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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jan 2001
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 Vielen dank fuer die schon post, Jazz. I liked the questions you posted and I will send a copy of your post to my cousin along the Mosel River, to read what he has to say in answer to your questions. He loves history. Auf Wiedersehen bikermom enthusiast
enthusiast
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks, Max, for your immoral support!
The other thing that amuses me about Richard is the apparent lack of fuss made then about his being gay. It seems that 12 Century was a much more tolerant era than the 20th, or at least an era in which it was recognised that one's sexual proclivities have little or no relevance to one's competence as a political leader.
I rather think that a king in the thirteenth century, provided he brought home the bacon, could do damned well anything he liked. Certainly our Rich was more French than English. We tend to forget than until roughly Tudor times England was pretty much a small backwater hanging off Europe and regarded as more of a nuisance in Europe than anything else. The Hundred Years War was seen in France as a side show (unless you got in the way of it, of course), and that was over 100 years later than Richard. If you read French history instead of English, you begin to get the idea. France would have been much more congenial to a man of Richard's tastes since it was the centre of elegance and nascent chivalry which England very much was not.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Cheers, CapK - did I get the century wrong? My available resources tell me that he died in 1199, that's why I said, or meant to say, 12th Century? This is very clearly your bailiwick, so I defer with puppylike eagerness as I wait for my next morsel of instruction.
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
At the time the German language was spoken by a large amount of the population (Pennsylvania Dutch). When they were voting on a national language German was defeated by only one vote.
I'm no expert on American constitutional history but I have read that this is a myth, and that what they were voting on was to allow German to be used in official documents as well as English. Unfortunately I can't remember what my source for this was.
Bingley
Bingley
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I defer with puppylike eagerness as I wait for my next morsel of instruction.
Puppy, maybe, Rottweiler, definitely. You were right, Richard I did die in 1199 during a minor seige of a nothing French castle. I was thinking about brother John when I made the comment - drinking runny mead in 1215.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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addict
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addict
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444 |
The Williams tried that with Norman French from 1066 onwards.
Oh, they succeeded well enough for their purposes. The barons used Norman French and, perforce, anyone who wanted to communicate with them had to know it as well. Many English (as opposed to Norman-English) thegns were bilingual until about the time of King John when English began to overtake French even at Court. But it lingered on for many years, at least until the time of Henry V.
I was under a vague and uninformed impression that many of them spoke Latin to each other? I'm happy to be corrected.
My main point was that an order from the top is not enough to ensure a particular language survives (cf the Academie Francaise - or on second thoughts maybe we don't want to go there again. Perhaps we could try the Vatican, whose wise citizens I understand to have been credited with the coinage 'bombus atomicus'!)
BTW, I love the poem!
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
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If you forgive me to continue in the same speculative vein: If the aeroplane had been invented in 1800, possibly German would have become the "dominant world language". England had the advantage of being surrounded by water, and her ships were the main vehicle to spread her culture around the world. In the Physical Sciences, German had a very strong international position in the second half of the 19th/beginning of 20th century. As late as 1975, I taught a course of "Chemical German" to students at Imperial College in London. The course was scrapped the in the following year..
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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>As late as 1975, I taught a course of "Chemical German" to students at Imperial College in London. The course was scrapped the in the following year..
You must have taught my chemistry teacher! I was told by my chemistry teacher (in about 1977) that I would have to be prepared to study German if I was to have a hope of becoming a serious chemist. I was told that all the best scientific papers were often only available in German.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well up until about WWII-- the Germans constituted the largest sub group in US-- (this is only if you count Irish/ Welsh/Scots/English as "Great Brittan" and one group) Even if you don't they were 4th or so. (before civil war, and influx of Irish and Italians, they were second largest ethnic group)
But i think what Wsieber has to say it important too. The language of science (and technology) is currently English this was not always so-- for a long time it was latin, long past a time when latin was commonly spoken.(isaac newton wrote his papers in latin) But as the industrial revolution continued-- Germany became the leader in chemistry-- and all important "papers" and news was written in German. A Scots (memory fails on who?) discovered coal tar-- but the germans turned coal tar into aniline dyes-- and went on to lead the world in chemistry and physics for almost 100 years!
English has a hold now but with the spread of the internet-- it might not always be so.
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In reply to:
I was under a vague and uninformed impression that many of them spoke Latin to each other? I'm happy to be corrected.
Latin was spoken by the better-educated clergy, and most literate people would have known some, but I don't think they would have used it for everyday, non-religious, purposes.
Bingley
Bingley
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