-Caveat Lector-
Was the development of the English language the
result of a wide ranging
international conspiracy? The following reveals
the truth.
flw
A History of the English Language
- by Owen Alun and Brendan O'Corraidhe, with
slight editing by Philander
T. Bentley
In the beginning there was an island off the coast
of Europe. It had no
name, for the natives had no language, only a
collection of grunts and
gestures that roughly translated to "Hey!"
"Gimme!" and "Pardon me, but
would you happen to have any woad?"
Then the Romans invaded the island and called it
Britain, because the
natives were "blue, nasty, br(u-i)tish and short."
This was the start
of the importance of u (and its mispronounciation)
to the language.
After building some roads, killing off some of the
nasty little blue
people and walling up the rest, the Romans left,
taking the language
instruction manual with them.
The British were bored, so they invited the
barbarians to come over
(under Hengist) and "Horsa" 'round a bit. The
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes
brought slightly more refined vocal noises.
All of the vocal sounds of this primitive language
were onomatapoeic,
being derived from the sounds of battle.
Consonants were derived from
the sounds of weapons striking a foe. "Sss" and
"th" for example are the
sounds of a draw cut, "k" is the sound of a
solidly landed axe blow,
"b", "d", are the sounds of a head dropping onto
rock and sod
respectively, and "gl" is the sound of a body
splashing into a bog.
Vowels (which were either gargles in the back of
the throat or sharp exhalations)
were derived from the sounds the foe himself made
when struck.
The barbarians had so much fun they decided to
stay for post-revel.
The British, finding that they had lost future use
of the site, moved into
the hills to the west and called themselves Welsh.
The Irish, having heard about language from
Patrick, came over to
investigate. When they saw the shiny vowels, they
pried them loose and
took them home. They then raided Wales and stole
both cattle and vowels,
so the poor Welsh had to make do with sheep and
consonants. ("Old Ap
Ivor hadde a farm, L Y L Y W! And on that farm he
hadde somme gees.
With a dd dd here and a dd dd there...")
To prevent future raids, the Welsh started calling
themselves "Cymry"
and gave even longer names to their villages. They
figured if no one
could pronounce the name of their people or the
names of their towns,
then no one would visit them. (The success of the
tactic is demonstrated
still today. How many travel agents have YOU heard
suggest a visit to
scenic Llyddumlmunnyddthllywddu?)
Meantime, the Irish brought all the shiny new
vowels home to Erin. But
of course they didn't know that there was once an
instruction manual for
them, so they scattered the vowels throughout the
language purely as
ornaments. Most of the new vowels were not
pronounced, and
the pronunciation of those that were pronounced
differed, depended on
which consonant they were either preceding or
following.
The Danes came over and saw the pretty vowels
bedecking all the Irish
words. "Ooooh!" they said. They raided Ireland
and brought the vowels
back home with them. But the Vikings couldn't
keep track of all the
Irish rules so they simply pronounced all the
vowels "oouuoo."
In the meantime, the French had invaded Britain,
which was populated by
descendants of the Germanic Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes. After a
generation or two, the people were speaking German
with a French accent
and calling it English. Then the Danes invaded
again, crying "Oouuoo!
Oouuoo!" burning abbeys, and trading with the
townspeople.
The Britons that the Romans hadn't killed
intermarried with visiting
Irish and became Scots. Against the advice of
their travel agents, they
decided to visit Wales. (The Scots couldn't read
the signposts that
said, "This way to Lyddyllwwyddymmllwylldd," but
they could smell sheep
a league away.) The Scots took the sheep home
with them and made some
of them into haggis. What they made with the
others we won't say, but
Scots are known to this day for having hairy legs.
The former Welsh, being totally bereft, moved down
out of the hills and
into London. Because they were the only people in
the Islands who
played flutes instead of bagpipes, they were
called Tooters. This made
them very popular. In short order, Henry Tooter
got elected King and
began popularizing ornate, unflattering clothing.
Soon, everybody was wearing ornate, unflattering
clothing, playing the
flute, speaking German with a French accent,
pronouncing all their
vowels "oouuoo" (which was fairly easy, given the
French accent), and
making lots of money in the wool trade. Because
they were rich, people
smiled more (remember, at this time, "Beowulf" and
"Canterbury Tales"
were the only tabloids, and gave generally
favorable reviews even to
Danes). And since it is next to impossible to
keep your vowels in the
back of your throat (even if you do speak German
with a French accent)
while smiling and saying "oouuoo" (try it, you'll
see what I mean), the
Great Vowel Shift came about and transformed the
English language.
The very richest had their vowels shifted right
out in front of their
teeth. They settled in Manchester and later in
Boston.
There were a few poor souls who, cut off from the
economic prosperity of
the wool trade, continued to swallow their vowels.
They wandered the
countryside in misery and despair until they came
to the docks of
London, where their dialect devolved into the
incomprehensible language
known as Cockney. Later, it was taken overseas
and further brutalized
by merging it with Dutch and Italian to create
Brooklynese.
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