XPost: soc.culture.welsh, soc.culture.cornish, soc.culture.irish   
   XPost: soc.culture.scottish   
   From: innes8@verizon.net   
      
   "Robert Peffers."  wrote in message   
   news:H5SdnXpwFYW2k1vbRVnyhAA@bt.com...   
   >> I don't understand enough of your statement to contest it, especially the   
   >> 2 items of cultural sense of identity and language. May you be right!   
   >> Originally I was interested in what are called root~ or stem~ factors of   
   >> any 'language' - and to what degree that is blended with what we call   
   >> 'English', or Saxon speech.   
      
   > Which is the exact point I took issue with.   
   > Anglo Saxon had far less effect upon the Scots at the time they were   
   > influencing the south of Britain.   
      
   Sure.   
      
   > Add to that the fact that the Romans had also little effect upon the Scots   
   > and the language in the North was very different.   
   > In fact it was not until the printing press that the language of England   
   > started to standardise.   
      
   Later. But Chaucer and Gower were the wordsmiths of the C13th! No matter   
   they spelled the same word 3-ways on the same page. But you should   
   understand this very great differential, that what is written is of little   
   consequence to people who are illiterate. It is the mid-late C19th until we   
   receive any standard lexicon that is of general import. The women Austin and   
   Elliot were largely responsible for /popular/ diction, following perhaps Sir   
   Walter Scott. There was nary much before that could claim the same.   
      
      
   >> PS: talking of books, has anyone read Sea Room, by Nicholson, on the   
   >> Shiants?   
   ----   
      
   > A strange little episode was when I had an illness and, although my marks   
   > had not slipped, I was relegated to the second highest class for one term.   
   > There I was taught by one of the finest English Language teachers I have   
   > known.   
   > This Mr McGreivie and I would often lapse into our shared Scots dialect   
   > when not in the classroom.   
   > We were both the products of farming families and he was an officer in our   
   > school Cadet Corp where I was a senior NCO.   
   > Yet in class he was every bit as ready to Lochgelly me as any other   
   > teacher from the, then, Oxbridge dominated teaching profession.   
      
   Yes, in a Cornish Gramar school populated by 22 English teachers [that is,   
   sassenachs all] it seemed often the same. In non-language issues such as   
   art, was there some correspondance between teacher and student.   
      
   You know Shakespeare in his own Stratford school had the Bardic   
   oral-tradition Welshman Price as his tutor?   
      
   For myself, the best English speakers have been highlanders, who have   
   perfect enunciation without erstwhile regionality, and also Indian women   
   [!]who not only speak with particular clarity, but with broader diction than   
   most natives.   
      
   Cordially, Phil Innes   
      
   >   
   > Robert Peffers,   
   > Kelty,   
   > Fife,   
   > Scotland, (UK).   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)