Recent comments in /f/history

buteo51 t1_irat296 wrote

Reply to Where did the English language REALLY come from? by MagicRaptor

I am not familiar with Pryor's work, and while I know a bit about Oosthuizen's, I haven't read The Emergence of the English (her main book on the subject). The idea that there was no population movement from mainland Europe in late antiquity, or at least that such migration was not the main force behind the creation of Old English, is a small minority view. Calling the scholars who argue for it crackpots or cranks is going too far though.

When pressed on the question in interviews, Oosthuizen usually says something like 'I would be surprised if there was no migration,' so she doesn't even really subscribe to the idea that there was no population movement at all. What these scholars are usually trying to do is point out that there are a lot of flawed assumptions underlying the traditional understanding of Britain in late antiquity. I don't think the alternate theories they propose are likely correct, but they are technically also possible.

Many of the points they emphasize while making their arguments are also very good to keep in mind when studying the past in general.

  • DNA is not identity
    • Just because we identify 60% or whatever of a skeleton's DNA as 'Germanic,' does not mean that that person identified with a Germanic ethnicity in life or spoke a Germanic language. Culture is not biological, and the idea that it is has a lot of really nasty implications in European history.
  • Artifacts are not people
    • Just because an artifact that we identify as 'Germanic' is found somewhere does not mean that a person who identified with a Germanic ethnicity or spoke a Germanic language left it there. This can really be boiled down to 'trade and cultural exchange exist.' Invasion and migration are not the only explanations for a style of artifact showing up in a new area.
  • Historical documents are not necessarily reliable
    • The idea of barbarian invasions remaking post-Roman Britain comes entirely from On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, a text written by a British monk named Gildas in the 5th or 6th century. The problem with this is that Ruin and Conquest was never meant to be a history of post-Roman Britain. Most of it is actually a summary of biblical events. Gildas then draws parallels between this biblical material and claims about his contemporaries to make an argument that British society is sinful and bound to incur God's wrath. Ruin and Conquest is a sermon, not a history. It is written with a polemic agenda and can't be relied on as a source of historical fact. For all we know, Gildas could have been the Alex Jones of his day.

I've typed a stupid amount and still not answered your question: "where did the English language really come from?" The only honest answer is that nobody can say for certain. Anybody who tells you they can is kidding themselves. There is just too little good evidence. It was probably a much lengthier and more complex process than we will ever truly understand.

Now as I understand it, Oosthuizen's theory is that an ancestor to Old English was already spoken along the North Sea coast of Britain before the end of Roman rule. It could have been brought by earlier migrations and/or or introduced to Britain as a trade language by merchants traveling across the North Sea. As Roman influence receded, exchange across the English Channel and ultimately to the Mediterranean became less important to British society. To fill the void, trade across the North Sea became more important, and thus so did this pre-existing Germanic trade language along the North Sea coast. It became the lingua franca of a new economy and society integrated with the North Sea zone instead of the Mediterranean, and so over time whatever variants of Brythonic and Latin remained in what would become England were disfavored and eventually died out. In her view, this theory both explains the spread of Old English language and culture as well as the absence of archaeological evidence for some catastrophic destruction and replacement of Romano-British society.

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cuicocha t1_irao0iw wrote

Reply to comment by Uptown_NOLA in Where did the English language REALLY come from? by MagicRaptor

Another well-read American here. This is the first I ever heard of Anglo-Saxon being a racist buzzword (as described here). Not denying that it exists, just that the racist buzzword use is not how I'm used to hearing it used. The racist use seems illogical to me because the term excludes Germanic or Nordic heritage, which modern racists usually are fine with.

I've heard Anglo-Saxon used in a few senses in American writing, none of which make any sense or actually pertain to Anglo-Saxon ethnicity (i.e., not Norman, Norse, or Celtic):

  • In global politics, "Anglo-Saxon world" basically meaning the close ties between US, UK, Australia, NZ, and Canada
  • Especially in the northeastern US, describing white families with British colonial roots, as opposed to heritage in post-independence immigrants (as in White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, "WASP"), usually with the implication of upper class, "respectability", education, and a certain uptightness or reserve
  • In the southwestern US, "Anglo" meaning English-speaking Americans with roots elsewhere in the US, as opposed to the hispanic and indigenous people who were already there before the Mexican-American war (not common anymore in my experience).
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MagicRaptor OP t1_iram4l9 wrote

Reply to comment by AethelweardSaxon in Where did the English language REALLY come from? by MagicRaptor

If all those local Celts were displaced or killed, surely that would pop up in the archaeological record, right? One would expect there to be abandoned settlements and mass graves in England, while new settlements and communities start appearing in Wales and Scotland at around the same time. But we just don't see any of that. Something must be missing. No matter which version of the story you go with, it just doesn't add up.

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Lazerhorze t1_iraj2av wrote

Reply to Where did the English language REALLY come from? by MagicRaptor

That the Anglo-Saxons came to britain and established themselves as the dominant people on the island is undeniable due to the see of genetic, archeological and linguistic evidence as others pointed it out already.

However, the mixup happens when people assume that there was an invasion involving military conflict. Iirc, the originator of the myth was Bede, who had his own reasons to try and invent a narrative where his own people are seen as conquerors. There wasn't an invasion, there is zero evidence for it. Instead, all the other evidence (genetic, archeological, linguistic) points toward the fact that it must have been a gradual, long-lasting migration on a massive scale, where the Anglo-Saxons simply outnumbered the indigenous Brythonic people slowly, them having to assimilate to the germanic migrants gradually, for their culture and language garnered a higher status than their own. There is debate as to why that stratification developed, but I would say that the sheer numbers were a key factor, and the Anglo-Saxons might have had more aggressive socio-economical practices.

I might have left some thing out, but that's pretty much what I was taught at the university at a historical linguistics class.

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AethelweardSaxon t1_irafboi wrote

Reply to comment by downnoutsavant in Where did the English language REALLY come from? by MagicRaptor

But for all modern English people to have from 50-100% Anglo Saxon DNA (generalisation), it suggests that much of the local Celts were either displaced or straight up killed. Unless there were 4x more invaders than locals which seems very unlikely.

We're forgetting that the DNA is just one part of the larger evidence for a replacement. All the contemporary sources and those written relatively soon after talk about invasion as opposed to colonists intermingling. We all know how unreliable those dark age sources are but for them all to agree is something.

The linguistic argument posed by many modern academics who favour the small elite theory has always fallen flat with me. You would expect pretty heavy, or even just any, Celtic influence and that the change would take place over a longer period too in my mind.

We also have a near perfect case study with England with the Norman conquest which was a small elite takeover, and of course we don't speak Normano-French now nor did we ever, day to day words used in conversation are still 70-80% Germanic derived.

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mcmanus2099 t1_iracprk wrote

Reply to comment by MagicRaptor in Where did the English language REALLY come from? by MagicRaptor

Whilst you are right that initially Britania continued as under the Romans it did not remain that way up until the formation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. We know large provincial authorities fracture at some point. It is unusual for this to happen peacefully & having independent regions the size of towns almost always leads to struggles with raids, local resource conflicts etc.

We know the wall stops becoming defense & Celtic raids become more frequent with places like Vindolanda - which carried on as a civilian bathhouse after the troops left, was abandoned. We also can see the coin deposits found that were buried & never returned to.

Whilst it's true large towns & cities, the best places for finding evidence of violence in archeological record would have been largely insulated from this. It doesn't mean the countryside, where wooden buildings leave little record isn't being impacted.

So yes, Britain carries on as before when the military forces leave & do not return but we see a slow gradual decline of authority to local struggles towards the end of the next century.

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