in terms of familial or tribal (that is non-national) associations Although we might tend to think of the migration as a single historical event, archaeological data and even contemporary accounts attest more long range and piecemeal patterns of immigration By AD 600, the larger more powerful tribes had consolidated themselves into coherent political entities, called 'kingdoms' in a fashion that overdignifies the reality Most histories of the period refer to the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, whose members are most commonly named as Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Kent In fact, our knowledge of Northumbria after Bede is too scant for a discussion of the nature of Northumbrian ' kingship' East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Kent never really achieved political autonomy The generic term Mercia subsumes too many rival sub-kingdoms to be a useful descriptive term Those we call 'kings' were locally powerful warlords, who managed temporarily to secure a tenuous influence over their rivals and eventual usurpers Few died of old age; fewer still passed their title on to an immediate heir According to Bede, an overlord was occasionally able to gain hegemony over neighbouring kingdoms Even Thomas E Toon as Bede was writing his history, Northumbria enjoyed the benefits which come from a succession of strong kings Bede's history of the church also gives occasional glimpses into social and cultural conditions, such as evidence that speech habits (among other criteria) were socially diagnostic among the Anglo-Saxons, just as they are today: those who watched him closely realized by his appearance, his bearing, and his speech that he was not of common stock as he said, but of noble family (Colgrave and Mynors, 1969:403) It is clear from Bede's work that Germanic tribal society, with a heroic ethic as its base, survived the transplantation to England For instance, the conversion of the English proceeded tribally and had to begin with the conversion of overlords whose retainers followed his example Bede's career is of immediate importance for students of the history of English for a number of reasons His work carefully recorded Old English names for Roman and Celtic places which give clues to early pronunciations Because of his position as the foremost Latin scholar of the time, his pioneer efforts to translate major texts into English gave vernacular literacy an important credibility He urged the clergy to teach the rudiments of Christian doctrine in English and spent his waning energies in the act of dictating from his deathbed a translation of St John's Gospel Bede's Death Song is also among the earliest recorded examples of Old English poetry Three kingdoms, each with successively greater influence, were able to extend their domination beyond their native realms: the Northumbrians (ca AD 625-75), the Mercians (ca AD 650-825), and the West Saxons (ca 800-1050) The Kentish were influential throughout the period by virtue of the importance of the See at Canterbury The following table is an oversimplification (corrected below) but usefully summarises the major dialect features and their general association with these major political divisions of Anglo-Saxon England Wessex Gmc ae: > e: Pal diph as>a/rC smoothing a>o/nasals velar umlaut + + - 416 limited + + + limited — y : / y > e:/e Northumbria — Mercia Kent Old English dialects That is, West Saxon was the most clearly distinct variety, as might be expected because of geographical factors which isolated it even from the Norse invaders Northumbrian and Mercian shared two major features, and formed a non-southern (midlands and northern) unit Kentish (in the southeast) differed dramatically from geographically remote West Saxon and Northumbrian, but shared some features with Mercian Mercian, the surviving midlands variety, had elements in common with its neighbours to the north and to the southeast, but remained distinct from its nearby southwestern rivals Of particular interest, is the fact that hegemony in each case (Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex) occasioned a flowering of learning The Northumbrian kings fostered the establishment of the great monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow — which ultimately produced Bede and Alcuin, the famous school at York and the finest library in Europe The magnificent books which survive from this period constitute substantial testimony to the importance of literacy and learning Such productions would not have been possible without the patronage of the local kings King Ceolwulf, we know, paid personal attention to the production of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica; he read and criticised a draft of it We ought to be less than surprised that Bede, in the most influential book of the time, pays ample tribute to the power of the Northumbrian kings His testimony here is peculiarly self-contradictory In one passage he calls the Northumbrian kings the rulers of all England, while in another place he acknowledges the southern supremacy of the Mercians King Ceolwulf and Bede knew the power of the written word They would probably not have been surprised to discover that modern histories have perpetuated an account that contemporary political facts did not fully justify; scholars until recently accepted too uncritically what is clearly and naturally a northern perspective on the part of Northumbria's historian The Anglo-Saxon kings who read Bede no doubt learned an important political lesson An educated clergy can be more than a mere luxurious adornment to a dignified court The Mercian hegemony bridges the gap between Northumbria's first attempts at political unification of what is now England and the West Saxon accomplishment of that fact Clearly the Mercian period was one of continuing consolidation of power; it was also the period of the first extensive texts written in English Unfortunately, it failed to produce either its own local historian of Bede's stature, or an independent chronicle tradition such as the one which survives for Wessex (and makes the reconstruction of West Saxon history so much easier) But the texts which survive can be pieced together to form a coherent 417 Thomas E Toon narrative of political consolidation, and the role of vernacular literacy in that process Under the Mercian kings diplomatic uses of literacy flourished, and charters became an integral means by which the Mercian overlords established, maintained and recorded permanently the facts of hegemony In these charters, the Mercian kings styled themselves kings of Britain and collected the attestations of major clergy and regional subkings who in attesting confirmed the actions and status of their overlords These same charters give further support to Bede's observation (AD 731): All these kingdoms and the other southern kingdoms which reach right up to the Humber, together with their various kings, are subject to iE]?elbald, king of Mercia (Colgrave and Mynors, 1969:559) achievements were consolidated and refined by his successor Offa, who even managed to anoint his son and assure his succession Offa became the strongest king that Anglo-Saxon England had produced to date His reign saw a centralised production of a silver currency of unequalled integrity, often finding its way to the continent via a newly brisk foreign trade He called himself Rex Ang/orum, and was a force in international politics When he found the archbishop of Canterbury troublesome, he persuaded the Pope to establish a third archiepiscopal see in his native Lichfield The charters attest the facts that he travelled widely throughout his kingdom, successfully levying taxes and granting lands in all parts of southern England The same charters contain distinctly Mercian forms for the letters /, g, and d Those orthographic innovations are strong evidence that Offa had official scribes of his own probably trained in a royally sponsored scriptorium He commissioned a protective earthwork, a dike that stretched the whole length of the Welsh border He was so strong that he was even able to establish his younger brother as the king of Kent From relic vocabulary in later, mostly Late West Saxon poetry, we know that vernacular literature was developed to a high art under the Mercian kings Even the more substantial literate achievements of King Alfred's reign drew on the strong base of Mercian scholarship; his intellectual advisers were predominantly Mercian, and Alfred acknowledged his debt to the (good) laws of Offa in his own legislation The Tribal Hidage, a document (ca AD 700) which dates from the Mercian hegemony, is an important resource for understanding the political and social structure of early Anglo-Saxon England It contains 418 Old English dialects J c€y/ Archdioceses • Diocese ~ Major roads — Navigable rivers i^Lindisfarne ) ^ ~ ^ = N 'HexhanrA r ®York z' V \ \ \ \ ' LINDES Y FARONAVI \ ^ " ^ A C Lindsey* ' •\"' ^ Y' ^V/Leicester\ Q I J " xxx i _/ Worcester^ Hereford ,/- ,A y j)c 1 AST XXXI ^London ZrT* f ,— •L / ^.r^ > - ^ : > (JanterburW LONOONJi^^ * "KENTXXXII/^ ^ * • Winchester v j / rf - ^ • f SOUTH SAXONS XXXIII ^ y ^ Shelborne / ^ o a ' o A,—-—>—^/— W S SAXONS XXXIV ET • ^ c t - V - ,