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From: <>
Subject: [GenChat-L] The Br(u->)ish
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 15:18:50 EDT

thought some would get a kick out of this:
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The History of the English Language

Owen Alun and Brendan O'Corraidhe

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 it 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
onomatapoedic, being derived from the sounds of battle. Consonants
were 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 that 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 their
cattle and their 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
those that were were pronounced differently depending on which kind
of 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 descided to visit Wales. (The Scots couldn't read the signposts
that said, "This way to LLyddyllwwyddymmllwylldd," 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 begin 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.

That's what happened, you can check for yourself. But I advise you
to just take our word for it.

Copyright (c) 1994 Corrie Bergeron and Ben Tucker all rights reserved

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