Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Arts and Entertainment => Topic started by: Auntie Helen on 09 April, 2017, 06:19:04 am
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Since I've been in Germany I've become interested in the development of both the German and the English languages and how they have diverged but also stayed similar.
I'd love to find a book on this subject but I don't really know where to start. Does anyone have a recommendation? Or can anyone help with search terms?
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The field you're looking for is historical linguistics. A good brief intro to the development of English is probably Robert Burchfield's _The English Language_, which can be found for pennies online. Someone more expert will no doubt be able to recommend something more recent.
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I can't remember what books I used when studying this in the 1970s and they are probably considered dated now, but the podcast History of the English Podcast covers this in great detail (e.g. It's done more or less chronologically and episode 42 is about Beowulf). It starts with Indo-European, and I particularly liked the bits about the Germanic tribes and migrations, and their influences on language.
http://historyofenglishpodcast.com
dtv-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache is good for dipping into. Probably out of print now. I gave away my copy but missed it so got hold of a 2nd hand copy. I see there are copies on abebooks.de
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I'm interested in such things as well and also recommend the History of English Podcast.
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If it's still available then for the English language side I'd suggest "A History of the English Language", Baugh & Cable. MrsLurker has a copy from when she was a penniless student oavette studying that sort of thing, but it's an accessible and interesting read for non-specialists.
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David Crystal's The Stories of English (or anything else by him).
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David Crystal's The Stories of English (or anything else by him).
+1 to this
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A large part of my last degree was language history. I will have a look to see what I have lying around, but I wouldrecommend anything by Crystal. This film has a good rep
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/story-of-english/
and this popularisation was used as part of my course
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/adventure-of-english/
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If it's still available then for the English language side I'd suggest "A History of the English Language", Baugh & Cable. MrsLurker has a copy from when she was a penniless student oavette studying that sort of thing, but it's an accessible and interesting read for non-specialists.
I did history of the English language along with Old English and Old Norse for my degree and this was one of our key texts. It's remarkably accessible too.
Anything by David Crystal is good.
Also:
A History of The English Language - N F Blake
Old English and Its Closest Relatives - Robinson
The Linguistic History of English - Manfred Gorlach
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Thank you for these recommendations.
David Crystal's "The Story of English" is winging its way to me courtesy of German Amazon.
Where I live, the German dialect has the Zweite Lautverschiebung (??sp) which means when locals are speaking really fast they say "wat ist dat" rather than "was ist das", thus closer to English. I would love to read more about this kind of thing.
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I've got Burchfield stitting on my shelf here - someone gave me a Folio edition years ago so the copyright must have expired. I haven't looked at it much.
Something I was reflecting on this morning is the handy way English possessive pronouns indicate the gender of the possessor rather than the possessed, and how confoundedly bothersome it is to have to match the gender of an article to that of whatever it designates. English made a great leap forward when it discarded that idiotic concept.
"Wat ist dat" sounds familiar but I can't remember where it's from, sounds a bit Platt. I used to know a bloke from NE Germany who pronounced an initial G as a Y - "yuten Morgen". Trouble is when folk imitate the pronunciation of another region for effect, the way we might imitate a Zomerzet accent (or try to): if you aren't a native German-speaker it can get confusing.
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Many English dialects have elements of German grammar. Lancashire has 'Thee and Thou,' retains the correct plural form of child, in 'childer', and pronouns tend to mutate.
Well aw’ve just mended th’fire wi’ a cob;
Owd Swaddle has brought thi new shoon;
There’s some nice bacon-collops o’ th’ hob,
An’ a quart o’ ale-posset i’ th’ oon;
Aw’ve brought thi top-cwot, doesta know,
For th’ rain’s comin’ deawn very dree;
An’ th’ har-stone’s as white as new snow;
Come whoam to thi childer an’ me.
An’ th’ har-stone’s as white as new snow;
Come whoam to thi childer an’ me.
http://www.oldhamtinkers.com/come-whoam-to-thirsquo-childer-anrsquome.html
Pronunciation is very variable, we tend to swallow lots of consonants in our area, while only 20 miles away there is an island of rhoticity in Accrington. That found expression in the work of John Anderson of 'Yes' fame, as in 'OwneR of a Lonely HeaRt. That stressing of R later in a word is common to German, and many English dialects, most obviously in US country music, as it's a feature of Appalachia.
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"Wat ist dat" sounds familiar but I can't remember where it's from, sounds a bit Platt. I used to know a bloke from NE Germany who pronounced an initial G as a Y - "yuten Morgen". Trouble is when folk imitate the pronunciation of another region for effect, the way we might imitate a Zomerzet accent (or try to): if you aren't a native German-speaker it can get confusing.
I'm in the Niederrhein region right on the border with the Netherlands so the local dialect is a bit of a mixture of both languages. There is a definite dialect whereby if people speak it I cannot understand them, but most don't talk like this.
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My ride up the North Sea took me through Dutch, Fries, Saxon, Angish, Jutish, Swedish and Norwegian. The changes and interminbling were fascinating.
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I used to know a bloke from NE Germany who pronounced an initial G as a Y - "yuten Morgen".
Words/pronunciations for Gurke - includes a large area with a pronunciation transcribed as 'Jurke' around but not including Berlin
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2865/33710164970_d1f8e24dd7_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/TmRpAS)
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Distribution of das/dat and variants in dtv Atlas zur deutschen Sprache.
Note:
1. It's based on questionnaires completed by village schoolteachers between 1876 and 1939, which is why it includes part of present-day Poland and East Prussia,, and why such maps are probably out of date.
2. There's a vague arbitrary line between DE and NL.
3. BTW the das/dat frontier the maken/machen isogloss is known as the Benrather Linie because it passes through the village of Benrath.
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2936/34094576245_34db17c0c4_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/TWPBFt)
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If it's still available then for the English language side I'd suggest "A History of the English Language", Baugh & Cable. MrsLurker has a copy from when she was a penniless student oavette studying that sort of thing, but it's an accessible and interesting read for non-specialists.
Also:
A History of The English Language - N F Blake
My father studied under him at Sheffield and I think his love of the subject was infectious.
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David Crystal's The Stories of English (or anything else by him).
++2 to that (although I can read it only in short bursts or my head explodes).
His "Language Play" is also a very enjoyable, and accessible, read.
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This thread has prompted me to see if there was a copy of the 660-page The German Language by R E Keller on abebooks. It was a must-have when I was an undergraduate, mainly because the self-same Rudi Keller would be marking my dissertation and several of my final exam papers. Or it would have been a must-have but for the £25 price which was way beyond my means. It became a matter of getting up early to grab one of the 2 copies in the university library for the day. Anyway, last week I picked up a copy for 82p (+a couple of quid P+P). The remaining copies are £40 and more, the most expensive being £236.80 (+p+p from India). Probably not worth it at that price.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeC1yAaWG34