The origin of English

[John Cowan]

A certain number of historians of English have consistently
maintained that the English language originated, not in North
America, but in Great Britain. It need hardly be stated that all
the evidence is against such a hypothesis. In the first place, the
great majority of English speakers today live in North America. We
also know from historical records that English was not spoken in
the British Isles two thousand years ago. In fact, even today,
a few Celtic speakers remain in some of the more inaccessible
regions of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Not just historical
data, but linguistic fact, shows that the English-speaking
populations of the British Isles, South Africa, Australia,
and New Zealand are descendants of native non-English speaking
populations. Particularly noteworthy is the inability of these
populations to pronounce word-initial /h/ and post-vocalic /r/,
clear evidence of substratum interference which has now become
an irremovable part of the local dialects.
--Tim Pulju, "A Reconsideration of the Sino-Kiowan Problem"


--
John Cowan co...@ccil.org http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos --Lithuanian proverb
Deus dedit dentes; deus dabit panem --Latin version thereof
Deity donated dentition;
deity'll donate doughnuts --English version by Muke Tever
God gave gums; God'll give granary --Version by Mat McVeagh

[David Marjanovic]

> A certain number of historians of English have consistently
> maintained that the English language originated, not in North
> America, but in Great Britain. It need hardly be stated that all
> the evidence is against such a hypothesis.

I'm not sure what the point of this is. Is it intended as a parody of something? Or as a rather serious warning of how much we can miss when we lack knowledge of documented history, as historical linguists usually do? Because both ways, it fails. The dialect diversity of English in North America is a pathetic subset of that of the British Isles, where even dialects with intact /h/ and /r/ can be found in less accessible regions (next to the Celtic-speaking ones); and the other Germanic languages are clearly at home in Europe. Few if any historical linguists would be naive enough to miss these obvious clues. The joke is aimed at a strawman.

> --Tim Pulju, "A Reconsideration of the Sino-Kiowan Problem"

That title does sound interesting, though.

> Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos --Lithuanian proverb
> Deus dedit dentes; deus dabit panem --Latin version thereof
> Deity donated dentition;
> deity'll donate doughnuts --English version by Muke Tever
> God gave gums; God'll give granary --Version by Mat McVeagh

Mmmmm, donuts. <Homeric drool>

[John Cowan]

David Marjanovic scripsit:

> > --Tim Pulju, "A Reconsideration of the Sino-Kiowan Problem"
>
> That title does sound interesting, though.

I figured the obviously absurd title would be a giveaway
of the obviously absurd nature of the paragraph (actually a
footnote). The article was published in _Speculative Grammarian_,
which is _The Annals of Improbable Research_ for linguistics:
<http://specgram.com/CXLVIII.3/03.pulju.sinokiowan.html>. (Note also the
volume number, which reflects its founding by Petrus Hispanus in 1276,
though its predecessor journal _�slensk T�lvum�lv�sindi_ (Icelandic
Computational Linguistics) dates back to 881, when Ing�lfr Arnarson began
it to while away the otherwise-idle winter months in the new settlement.)

It is, however, something of a warning against constructing conclusions
from biased (in this case, deliberately biased) evidence, and so of
general applicability to the sciences.

--
John Cowan http://ccil.org/~cowan co...@ccil.org
The Penguin shall hunt and devour all that is crufty, gnarly and
bogacious; all code which wriggles like spaghetti, or is infested with
blighting creatures, or is bound by grave and perilous Licences shall it
capture. And in capturing shall it replicate, and in replicating shall
it document, and in documentation shall it bring freedom, serenity and
most cool froodiness to the earth and all who code therein. --Gospel of Tux