Isn’t it fascinating how there seems to be an inverse relationship between level of education and fluidity of language? When the literate and educated put rules to language, they restrict it. Think about it; how much has the structure and lexicon of the English language changed, officially, since the renaissance? Shakespeare gave us a thousand some-odd words to fuck around with, and since then it has moved at an alarmingly slow rate. But before then? Man that shit was zoomin’!
Have you ever read an Old English text? I don’t mean Old English like Chaucer (though, truth be told, Chaucer is pretty fun)… I mean Old English like the Venerable fuckin’ Bede. Let’s look at one of my favorite passages in Anglo-Saxon. (By the way, I’m going to use the terms “Anglo-Saxon” and “Old English” synonymously. That’s how my high school Brit-Lit teacher taught me to define them, and I’m sticking to it.)
Ic to soþe wat / I know it truly,
þæt biþ in eorle / that it is in men
indryhten þeaw, / a noble custom,
þæt he his ferðlocan / that one should keep secure
fæste binde, / his spirit-chest (mind),
healde his hordcofan, / guard his treasure-chamber (thoughts),
hycge swa he wille. / think as he wishes.
This is a little scrap of The Wanderer, which if I remember correctly was written down by the Venerable Bede himself. It’s called Old English, but in truth it’s closer to German than it is to English. Let’s break it down: (feel free to skip over this part if you’re already bored – it won’t help)
How many cognates do this passage in Old English and Modern English share?
Ic=I; that’s pretty close.
þæt=that; again, pretty close. The funky letter at the beginning of the Old English word is roughly equal to a “th”.
he=one, his=his; we don’t say “he” where they did, but it still holds the same basic meaning. His is actually the same, and in fact is the first true cognate we’ve run into so far.
fæste=secure; well, we might say “fast” in place of “secure”, so we’ll count this one.
Start reading again here if you followed my advice and skipped the last part
I’ve just realized that it looks like I’m writing out a lecture, which wasn’t my intention. I’m going to go back and edit the text before I started this little tirade to give the reader permission to skip a few paragraphs if he gets bored. Done!
So I looked it up, and it turns out that Bede guy lived around 1300 years ago. That means about 900 years before the start of the Renaissance, and it’s been about 400 years since. Please forgive my obscenely rounded dates; I can’t remember dates for shit. This is mostly just guesswork, and I acknowledge my ignorance (in the hope that you won’t feel inclined to point it out).
In 900 years, English morphed from this crazy, beautiful, bouncy German-Norse-Celtic mish-mash into what Shakespeare used. Granted, there was the small matter of the Norman invasion and the introduction of Latin to the mix. But still; a ridiculous quantity of change happened in that 900 years, and almost none has occurred in the past 400. None, that is, if you only look at the most famous texts from well-educated authors.
Now, look at a few different English dialects today. I have heard a lot of different people with a lot of different education levels from a few different geographical locations speak, and the differences can be astounding. For example, urban lower class West Coast Americans seem to enjoy adding the phrase “you know what I’m saying?” to the end of every statement they make. Some of them say it so quickly that it almost becomes a single word; “Y’nommsayne?”
If we analyze the “Y’nommsayne” phenomenon from an educated perspective, and break it down into individual words, it doesn’t mean much. But if we write it phonetically, and think of it as a new word which is a request for affirmation, it’s positively fascinating. A brand-new word, only come to existence in the past few decades! And certain individuals use it in more sentences than they leave it out of! God, it just tickles me pink.
If you don’t think this is a kick, just try going around and including “Y’nommsayne” in every sentence you say for a few hours. It feels weird, y’nommsayne? But at the same time, it feels somehow comforting, y’nommsayne? Like certain people might relate to me better, y’nommsayne?
I certainly hope that this wee rant of mine hasn’t come off as too judgmental; when I was first surrounded by people who used “you know what I’m sayin’” excessively, it pissed me off. But once I thought about it for a bit, I realized that there’s nothing wrong with using the style of language with which you were brought up, and that I have no right to judge others for it. I certainly have a number of mannerisms in my lexicon which others might find strange.
“But Brandon,” you might be thinking, “’Y'nommsayne’ is just one word, and it isn’t even really a new phenomenon! You really expect me to take it as an example of language in a fluid state?” You’re right; I shouldn’t use “y’nommsayne” as my sole point behind the thesis of linguistic fluidity in populations of undereducated individuals.
I apologize for the term “undereducated”; I don’t mean to imply that a person who was brought up to speak differently than myself is “undereducated” [despite the fact that I flat-out said it], I only mean to suggest that such people have not been educated as extensively on the so-called “proper” use of the English language as I have.
Anyway, there are a lot more examples of linguistic fluidity even just in the aforementioned West Coast US urban culture. Take the “N” word. There are people, of all ethnicities (side note – my spell check wanted to make that “eccentricities”. Interesting), who use it in place of “I”, “you”, or “one”.
In his song “Smoke Dope and Rap”, rapper Andre Nickatina describes his daily activities as follows: “slang these thangs, and fuck these hoes, one line at a time goes up a (the “N” word)’s nose.” He is far from the only person to speak in such a manner. A (the “N” word) is often used to mean “a person” or “myself”. Just as the Anglo-Saxons said “he” instead of “one”, as in the text from The Wanderer, so certain urban cultures use what is arguably the most offensive word in the English language.
While “High English” (as I will call the version of the language taught in schools) has remained virtually stagnant for hundreds of years, masses of people choose to speak a version of the language which makes drastic changes each decade. While this phenomenon initially irked me, I currently hold great respect for people who alter their lexicon and grammar as they see fit.
Have you ever read an Old English text? I don’t mean Old English like Chaucer (though, truth be told, Chaucer is pretty fun)… I mean Old English like the Venerable fuckin’ Bede. Let’s look at one of my favorite passages in Anglo-Saxon. (By the way, I’m going to use the terms “Anglo-Saxon” and “Old English” synonymously. That’s how my high school Brit-Lit teacher taught me to define them, and I’m sticking to it.)
Ic to soþe wat / I know it truly,
þæt biþ in eorle / that it is in men
indryhten þeaw, / a noble custom,
þæt he his ferðlocan / that one should keep secure
fæste binde, / his spirit-chest (mind),
healde his hordcofan, / guard his treasure-chamber (thoughts),
hycge swa he wille. / think as he wishes.
This is a little scrap of The Wanderer, which if I remember correctly was written down by the Venerable Bede himself. It’s called Old English, but in truth it’s closer to German than it is to English. Let’s break it down: (feel free to skip over this part if you’re already bored – it won’t help)
How many cognates do this passage in Old English and Modern English share?
Ic=I; that’s pretty close.
þæt=that; again, pretty close. The funky letter at the beginning of the Old English word is roughly equal to a “th”.
he=one, his=his; we don’t say “he” where they did, but it still holds the same basic meaning. His is actually the same, and in fact is the first true cognate we’ve run into so far.
fæste=secure; well, we might say “fast” in place of “secure”, so we’ll count this one.
Start reading again here if you followed my advice and skipped the last part
I’ve just realized that it looks like I’m writing out a lecture, which wasn’t my intention. I’m going to go back and edit the text before I started this little tirade to give the reader permission to skip a few paragraphs if he gets bored. Done!
So I looked it up, and it turns out that Bede guy lived around 1300 years ago. That means about 900 years before the start of the Renaissance, and it’s been about 400 years since. Please forgive my obscenely rounded dates; I can’t remember dates for shit. This is mostly just guesswork, and I acknowledge my ignorance (in the hope that you won’t feel inclined to point it out).
In 900 years, English morphed from this crazy, beautiful, bouncy German-Norse-Celtic mish-mash into what Shakespeare used. Granted, there was the small matter of the Norman invasion and the introduction of Latin to the mix. But still; a ridiculous quantity of change happened in that 900 years, and almost none has occurred in the past 400. None, that is, if you only look at the most famous texts from well-educated authors.
Now, look at a few different English dialects today. I have heard a lot of different people with a lot of different education levels from a few different geographical locations speak, and the differences can be astounding. For example, urban lower class West Coast Americans seem to enjoy adding the phrase “you know what I’m saying?” to the end of every statement they make. Some of them say it so quickly that it almost becomes a single word; “Y’nommsayne?”
If we analyze the “Y’nommsayne” phenomenon from an educated perspective, and break it down into individual words, it doesn’t mean much. But if we write it phonetically, and think of it as a new word which is a request for affirmation, it’s positively fascinating. A brand-new word, only come to existence in the past few decades! And certain individuals use it in more sentences than they leave it out of! God, it just tickles me pink.
If you don’t think this is a kick, just try going around and including “Y’nommsayne” in every sentence you say for a few hours. It feels weird, y’nommsayne? But at the same time, it feels somehow comforting, y’nommsayne? Like certain people might relate to me better, y’nommsayne?
I certainly hope that this wee rant of mine hasn’t come off as too judgmental; when I was first surrounded by people who used “you know what I’m sayin’” excessively, it pissed me off. But once I thought about it for a bit, I realized that there’s nothing wrong with using the style of language with which you were brought up, and that I have no right to judge others for it. I certainly have a number of mannerisms in my lexicon which others might find strange.
“But Brandon,” you might be thinking, “’Y'nommsayne’ is just one word, and it isn’t even really a new phenomenon! You really expect me to take it as an example of language in a fluid state?” You’re right; I shouldn’t use “y’nommsayne” as my sole point behind the thesis of linguistic fluidity in populations of undereducated individuals.
I apologize for the term “undereducated”; I don’t mean to imply that a person who was brought up to speak differently than myself is “undereducated” [despite the fact that I flat-out said it], I only mean to suggest that such people have not been educated as extensively on the so-called “proper” use of the English language as I have.
Anyway, there are a lot more examples of linguistic fluidity even just in the aforementioned West Coast US urban culture. Take the “N” word. There are people, of all ethnicities (side note – my spell check wanted to make that “eccentricities”. Interesting), who use it in place of “I”, “you”, or “one”.
In his song “Smoke Dope and Rap”, rapper Andre Nickatina describes his daily activities as follows: “slang these thangs, and fuck these hoes, one line at a time goes up a (the “N” word)’s nose.” He is far from the only person to speak in such a manner. A (the “N” word) is often used to mean “a person” or “myself”. Just as the Anglo-Saxons said “he” instead of “one”, as in the text from The Wanderer, so certain urban cultures use what is arguably the most offensive word in the English language.
While “High English” (as I will call the version of the language taught in schools) has remained virtually stagnant for hundreds of years, masses of people choose to speak a version of the language which makes drastic changes each decade. While this phenomenon initially irked me, I currently hold great respect for people who alter their lexicon and grammar as they see fit.
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