Kilt Wearers Unite!!

[Ben Gash]

Jhowland, top marks for social history, collossal fail for geography. The English Channel is the stretch of water between England and France/Belgium. To get to Germany or the Netherlands you have to cross the North Sea, hence across the channel only referring to France and Belgium.

[jdhowland]

Jhowland, top marks for social history, collossal fail for geography. The English Channel is the stretch of water between England and France/Belgium. To get to Germany or the Netherlands you have to cross the North Sea, hence across the channel only referring to France and Belgium.

Oh, Yeah. The Doggerbank, and all that. Thanks.

And those northern folks have bagpipes, too.

jd

[Ben Gash]

Anglo is, quite literally, "English Speaking People." They didn't invade Britton; they were already there.

Care to elaborate a little on that? While there were small germanic communities in eastern Britain for some time, these were numerically insignificant compared to the mass migrations of the 5th and 6th centuries.

[jdhowland]

Care to elaborate a little on that? While there were small germanic communities in eastern Britain for some time, these were numerically insignificant compared to the mass migrations of the 5th and 6th centuries.

I'll poke my nose in until the Marauder shows up (can there be such a thing as a Maraudeuse?).

This is still debated. A lot. Some of the impulse behind the early germanic settlement idea is the fact that almost no celtic words entered the English language from the "invasion" period. There is no evidence for wars of extermination against the latinised Britons. The "Saxon" settlers were farmers, not viking raiders. The "litus Saxonicum" was a Roman defensive strategy against piracy, but may have regulated North Sea commerce, rather than inhibited it. Those people may have been there long before the Romans. Or even celtic tribes.

The last guesstimate I heard was that celtic- and brithonic-speaking peoples arrived in Briton between c. 500 to 300 BCE. No one knows what langages were spoken there before that. The "celtic invasion" seems to have involved a spread of a new dominant "prestige language" and other cultural trends and not a massive repopulation of the islands. Some 19th century Indo-Europeanists thought that some of the celtic chieftans had germanic names.

A friend who moved to Ireland to seek his masters degree in Irish Gaelic told me of DNA research (mitochondrial?) that indicates the Irish and Scots have closest affinities to North Sea germans, beyond what could be expected from having been Norse colonies. And, of course, no one knows what languages the Picts spoke before the "Scotti" arrived.

Spoken language gives no clue to genetic background but it is probably the single greatest factor in cultural identity. The ancestors of the Wealas and the Sahsen probably had no problems intermingling on the european mainland, either. Those other guys talk kinda funny, but they're not really different.

jd

[Becca]

Care to elaborate a little on that? While there were small germanic communities in eastern Britain for some time, these were numerically insignificant compared to the mass migrations of the 5th and 6th centuries.

Sure. The term for a person who is of Angle descent isn't "Anglo." It's Anglii. Anglo-Saxon is the term for Saxons who integrated with the native brittons and started speaking thier language. The resulting language was what we now call old english. So....... anglo in this reference means english speaking people.

[Becca]

The last guesstimate I heard was that celtic- and brithonic-speaking peoples arrived in Briton between c. 500 to 300 BCE. No one knows what langages were spoken there before that.... jd

Though it is believed that brithonic grew from q-celtic and galic grew from p-celtic. Q-celtic is the same language that gave us German, French, and the Scandinavian languages. P-celtic was the base for most of the Mediterranean languages. the Irish originally came from the med via Spain. Stands to reason that the Britons came from Germany vial Gaul (France.) But you are correct that we just don't know for certain.

I hadn't heard about the new DNA research project. I'll definantly have to look into it. Thanks for the tip!

Those other guys talk kinda funny, but they're not really different.

jd

And this, I am steeling for a sig quote.

[Ben Gash]

Sure. The term for a person who is of Angle descent isn't "Anglo." It's Anglii. Anglo-Saxon is the term for Saxons who integrated with the native brittons and started speaking thier language. The resulting language was what we now call old english. So....... anglo in this reference means english speaking people.

But English means "of the Angles"
And pre-saxon Britons spoke Latin

[Ben Gash]

The term for a person who is of Angle descent isn't "Anglo." It's Anglii

A little confused here, Anglii is a pleural noun, and Anglo is an adjective. In Latin Anglius would be the term for a person who is of Angle descent (I make no pretense to know much about languages, that's just how I understand it).

[Becca]

But English means "of the Angles"
And pre-saxon Britons spoke Latin

LOL! Only the scholars, clergy, and lawyers spoke latin. And English is either "people from England" or the formal language that originated there. England did originate from the Old English name Englaland. Englaland does mean "land of the Engles" or Angles. But- Anglo and Angle are not the same thing, though they are close enough that most people think they came from the same origin.

It's splitting hairs to most people, I know. But think of it this way. Americans are "the people of the United States of America" and Canadians are 'the people of Canada". But we speak English.

England was named after the language spoken in much of Briton, not the other way around. All three germanic tribes spoke what they called Anglisc, wich was a blend of thier native tougues and brithonic. So if everyone spoke it, it wasn't strickly "of the Angles" was it?

We can blame the word "anglo" on one of the popes, Gregory, I think. He changed the plural of Anglii to simply Angli and decreed that the language of Britania was Anglo and the germanic tribes who spoke it were Anglo-Saxon.

[Becca]

A little confused here, Anglii is a pleural noun, and Anglo is an adjective. In Latin Anglius would be the term for a person who is of Angle descent (I make no pretense to know much about languages, that's just how I understand it).

Yes, anglo is the adjective of anlius. Anglii is the plural noun of it. the problem came with trying to latinize the tribe's name that way. The Romans really didn't have thier facts strait about much of anything. And the Church tended to rewrite history to fit thier agenda.


Enough for today, though. I gots a stack of work to do, even if debating latin and old english is much more enjoyable. Later!

[Ben Gash]

OK then Becca, the missing link here, which is why I'm not following you, is what are you saying is the origin of the word English? Especially if England means land of the Angles??? My head is hurting
Anyway, to address another point, while in England (as in the country that formed from the rise of the Saxon kingdoms) only scholars, clerics and lawyers spoke latin, pre saxon Britain was well integrated into the Roman Empire and most people thought of themselves as Roman. The bulk of city dwellers would have spoken Latin, not sure about the rural populations though. Latin had been the trade language in Britain for many years before the Roman conquest (which may or may not have been a conquest), as the idea of a unified Celtic identity in pre-roman Britain is not true. (again, the whole idea of a Celtic identity is a Roman construct).

[Becca]

OK then Becca, the missing link here, which is why I'm not following you, is what are you saying is the origin of the word English? Especially if England means land of the Angles??? My head is hurting
Anyway, to address another point, while in England (as in the country that formed from the rise of the Saxon kingdoms) only scholars, clerics and lawyers spoke latin, pre saxon Britain was well integrated into the Roman Empire and most people thought of themselves as Roman. The bulk of city dwellers would have spoken Latin, not sure about the rural populations though. Latin had been the trade language in Britain for many years before the Roman conquest (which may or may not have been a conquest), as the idea of a unified Celtic identity in pre-roman Britain is not true. (again, the whole idea of a Celtic identity is a Roman construct).

The bulk of the city dwellers spoke the comon vernacular, which was not latin anyware but in what we now all Italy. After the fall of the Roman Empire, all of the "official business" was conducted in latin because that is what the Church used and there for what the scribes, who were usually either monks or monestary trained, wrote in. This was important because most people were illiterate, even the nobles, by the Dark Ages. This was the case in all of the lands Rome conqured.

The word "english" and the word "anglo" mean different things, though they are very similar. English Used to mean "of the Engles" only but became the name of our language as well as a nationality. Anglo used to be only the language we now know as English, but now means "white peoples." The English language is chalk full of interesting shifts in meaning. Bastid didn't used to be a bad word, for example.


My favorite, though, is similar and simular. They the same word with the same root and both are correct spellings. One is accepted over the other. Oddly, though, if you are from the American midwest, you probably spell it "similar" and say it "simular."

edit: latin was a trade language, but not the common vernacular. Most of the merchant class could speak, read, and write it, but didn't use it at home.

[Ben Gash]

So what are you saying is the origin of the word Anglo? As old English is clearly a germanic language and shares little with old Welsh, I'm somewhat confused. You are saying that the root word is not Anglii, Angulus, Angeln or Ingaevones, then what is it? Indeed, 400 years before the migration the romans were grouping the saxons, jutes and friesians together as Ingaevones, so why wouldn't people subsequently group them as angles?
(I must say, I'm learning a lot today )

[BoulderDawg]

Going back to the original topic:

Why wear a kilt? I think us men should be secure enough to say "I look dam good in a dress and I'm not ashamed to wear one!"

[Becca]

So what are you saying is the origin of the word Anglo? As old English is clearly a germanic language and shares little with old Welsh, I'm somewhat confused. You are saying that the root word is not Anglii, Angulus, Angeln or Ingaevones, then what is it? Indeed, 400 years before the migration the romans were grouping the saxons, jutes and friesians together as Ingaevones, so why wouldn't people subsequently group them as angles?
(I must say, I'm learning a lot today )

I've came right out and said the origin of the word anglo several times, including the name of the guy who coined it. Try reading my words as I wrote them, not as how best they will fit in with your understanding of it.

Anglo is Latin, but it was in reference to the language of the land, not in reference to one of the germanic tribes. The language was a combination of brithonic and german. They called that language anglisc. We call it old english. A pope called it Anglo, which is where the latin came in.