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Teacher's Digest
6-The History of the
English Language
In the beginning there
was an island off the coast of Europe. It had no name, for the natives
had no language, only a collection of grunts and gestures that roughly
translated to "Hey!" "Gimme!" and "Pardon me, but would you happen
to have any woad?"Then the Romans invaded
it and called it Britain, because the natives were "blue, nasty,
br(u-i)tish and short."
This was the start of the importance of u (and its
mispronounciation) to the language. After building some roads,
killing off some of the nasty little blue people and walling up the rest,
the Romans left, taking the language instruction manual with
them. The British were bored so
they invited the barbarians to come over (under Hengist) and "Horsa"
'round a bit.
The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes brought slightly
more refined vocal noises. All of the vocal sounds
of this primitive language were onomatapoeic, being derived from the
sounds of battle. Consonants were derived from the sounds of
weapons striking a foe. "Sss" and "th" for example are the sounds of
a draw cut, "k" is the sound of a solidly landed axe blow, "b",
"d", are the sounds of a head dropping onto rock and sod
respectively, and "gl" is the sound of a body splashing into a bog.Vowels (which were either
gargles in the back of the throat or sharp exhalations) were derived
from the sounds the foe himself made when struck.
The barbarians had so
much fun that decided to stay for post-revel.The British, finding that
they had lost future use of the site, moved intothe hills to the west
and called themselves Welsh.The Irish, having heard
about language from Patrick, came over to investigate. When they
saw the shiny vowels, they pried them loose and took them home. They
then raided Wales and stole both their cattle and their vowels,
so the poor Welsh had to make do with sheep and consonants. ("Old Ap
Ivor hadde a farm, L Y L Y W! And on that farm he hadde somme
gees.
With a dd dd here and a dd dd there...") To prevent future raids,
the Welsh started calling themselves "Cymry" and gave even longer
names to their villages. They figured if no one could pronounce the name
of their people or the names of their towns, then no one would visit
them. (The success of the tactic is demonstrated still
today. How many travel agents have YOU heard suggest a visit to scenic Llyddumlmunnyddthllywddu?) Meantime, the Irish
brought all the shiny new vowels home to Erin. But of course they didn't
know that there was once an instruction manual for them, so they
scattered the vowels throughout the language purely as ornaments.
Most of the new vowels were not pronounced, and those that were were
pronounced differently depending on which kind of consonant they were
either preceding or following.The Danes came over and
saw the pretty vowels bedecking all the Irish words. "Ooooh!" they
said. They raided Ireland and brought the vowels back home with
them. But the Vikings couldn't keep track of all the Irish rules so
they simply pronounced all the vowels "oouuoo."
In the meantime, the
French had invaded Britain, which was populated by descendants of the
Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. After a generation or two, the
people were speaking German with a French accent and calling it
English. Then the Danes invaded again, crying "Oouuoo! Oouuoo!" burning
abbeys, and trading with the townspeople.The Britons that the
Romans hadn't killed intermarried with visiting Irish and became Scots.
Against the advice of their travel agents, they decided to visit
Wales. (The Scots couldn't read the signposts that said, "This way to
Lyddyllwwyddymmllwylldd," but they could smell sheep a league
away.)
The Scots took the sheep home with them and made some of them
into haggis. What they made with the others we won't say, but Scots are
known to this day for having hairy legs. The former Welsh, being
totally bereft, moved down out of the hills and into London. Because
they were the only people in the Islands who played flutes instead
of bagpipes, they were called Tooters. This made them very
popular. In short order, Henry Tooter got elected King and begin
popularizing ornate, unflattering clothing.Soon, everybody was
wearing ornate, unflattering clothing, playing the flute, speaking
German with a French accent, pronouncing all their vowels "oouuoo"
(which was fairly easy given the French accent), and making lots
of money in the wool trade. Because they were rich, people smiled
more (remember, at this time, "Beowulf" and "Canterbury Tales" were
the only tabloids, and gave generally favorable reviews even to
Danes). And since it is next to impossible to keep your vowels in
the back of your throat (even if you do speak German with a French
accent) while smiling and saying "oouuoo" (try it, you'll see what I
mean), the Great Vowel Shift came about and transformed the English
language.The very richest had
their vowels shifted right out in front of theirteeth. They settled in
Manchester and later in Boston.
There were a few poor souls who, cut
off from the economic prosperity of the wool trade, continued to
swallow their vowels. They wandered the countryside in misery and
despair until they came to the docks of London, where their
dialect devolved into the incomprehensible language known as
Cockney. Later, it was taken overseas and further brutalized by merging it
with Dutch and Italian to create Brooklynese.
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