The History Thread

[Tommygilf]

42 minutes ago, tim2 said:

We'd probably be speaking something closer to Danish/Dutch/German. These three all look very similar on the page but sound really different. Ours would probably be another variant. However, anything could have happened over the 1000 years that have followed. We'd certainly have been fighting the French multiple times and may have lost one of those battles, or had some kind of "merger by marriage" that may have Latinized the language.

Is it Frisian which is the most similar language to English? 

[tim2]

6 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Is it Frisian which is the most similar language to English? 

That's the closest root of our Old English I think.

[gingerjon]

17 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Resistance enough to force amalgamation. I'm pretty sure the Irish, Scots Gaelic and Welsh speakers consider the continuation of the use of their languages a sign of resistance.

They do. (Well, some do.)

They’re not necessarily right either.

[gingerjon]

17 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Is it Frisian which is the most similar language to English? 

Yes.

It sounds a lot like a drunken English person doing an impersonation of a Dutch person speaking English.

[hw88]

1 hour ago, The Masked Poster said:

I totally don't understand where he's coming from. The Vikings were ruling most of England, had they not been overcome somehow it's pretty obvious that the language we are speaking to each other in would not be the same. Not sure what is fantasy about that.

 

1 hour ago, tim2 said:

We'd probably be speaking something closer to Danish/Dutch/German. These three all look very similar on the page but sound really different. Ours would probably be another variant. However, anything could have happened over the 1000 years that have followed. We'd certainly have been fighting the French multiple times and may have lost one of those battles, or had some kind of "merger by marriage" that may have Latinized the language.

Try reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - English but not English as we know it. It always amuses me when you see films about Robin Hood and the like and they are all speaking modern English. In reality few of us would understand a word they say!

[Padge]

2 hours ago, gingerjon said:

If you're going that way then the English lost in 1066 and the name of the country 'England' is simply a nostalgic reminder for a lost and destroyed culture.

Hence the rider at the end

Well my little light hearted line about France and England seems to have got the debate going.

[tim2]

13 minutes ago, hw88 said:

 

Try reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - English but not English as we know it. It always amuses me when you see films about Robin Hood and the like and they are all speaking modern English. In reality few of us would understand a word they say!

I have an interest in Old English poetry, particularly the epic poem Beowulf. It's over 99% unintelligible to moderrn ears, even with a bit of German knowledge. Then occasionally you get an entire fragment that sounds like modern English.

"Thaet waes god cyning" - That was (a) good king!

I also like the fact that the modern "thirty" was closer to "threety" in Old English.  

[hw88]

1 hour ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

 

I've not been to an actual concentration camp yet though on my next visit to Berlin I will go to Oranienberg which is just north of the city. It is a smaller camp and after being liberated was taken over by the Soviets and used as a military camp.  

I went to Auschwitz some years ago and found it to be a sad, depressing place. Surprisingly I didn't find it as emotional as going to the Menin Gate or Theipval. I think it was because at those places the soldiers died for a cause - for 'our tomorrow' as the poem goes. Whereas at Auschwitz it was simply murder.

I think what saddens me most about these places is that they have become tourist attractions - a rather depressing Disneyland, something to be ticked off a bucket list for many people. Nothing annoys me more than seeing kids (and adults) crawling all over the Cross of Sacrifice.

[hw88]

4 minutes ago, tim2 said:

I have an interest in Old English poetry, particularly the epic poem Beowulf. It's over 99% unintelligible to moderrn ears, even with a bit of German knowledge. Then occasionally you get an entire fragment that sounds like modern English.

"Thaet waes god cyning" - That was (a) good king!

I also like the fact that the modern "thirty" was closer to "threety" in Old English.  

Sounds a bit like watching football on S4C - yakky-dah, yakky- dah, Ronaldo, yakky-dah, yakky-dah, offside, etc.

Apologies to all Welsh speakers - no offence was intended.

[gingerjon]

11 minutes ago, hw88 said:

Sounds a bit like watching football on S4C - yakky-dah, yakky- dah, Ronaldo, yakky-dah, yakky-dah, offside, etc.

Apologies to all Welsh speakers - no offence was intended.

You'd not hear the word 'offside' on S4C.

That'd be 'cam sefyll'.

[The Masked Poster]

2 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

The early medieval period, from the Romans leaving in 410 to lets say 1099, sees a whole lot of change. 

The geographic descriptors we have from the start of that period are Hibernia, Britannia and Caledonia to cover Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland. The Saxons, led by Hengst and Horsa, turn up pretty quickly after the Romans leave and start founding Kingdoms mainly in the south. Saxons tended to go South and West, and their Angle cousins went East and North. The Jutes also come and found Kent but that isn't really too important. The Heptarchy (or 7 kingdoms) were established, Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria (which went from the Mersey Humber line up to the firth of forth), East Anglia, Sussex, Essex, and Kent. Native Britons still controlled Wales (whose name comes from the Anglo-Saxon for foreigners), Cumbria (whose name comes from the same route as Cymru and Cambria, the Roman name for Wales), Cornwall and Strathclyde. The Picts were floating around North Eastern Scotland as they always had. Scottii from Ulster moved into Western Scotland. The rest of Ireland was ruled by petty kings. 

Whilst there wasn't an idea of "England" there was an idea of the English as opposed to the Welsh or the Britons. Northumbria, then Mercia, then Wessex take turns at being the dominant Kingdom on the Island of Britain.

When the Vikings roll up, it doesn't happen over night. Originally it is just as summer raids, then they over winter. The Great Heathen Army as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle sweeps down from Northumbria and conquers most of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms bar Wessex, who under Alfred the Great make a stand and agree to divide the island. The split would be roughly along Watling Street (the A5) from London in the South East to Chester in the North West. South and West will be Wessex and Wessex controlled Mercia, the rest north and east is "Danelaw", but was more of an amalgamation of smaller fiefdoms, chief among which was Jorvik. "Independent" Northumbria existed beyond Bamburgh to Edinburgh, but didn't do all that much. The Danes also took over the Western Isles, and founded most towns in Ireland as petty Kingdoms during this period too.

Aethelstan continued his Father and Grandfather's legacy to unite the Anglo Saxon kingdoms under Wessex rule, destroying Danelaw. In the battle royale of the UK and Ireland, Aethelstan beat the Vikings (of English, Scottish and Irish bases), Irish, Welsh and Scots to claim overlordship of all the islands. Brunaburh.

Aethelstan was the first to call himself "King of the English". And this was only a 100 years or so before William and his Normans turn up.

Although I didn't put it as eruditely as you, that was the point I was making. It wasn't as if there was an established England that people could really get nostalgic about. For example, they didn't have Transit Vans and didn't enter the Euros for quite some time. 

[The Masked Poster]

1 hour ago, hw88 said:

 

Try reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - English but not English as we know it. It always amuses me when you see films about Robin Hood and the like and they are all speaking modern English. In reality few of us would understand a word they say!

Yeah I understand that, my point was that the language we use today in England would have been totally different had history turned out differently. And maybe English may have ended up just being an obscure historical language. 

[Exiled Townie]

In the 1st century AD, the Romans used to buy bottles of Portuguese urine and use it as a mouthwash. Importing bottled urine became so popular that the emperor Nero taxed the trade. The ammonia in urine was thought to disinfect mouths and whiten teeth, and urine remained a popular mouthwash ingredient until the 18 th century.

[The Masked Poster]

12 minutes ago, Exiled Townie said:

In the 1st century AD, the Romans used to buy bottles of Portuguese urine and use it as a mouthwash. Importing bottled urine became so popular that the emperor Nero taxed the trade. The ammonia in urine was thought to disinfect mouths and whiten teeth, and urine remained a popular mouthwash ingredient until the 18 th century.

Is this a p!55 take?

[Eddie]

4 hours ago, gingerjon said:

The names that countries (and regions) call themselves - and are called by others - is quite an interesting discussion point.

But the English who gave England its name are not the same as the English who are in England now.

The ruling classes aren’t but us plebs in the main are. There was less immigration into Britain during the whole period from 1066 to 1945 than there has been in any single year since Blair first won the election in 97. 

[Jeff Stein]

1. When I lived in Roth just outside Nurnberg in the early nineties, the museum was open in the parade stand, but I thought it was shut later as the local authorities thought anything that brought attention to it might be dangerous. It may be it has reopened since I last wandered past to go to see 1.fc Nurnberg play (or more usually lose). Back then the area around it was used as overnight parking for trucks and kids used to kick footballs or play tennis against it. I thought that was the right level of disrespect.
2. I have just watched the Last Days in Vietnam and it got me thinking about the communist insurrections in South East Asia. It is generally not known in the West that there was one in Thailand and in fact went on long after the fall of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I find it incredible to think that my wife spent the first five years of her life in a warzone as the communists' main area of control in Phetchabun province was only a couple of valleys away. The insurrection only came to an end in the early 80s through negotiation and also a split in the communists between pro-Chinese and pro-Vietnamese camps. Although not on my many westerners' bucket lists or indeed guide books, now you can still see on Khao Kho the remnants of a communist camp (next to at certain times of the year a rather attractive waterfall) which is in a national park, a Cleopatra's needle stylee monument to the rapprochement and a rather interesting museum, which was an army camp. As with the French and Americans in Vietnam, the Thais set up army bases on top of hills while the jungle around was controlled by the communists. They would  airlift in by helicopters men and supplies. As an odd footnote the old communists after the insurrection ended became ultra monarchists and have regularly taken part in the conservative yellow shirt demonstrations before the most recent coup.

[The Masked Poster]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

The ruling classes aren’t but us plebs in the main are. There was less immigration into Britain during the whole period from 1066 to 1945 than there has been in any single year since Blair first won the election in 97. 

Is this true? 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

42 minutes ago, Jeff Stein said:

1. When I lived in Roth just outside Nurnberg in the early nineties, the museum was open in the parade stand, but I thought it was shut later as the local authorities thought anything that brought attention to it might be dangerous. It may be it has reopened since I last wandered past to go to see 1.fc Nurnberg play (or more usually lose). Back then the area around it was used as overnight parking for trucks and kids used to kick footballs or play tennis against it. I thought that was the right level of disrespect. 

What I'm calling a museum is more an exhibition I suppose and it's in the coliseum now. I assume it's still there anyway, it's been over 6 years since I was last there. 

[Padge]

Some of you may find this interactive version of the medieval Gough Map, considered to be the oldest map of medieval Britain.

http://www.goughmap.org/map/?mapID=340

Just a note: North is to the left of the map.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Padge

[Bostik Bailey]

9 hours ago, gingerjon said:

If you're going that way then the English lost in 1066 and the name of the country 'England' is simply a nostalgic reminder for a lost and destroyed culture.

No they didn’t Harold Godwinson was half Norse his bother Tostig most probably convinced Harold Hardrada to invade (battle of Standford Bridge) . The last true pure Anglo-Saxon king was Ethelred the unready. He married Emma, daughter of the Duke of Normandy and their son was Edward the confessor (hence the hereditary link to the house of Normandy) after Ethelred, Cnut, Harold I, and Harthcnut were Norman/Dane. Over this period time the land was generally called England and the language was already an assimilation between Anglo-Saxon and Norse. The destroyed culture was only in the upper echelons of earldom( I.e all Harold II cronies ) the feudal system was already establish in England and although the victory of the Norman’s would have had general upheaval for the population it would have been no different to the many danish invasions in the east of the country that had been commonplace for many years beforehand. 
 

One thing that William did bring was a long period of political stability for the general population, free from armed interventions from others.

[Eddie]

7 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:

Is this true? 

I read it recently yes, can’t remember where but a reputable publication (I don’t read tabloids or do social media other than this forum). 

[The Masked Poster]

56 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I read it recently yes, can’t remember where but a reputable publication (I don’t read tabloids or do social media other than this forum). 

I had no idea and wasn't arguing with you about it, I genuinely didn't know. 

That is a genuinely unbelievable statistic. In fact, it's pretty mind-blowing and would support some sort of conspiracy theory out there.

By this I mean, we've been told repeatedly about how Britain has always been a "mongrel nation" powered by immigration. If this is the case then that patently isn't true and to be honest, I'm reeling from the implications that it holds. 

[Pen-Y-Bont Crusader]

19 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:

Is this true? 

Cannot see how that is anything other than total #####. Irish immigration and Jewish immigration alone in the 19th century was more than enough to  convince me it’s ####.

[Eddie]

32 minutes ago, Pen-Y-Bont Crusader said:

Cannot see how that is anything other than total #####. Irish immigration and Jewish immigration alone in the 19th century was more than enough to  convince me it’s ####.

Have you got the stats then? 

[Pen-Y-Bont Crusader]

15 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Have you got the stats then? 

Almost 900 years of immigration less than any single year after 1997….. The outline stats are about 300k total immigration in 1997. The 1841 census recorded 419k of Irish born immigrants alone in the UK.