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Brittonicisms in English
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Brittonicisms in English
Brittonicisms in English are the linguistic effects in English attributed to the historical influence of Brittonic (i.e. British Celtic) speakers as they switched language to English following the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon political dominance in Britain.
The research into this topic uses a variety of approaches to approximate the Romano-British language spoken in Sub-Roman Britain on the eve of the Anglo-Saxon arrival. Besides the earliest extant Old Welsh texts, Breton is useful for its lack of English influence.
The Brittonic substratum influence on English is considered to be very small, but a number of publications in the 2000s (decade) suggested that its influence may have been underestimated. Some of the developments differentiating Old English from Middle English have been proposed as an emergence of a previously unrecorded Brittonic influence.
There are many, often obscure, characteristics in English that have been proposed as Brittonicisms. White enumerates 92 items, of which 32 are attributed to other academic works. However, these theories have not become a part of the mainstream view of the history of English.
The received view that Romano-British impact on English has been minimal on all levels became established at the beginning of the 20th century following work by such scholars as Otto Jespersen (1905) and Max Förster (1921). Opposing views by Wolfgang Keller (1925) Ingerid Dal (1952), Gerard Visser (1955), Walther Preusler (1956), and by Patricia Poussa (1990) were marginal to the academic consensus of their time. Oxford philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien expressed his suspicion of Brittonic influence and pointed out some anomalies in support of this view in his 1955 valedictory lecture English and Welsh, in which Tolkien cites Förster.
Research on Romano-British influence in English intensified in the 2000s, principally centring on The Celtic Englishes programmes in Germany (Potsdam University) and The Celtic Roots of English programme in Finland (University of Joensuu).
The review of the extent of Romano-British influence has been encouraged by developments in several fields. Significant survival of Brittonic peoples in Anglo-Saxon England has become a more widely accepted idea thanks primarily to recent archaeological and genetic evidence.[page needed] According to a previously held model, the Romano-Britons of England were to a large extent exterminated or somehow pushed out of England – affecting their ability to influence language. There is now a much greater body of research into language contact and a greater understanding of language contact types. The works of Sarah Thomason and Terrence Kaufman have been used in particular to model borrowing and language shift. The research uses investigations into varieties of “Celtic” English (that is Welsh English, Irish English, etc.) which reveal characteristics more certainly attributable to Celtic languages and also universal contact trends revealed by other varieties of English.
Endorsed particularly by Hildegard Tristram (2004), the Old English diglossia model proposes that much of the native Romano-British population remained in Northern and Western England, and the Anglo-Saxons gradually took over the rule of those regions. Over a long period, the Brittonic population imperfectly learnt the Anglo-Saxons' language, and Old English continued in an artificially-stable form as the written language of the elite, which was the only version of English to be preserved in writing. After the Norman conquerors removed Anglo-Saxon rule, the dialects of the general population, which would have included Brithonic and Norse-influenced versions of English, were eventually recorded and appear as Middle English.
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Brittonicisms in English
Brittonicisms in English are the linguistic effects in English attributed to the historical influence of Brittonic (i.e. British Celtic) speakers as they switched language to English following the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon political dominance in Britain.
The research into this topic uses a variety of approaches to approximate the Romano-British language spoken in Sub-Roman Britain on the eve of the Anglo-Saxon arrival. Besides the earliest extant Old Welsh texts, Breton is useful for its lack of English influence.
The Brittonic substratum influence on English is considered to be very small, but a number of publications in the 2000s (decade) suggested that its influence may have been underestimated. Some of the developments differentiating Old English from Middle English have been proposed as an emergence of a previously unrecorded Brittonic influence.
There are many, often obscure, characteristics in English that have been proposed as Brittonicisms. White enumerates 92 items, of which 32 are attributed to other academic works. However, these theories have not become a part of the mainstream view of the history of English.
The received view that Romano-British impact on English has been minimal on all levels became established at the beginning of the 20th century following work by such scholars as Otto Jespersen (1905) and Max Förster (1921). Opposing views by Wolfgang Keller (1925) Ingerid Dal (1952), Gerard Visser (1955), Walther Preusler (1956), and by Patricia Poussa (1990) were marginal to the academic consensus of their time. Oxford philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien expressed his suspicion of Brittonic influence and pointed out some anomalies in support of this view in his 1955 valedictory lecture English and Welsh, in which Tolkien cites Förster.
Research on Romano-British influence in English intensified in the 2000s, principally centring on The Celtic Englishes programmes in Germany (Potsdam University) and The Celtic Roots of English programme in Finland (University of Joensuu).
The review of the extent of Romano-British influence has been encouraged by developments in several fields. Significant survival of Brittonic peoples in Anglo-Saxon England has become a more widely accepted idea thanks primarily to recent archaeological and genetic evidence.[page needed] According to a previously held model, the Romano-Britons of England were to a large extent exterminated or somehow pushed out of England – affecting their ability to influence language. There is now a much greater body of research into language contact and a greater understanding of language contact types. The works of Sarah Thomason and Terrence Kaufman have been used in particular to model borrowing and language shift. The research uses investigations into varieties of “Celtic” English (that is Welsh English, Irish English, etc.) which reveal characteristics more certainly attributable to Celtic languages and also universal contact trends revealed by other varieties of English.
Endorsed particularly by Hildegard Tristram (2004), the Old English diglossia model proposes that much of the native Romano-British population remained in Northern and Western England, and the Anglo-Saxons gradually took over the rule of those regions. Over a long period, the Brittonic population imperfectly learnt the Anglo-Saxons' language, and Old English continued in an artificially-stable form as the written language of the elite, which was the only version of English to be preserved in writing. After the Norman conquerors removed Anglo-Saxon rule, the dialects of the general population, which would have included Brithonic and Norse-influenced versions of English, were eventually recorded and appear as Middle English.