Page 4 of 5 [ 75 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5  Next

Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,739
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

18 Oct 2017, 10:44 am

cyberdad wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Very likely not. Though Frisian, which is spoken in the far northwest corner of Germany, the northern Netherlands, and southern Denmark, from which the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain had largely come from, still does bear a striking resemblance to English even after all these centuries (even though it has more in common with Low German). So I imagine Bede's language might not have been that far off from said Frisians.


I attended a history lecture back in uni and a prominent guest historian by the name of Geoffrey Bolten referred to the English language as "Franko-Frisian"denoting the area you described around the Netherlands bought into Britain as mercanaries and settlers when the Romans left. What is mysterious is why they chose to call themselves Saxons rather than Frisians? Apart from places names - Suffolk, Wessex, Sussex etc the days of the week included a number of dieties worshipped by "said" Saxons namely Thor or Thor's day (Tuesday and Thursday) and of course our father who art in heaven - Wodin or Wodensday (Wednesday)


While there had been a Germanic tribe called the Frisians dating back to the 1st century, we know that their country by the third century had become deserted due to natural disasters. Those remaining had partly been settled in Britain by the Romans, while others might have been absorbed by the Franks. A few centuries later, that region was resettled by Saxons and Angles who then began referring to themselves as Frisians, after the region they now called home.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 33,874
Location: temperate zone

18 Oct 2017, 1:57 pm

The actual Fries language is only spoken in a province in northeast Netherlands now. Its a subset of "north Germanic" that includes the German spoken on the coast of Germnay, and Dutch.

"Good milk, and good cheese, is good English, and good Fries ."

That sentence is the same (well, close enough to being the same) in both modern English, and in modern Fries (pronounced "freeze).

Heard a sportcast snippet in Fries on the radio once. You could hear words like "dost", and "doth" (as in "methinks the lady doth protest too much) that are the same as in early forms of English (even the early modern English of Shakespeare).

Fries is supposed to be virtually identical to what English would have been had there been no Norman Conquest of England. That is pure Germanic with out French influence. Except that even before the Norman Conquest Britain had already been raided and conquered by Vikings. So the Germanic language of England was already a hybrid of two branches of the Germanic (continental and Scandanavian) languages families. While Fries is just mainland North Germanic. But even so Fries is can be thought of as English's closet cousin, with Dutch as English's second closet relative.



cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,146

18 Oct 2017, 3:45 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
While there had been a Germanic tribe called the Frisians dating back to the 1st century, we know that their country by the third century had become deserted due to natural disasters. Those remaining had partly been settled in Britain by the Romans, while others might have been absorbed by the Franks. A few centuries later, that region was resettled by Saxons and Angles who then began referring to themselves as Frisians, after the region they now called home.

If they started calling themselves Frisians then why are all place names in England denoted by Saxon, Angles or Jutes
Saxon - Suffolk, Sussex, wessex
Angles - Anglia, England
Jutes - Kent/Kentish
Danes - Yorick/York

Yet the language is clearly Franko-Frisan (not North German) and stock animals (Frisian cows) must have been bought with Frisian settlers?



cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,146

18 Oct 2017, 3:51 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
The actual Fries language is only spoken in a province in northeast Netherlands now. Its a subset of "north Germanic" that includes the German spoken on the coast of Germnay, and Dutch.

"Good milk, and good cheese, is good English, and good Fries ."

That sentence is the same (well, close enough to being the same) in both modern English, and in modern Fries (pronounced "freeze).

Heard a sportcast snippet in Fries on the radio once. You could hear words like "dost", and "doth" (as in "methinks the lady doth protest too much) that are the same as in early forms of English (even the early modern English of Shakespeare).

Fries is supposed to be virtually identical to what English would have been had there been no Norman Conquest of England. That is pure Germanic with out French influence. Except that even before the Norman Conquest Britain had already been raided and conquered by Vikings. So the Germanic language of England was already a hybrid of two branches of the Germanic (continental and Scandanavian) languages families. While Fries is just mainland North Germanic. But even so Fries is can be thought of as English's closet cousin, with Dutch as English's second closet relative.

I know a gentleman who speaks Frisian and he claims it's a native/indigenous language and the Frisians don't consider themselves German, they just think of themselves as Frisian (Having said that he is typically Germanic looking 6ft with a crop of greying blonde hair)

He mentions the Frisians are mentioned as mercanaries in the story of Beauwulf when he became king the Danish kingdom was under attack from Frisian raiders, this probably ties with Kraichgauer's assessment they became unsettled after the Romans left looking for places to settle, obviously settling on Britain



Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,739
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

18 Oct 2017, 4:30 pm

cyberdad wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
While there had been a Germanic tribe called the Frisians dating back to the 1st century, we know that their country by the third century had become deserted due to natural disasters. Those remaining had partly been settled in Britain by the Romans, while others might have been absorbed by the Franks. A few centuries later, that region was resettled by Saxons and Angles who then began referring to themselves as Frisians, after the region they now called home.

If they started calling themselves Frisians then why are all place names in England denoted by Saxon, Angles or Jutes
Saxon - Suffolk, Sussex, wessex
Angles - Anglia, England
Jutes - Kent/Kentish
Danes - Yorick/York

Yet the language is clearly Franko-Frisan (not North German) and stock animals (Frisian cows) must have been bought with Frisian settlers?


To be sure, there were colonists in England from all over the North Sea coast, including from both Friesland and Saxony. I suppose those Saxons who had come to live in Friesland may only have come to accept a new identity as Frisians after their invasion of Britain. Also, those Saxons remaining on the continent began migrating southwest ward filling in lands being left deserted by the Franks who were on the move into the Rhine country, France, and Belgium. And so, those Saxons remaining in Frisia may have eventually lost close contact with their Saxon kin, and perhaps came to regard themselves as something different.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 33,874
Location: temperate zone

18 Oct 2017, 4:55 pm

I know a gentleman who speaks Frisian and he claims it's a native/indigenous language and the Frisians don't consider themselves German, they just think of themselves as Frisian (Having said that he is typically Germanic looking 6ft with a crop of greying blonde hair)

He mentions the Frisians are mentioned as mercanaries in the story of Beauwulf when he became king the Danish kingdom was under attack from Frisian raiders, this probably ties with Kraichgauer's assessment they became unsettled after the Romans left looking for places to settle, obviously settling on Britain

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

That's what I am sayin. And I don't what K is saying.

The Frisian language is still spoken in northeast Netherlands by a remnant of the population who invaded England (and did their invading alongside the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from other parts of what is now Germany, the Netherlands, the stem of land beneath Denmark). They are GermanIC, but not GerMAN. Just like the Dutch in the rest of the Netherlands are Germanic, but not German.

Linguistically its kinda a continuem. Frisian and Dutch are both kind of crosses between German and English with Frisian being more like English, and Dutch being more like German. And even coastal northern Germany the dialect is more like Dutch (and like English)than the standard Berlitz German that they teach in American public schools. What they teach "High German" which the dialect of Southern Germany in which the verb "to consume food with your mouth" is "essen". In northern German it "etten" (sound familiar?).



Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,739
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

18 Oct 2017, 5:25 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
I know a gentleman who speaks Frisian and he claims it's a native/indigenous language and the Frisians don't consider themselves German, they just think of themselves as Frisian (Having said that he is typically Germanic looking 6ft with a crop of greying blonde hair)

He mentions the Frisians are mentioned as mercanaries in the story of Beauwulf when he became king the Danish kingdom was under attack from Frisian raiders, this probably ties with Kraichgauer's assessment they became unsettled after the Romans left looking for places to settle, obviously settling on Britain

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

That's what I am sayin. And I don't what K is saying.

The Frisian language is still spoken in northeast Netherlands by a remnant of the population who invaded England (and did their invading alongside the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from other parts of what is now Germany, the Netherlands, the stem of land beneath Denmark). They are GermanIC, but not GerMAN. Just like the Dutch in the rest of the Netherlands are Germanic, but not German.

Linguistically its kinda a continuem. Frisian and Dutch are both kind of crosses between German and English with Frisian being more like English, and Dutch being more like German. And even coastal northern Germany the dialect is more like Dutch (and like English)than the standard Berlitz German that they teach in American public schools. What they teach "High German" which the dialect of Southern Germany in which the verb "to consume food with your mouth" is "essen". In northern German it "etten" (sound familiar?).


To be sure Frisian and modern High German are not mutually intelligible, and so must be considered different languages. But that may not have been always the case. Originally, all West Germanic languages more closely resembled Low German, till the advent of Christian conversion in northern and central Europe. Possibly because Christianized southern Germanic peoples had less and less contact with their still pagan northern cousins, High German began to evolve on its own. By the time Germanic pagans in northern Germany and the Netherlands became Christians, too much change had occurred for it to ever return to what it had been.
The standard High German used in everyday life on TV, in business, in cities, and in schools had been invented by Martin Luther, as his Saxony (not to be confused with the old Saxony) in eastern Germany had been the product of colonization from Low, Middle, and High Franconian speaking areas, as well as from Thuringia, one could travel a few villages over, and not understand the German spoken by the people there. So, Luther created a hybrid language that could be standardized into a single form of German, which was very important for Luther's German language Bible. Soon, the standardized German caught on among all Protestant areas of Germany, and eventually Catholic Germany and Austria followed suit a few centuries later. But even so, many high German dialects are not mutually intelligible with standard High German.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 33,874
Location: temperate zone

18 Oct 2017, 6:49 pm

Yes. We in America get amazed at how differently Texans talk from New Yorkers, and fret about "Ebonics". And we don't realize how deep dialects differ even within what is considered the same language within the same small in country in the Old World.

The English spoken by Englishmen fifty miles apart probably differs more than the English by Americans a thousand miles apart. Same or more so with the German in Germany, or Hausa in Nigeria, or whatever.

"Standard German" is a hybrid of southern dialects. But its not the same as Bavarian (southern province). And within Bavaria there are further dialect differences. I read where they printed a comic book in "the Bavarian dialect" and folks certain parts of Bavaria complained that it wasn't "the dialect of MY region of Bavaria!".

There are dialect differences within the Spanish spoken across the vast expanse of Latin America. But my guess is that there is probably more dialect differences within Castiano (the Spanish of Spain itself) then across the length of Latin America. In fact the Spanish of the New World actually stems from one dialect in one little valley in Spain, supposedly. One little region that many of Conquistadors happen to have come from. And that's just the Spanish of Spain. Spain has regions where they only speak Spanish outside the home because they have their own ethnic languages like: Catalan in the northeast (more like French than like Spanish), Gallecian in the northwest (a kind of an intermediate language between Spanish and Portugese), there are still pockets of Aragonese (the language of the old kingdom of Aragon that merged with Castile to form Spain in Columbus's time), and of course in the north are the Basques (whose tongue is not related to ANY other language on Earth).



JohnPowell
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2016
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,806
Location: Palestine

19 Oct 2017, 5:58 am

cyberdad wrote:
JohnPowell wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
JohnPowell wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
I'm confused, I thought OP liked Trump.At least it seemed that way from earlier posts.
Pretty sure I told you he was coming for your olive groves.


He likes the PLO and Hamas more...


Yeah sure, and you love Israel. A country that has attacked yours. A country that you give $10 million a day out of your taxes. Israel helped Hamas get where they are.

Israel attacked Australia?


Oh right, your government is very pro Israel. I guess they see the native population there the same as the Palestinians.

There is a strong Israel lobby here in Australia but the social justice parties and greens are pro-Paltestine


Israel tries to control every party. They were caught on tape doing it here.


_________________
"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"


cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,146

19 Oct 2017, 6:19 am

Kraichgauer wrote:
To be sure, there were colonists in England from all over the North Sea coast, including from both Friesland and Saxony. I suppose those Saxons who had come to live in Friesland may only have come to accept a new identity as Frisians after their invasion of Britain. Also, those Saxons remaining on the continent began migrating southwest ward filling in lands being left deserted by the Franks who were on the move into the Rhine country, France, and Belgium. And so, those Saxons remaining in Frisia may have eventually lost close contact with their Saxon kin, and perhaps came to regard themselves as something different.

The prevailing wisdom among "pundits" of English history is that there must have been a colony of Frisians livng in Roman occupied Britain in the south and west of the British isles. These people were Romanised and retained their language. When the romans left there is a well known story that two brothers from the area of Jutland (modern Denmark) called Hengist and Horsa came as mercanaries on the behest of a local Celtic chieftan to quell the Picts. Their Anglo-Saxon mercanaries joined the Frisians already living there to drive out the Picts and they turned their axes on their Roman-Celtic benefactors and took over England - Place names were Saxon but the people spoke Frisian which became old English...



cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,146

19 Oct 2017, 6:22 am

naturalplastic wrote:
In northern German it "etten" (sound familiar?).

I understand a number of Norse words also filtered into the English language as well



naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 33,874
Location: temperate zone

19 Oct 2017, 7:07 am

cyberdad wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
In northern German it "etten" (sound familiar?).

I understand a number of Norse words also filtered into the English language as well


I mentioned that above.

Even before the Norman Conguest English was already a hybrid language. A hybrid between two branches of the Germanic family- The west Germanic of the earlier invaders from the coast of north Germany/Netherlands (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians),and the North Germanic of the Viking invaders from scandanavia. That's why we have so many competing words for the same thing, and words that are kinda similar (because they came from related but different origins). In English you can "raise" a child (the Viking Norse word), or you can "rear" a child (the original Anglo Saxon word for the same thing). "Skirt" and "shirt" gradually drifted apart in meaning, but originally referred to the same kinda garmet (one was the AS word, and the other the Norse word).

Then later the Normans conquered England, and French was laid onto that mix.



Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,739
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

19 Oct 2017, 12:58 pm

cyberdad wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
To be sure, there were colonists in England from all over the North Sea coast, including from both Friesland and Saxony. I suppose those Saxons who had come to live in Friesland may only have come to accept a new identity as Frisians after their invasion of Britain. Also, those Saxons remaining on the continent began migrating southwest ward filling in lands being left deserted by the Franks who were on the move into the Rhine country, France, and Belgium. And so, those Saxons remaining in Frisia may have eventually lost close contact with their Saxon kin, and perhaps came to regard themselves as something different.

The prevailing wisdom among "pundits" of English history is that there must have been a colony of Frisians livng in Roman occupied Britain in the south and west of the British isles. These people were Romanised and retained their language. When the romans left there is a well known story that two brothers from the area of Jutland (modern Denmark) called Hengist and Horsa came as mercanaries on the behest of a local Celtic chieftan to quell the Picts. Their Anglo-Saxon mercanaries joined the Frisians already living there to drive out the Picts and they turned their axes on their Roman-Celtic benefactors and took over England - Place names were Saxon but the people spoke Frisian which became old English...


Yes, very possible.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,146

19 Oct 2017, 6:59 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
In northern German it "etten" (sound familiar?).

I understand a number of Norse words also filtered into the English language as well


I mentioned that above.

Even before the Norman Conguest English was already a hybrid language. A hybrid between two branches of the Germanic family- The west Germanic of the earlier invaders from the coast of north Germany/Netherlands (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians),and the North Germanic of the Viking invaders from scandanavia. That's why we have so many competing words for the same thing, and words that are kinda similar (because they came from related but different origins). In English you can "raise" a child (the Viking Norse word), or you can "rear" a child (the original Anglo Saxon word for the same thing). "Skirt" and "shirt" gradually drifted apart in meaning, but originally referred to the same kinda garmet (one was the AS word, and the other the Norse word).

Then later the Normans conquered England, and French was laid onto that mix.


Yes that makes sense in terms of the English vocabluary containing different words that mean exactly the same thing
The Norman overlords obviously didn't make as a big an impact on common words used by the Anglo-Saxon farmers
Old English Graes - Modern English - Grass
Old English Pickfork - Modern English - Pitch fork
Old English Aex - Modern English - Axe
Old English - drit Modern English - dirt
Old Englsih Haett - Modern English - hat
Old English Hors - Modern English Horse
Old English Feld - Modern English - Field
Old English til - Modern English -till (as in till the field)
Old English hweate Modern English - wheat
Old English Cuw - Modern English cow
Old English Milc Modern English milk
Old English Sithe - Modern English Sythe
Old English hus - Modern english - House
Old english Cicen - Modern english - Chicken

Heck I could do this all day! maybe we could use simple language with our Anglo-Saxon ancestors

It's interesting the Norman overlords forced farmers from their own plots into organised "farms" to serve their feudal masters and not surprisingly the word farm is French (ferme) which indicates it was imposed



naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 33,874
Location: temperate zone

20 Oct 2017, 4:40 am

Yes, the more earthy parts of the English language tend to be Anglosaxon (or sometimes Viking) in origin. And that includes the really earthy stuff. Profane four letter words for bodily functions tend to be of Germanic origin like the S word, and the F word.

But higher up stuff tends to be French including virtually all legal terms, and government terms, and words for high status occupatons.

Administration, jurisprudence, manager, liege, chivalry, chattel, property, etc. All French. Soldier is French.

Pretty much any word that ends with "tion", or with "ence", or "ier", is of French origin.

Another odd thing about English is that the words for domestic animals are all Germanic, but the words for the cooked meat we get from the animals are all French: cows-beef, sheep-mutton, chicken-poultry,swine- pork, deer-venison.

There is a modern movement of folks who wanna banish Latin-French influence from English and use only words of Germanic origin. Kind of silly thing to crusade about IMHO. Its a little late to try to undo the effects of the Norman Conquest of 1066. But this group did come up with one interesting notion: since they are all about vocabulary but cannot USE the word "vocabulary"(because its a Norman French word itself) they have to use a Germanic construction. So they created the term "wordstock". And actually "wordstock" is a pretty cool word iMHO. There is a even a young language expert guy on U Tube who does vlogs about languages of the world who uses the word wordstock instead of "vocabulary" like its the normal term.



Biscuitman
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Mar 2013
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,665
Location: Dunking jammy dodgers

20 Oct 2017, 4:57 am

naturalplastic wrote:
Another odd thing about English is that the words for domestic animals are all Germanic, but the words for the cooked meat we get from the animals are all French: cows-beef, sheep-mutton, chicken-poultry,swine- pork, deer-venison.


Comes from post 1066 life over who farmed the animals (english) and who only dealt with it when served up on a plate (french)