The B0y came home from school day before yesterday talking about Middle English. Well, that was just like a red cape to a bull around here. I took a Middle English translation class in graduate school and have been simply pining for a place to put all that esoteric knowledge. Little did The Boy know what he was unleashing when he innocently spoke of having to write a short passage using certain Middle English words!
Imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to be my child. You go to school. You get an assignment you find mildly interesting. On the way home you mention it in passing, on the way the really vital discussion of whether or not McDonald’s is in the family’s immediate future.
And suddenly you find yourself buried under an avalanche of information about how one dates and geographically places Middle English texts, a spirited re-telling of “Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight,” (complete with “voices”), an analysis of how natural barriers like rivers and mountains factor into dialect formation, and a brief detour into natural barriers’ role in national boundary formation, complete with cautionary examples of countries who try to exist without them (Poland, something of keen personal interest, since while the family is ethnically German, we come from north central Poland).
And all this because you innocently mentioned that you were talking about Middle English in school. It must be hard.
Of course, it’s no picnic being the mother in this scenario, either. The Boy expressed mild interest in the fact that it’s possible to place Middle English texts, given a decent sample, and I wanted to show him the maps I got in graduate school, graphing out which variants were used in which parts of England. And of course I can’t find the damned book. I’ve looked all over. No joy, as they say on the detective show I’m currently watching on Netflix.
I’ve looked online, and can’t find them there, so this tells me that this particular bit of information is really, really esoteric. So I’m back to relying on my own resources. I’ve vowed that I’ll find that book if I have to clean the whole house to do it. Well…maybe not that…that’s a bit extreme. But I’ll at least look in the bedroom again. And on the shelves in The Boy’s room, where my overflow books live.
But let’s leave that for the moment. Our conversation (read “my monolog”) on the subject of how dialects grow and change based on boundaries has gotten me thinking about how our language reflects our history, and never so strongly as when we are forced to accept things we don’t like. Old English became the language of England in the wake of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Norman French took over with William the Conquerer. Middle English fought its way back to prominence, only to find itself exposed to new ideas, expressed in new languages, from the Middle East.
The Puritans came to America, and their language immediately began taking on a freight of Native American words, and then, as they encountered settlers from other European countries, words from their languages as well. The influx of immigrants and refugees from Southeast Asia, Mexico, and South America have added words to our language.
Someday, linguists will take out their charts and attempt to place one of our written documents geographically and chronologically. And they’ll be able to do it. Our language carries our history in its bones. No matter what some may say about who the “real Americans” are, and what the “real American language” is, our language tells the truth of us–we are a nation that has grown on the shoulders of ancestors from all over the world. We have been a global society since our very beginnings. To say that any one ethnic group or language defines us is to deny all of the forces that have shaped us for thousands of years.
I’m not quite sure where I was going with this. Maybe it’s just to say that our language reflects not who we wish we were, but who we are. It holds our reality. And keeping it vital and strong means allowing it to grow and evolve to reflect our changing selves.
So what does that mean today? Maybe it means that instead of rigidly insisting that English and only English be spoken, we adapt to the reality that there are millions of people here, now, whose language holds a different history. And maybe we become bilingual? Or trilingual? At the very least, I think it means understanding that, like it or not, our language is changing, and will continue to do so, if it is not to become as dead as Latin.
Speak! Good Dog! 
Very interesting perspective, Bodie, and food for thought. I have been among those US citizens who have staunchly supported our having one language, American English, and requiring that immigrants learn it, rather than we have to learn their language. All my grandparents, my father, and my husband had to learn American English as their second language, and I have viewed it as a demonstration of their motivation to be fully American. When I travel abroad, I always study the language of the country I’m visiting, and use it when I’m there (and quickly forget most of it when I’m back home). But I hadn’t considered the mingling of languages, which, of course, does enrich the language that takes on new words and idioms. I admire Western Europeans who speak several languages – out of necessity, because one can drive 50 miles and cross a national border and need the language of the country being entered. Multi-linguality is an admirable thing, and I’m all in favor. But I did refuse to buy an English alphabet book for my grandchildren that used “jicama” as an example of how the letter “j” is pronounced, although the children are learning Spanish along with English. I think keeping the purity of each language is a positive thing, to know which is Spanish and which is English, and to be able to use either language, depending on the setting and situation. But I’m always open to new ways of looking at things. Thanks for presenting yours, which is compelling.
As you say, Samantha, it’s always interesting to see another’s perspective. I think there’s much to be said for being able to use any language masterfully, and while I don’t necessarily see learning the language as a sign of commitment (my great-grandparents were emigrants, too, and unlike yours, never did learn the language, though all their children did, once they started school in America). In my writing class we’ve been talking about how words shape concepts and worldviews–and how worldviews shape language.
While I think it’s important for all of us to be able to communicate successfully, it seems to me that in insisting that emigrants give up their language we are, in a sense, forcing our language–and the worldview that informs it, on them. My choice would be for a melding–key concepts held in common, and the language and culture enriched through syncretism.
None of which is going to change public policy one bit!
Funny stumbling upon this right now…my teen Boy & school chum just did their assignment for English class: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight…..
The language barrier was beyond me….the boys turned the book into RAP and now their video is on YOU TUBE……
And to top it off the teacher gave them an “A”…………….go figure.
Whoa–good on them! If you think the language barrier in a modern English translation is tough, you should check out the original Middle English version. It’s in a dialect that scholars are pretty much unified in thinking is the toughest of all of them to translate. Here’s a snip for you:
Passus I
SIÞEN þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye,
Þe borȝ brittened and brent to brondeȝ and askez,
Þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wroȝt
Watz tried for his tricherie, þe trewest on erthe:
Hit watz Ennias þe athel, and his highe kynde,
Þat siþen depreced prouinces, and patrounes bicome
Welneȝe of al þe wele in þe west iles.
Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swyþe,
With gret bobbaunce þat burȝe he biges vpon fyrst,
And neuenes hit his aune nome, as hit now hat;
Tirius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes,
Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes vp homes,
And fer ouer þe French flod Felix Brutus
On mony bonkkes ful brode Bretayn he settez
wyth wynne,
Where werre and wrake and wonder
Bi syþez hatz wont þerinne,
And oft boþe blysse and blunder
Ful skete hatz skyfted synne.
Ande quen þis Bretayn watz bigged bi þis burn rych,
Bolde bredden þerinne, baret þat lofden,
In mony turned tyme tene þat wroȝten.
Mo ferlyes on þis folde han fallen here oft
Þen in any oþer þat I wot, syn þat ilk tyme.
Bot of alle þat here bult, of Bretaygne kynges,
Ay watz Arthur þe hendest, as I haf herde telle.
Fun, eh? It’s actually quite lovely in audio. When I was studying Sir Gawain i grad school I lived with my sister and her sons. They loved stories, and I had to study, so at night they’d come into my room in their jammies and I’d tell them the stories. Sir Gawain was one of their favorites–so much so that I finally ended up writing it down for them. I want to illustrate it–I’ve tried over the years, but never been happy with the results–and do a self publication. I admire your son and his buddy for turning it into rap!
I almost burst into a recitation of the Canterbury Tales prologue when I started reading this post. Love this post. I might even be a linguist in my next life!
We can go into business together–linguistics is a fascinating study. I still haven’t found that book, and it’s irritating the heck out of me because there’s are some wonderful Middle English poems in it. I just read through the Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight excerpt above, and was amazed at how much I remembered. I had a wonderful professor.