The growth of Irish (L1) : English (L2) Literary Code-mixing, 1600-1900: contexts, genres and realisations
- Extract: [...]Intriguing as they undoubtedly are, the early sixteenth-century lists of books in the Earl of Kildare’s library may well have inadvertently helped to lull scholars into visualising a rather idealised picture of language balance in multilingual late medieval Ireland. The lists reflect a society in which the four languages, Irish, English, Latin and French, vied as scholarly media and where the outcome in the Earl’s library was a four-way photo-finish. The number of volumes in each of the languages was recorded as follows: Latin, 34; French, 35; English, 22; Irish, 20 (Mac Niocaill 1992: 312-314). But of course the multilingual contact situation in Ireland had always been quite dynamic, both at vernacular and at scholarly levels, following the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169. Although French continued to be employed in official documents into the second half of the 15th century, it had already ceded its vernacular role to English in the towns of the colonists prior to the drawing up of the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366. TheseExtract: [...]Intriguing as they undoubtedly are, the early sixteenth-century lists of books in the Earl of Kildare’s library may well have inadvertently helped to lull scholars into visualising a rather idealised picture of language balance in multilingual late medieval Ireland. The lists reflect a society in which the four languages, Irish, English, Latin and French, vied as scholarly media and where the outcome in the Earl’s library was a four-way photo-finish. The number of volumes in each of the languages was recorded as follows: Latin, 34; French, 35; English, 22; Irish, 20 (Mac Niocaill 1992: 312-314). But of course the multilingual contact situation in Ireland had always been quite dynamic, both at vernacular and at scholarly levels, following the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169. Although French continued to be employed in official documents into the second half of the 15th century, it had already ceded its vernacular role to English in the towns of the colonists prior to the drawing up of the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366. These Statutes, composed in Norman-French, the primary language of English law at the time, provide an earlier snapshot of the language situation within the areas under English jurisdiction, as they sought to compel the colonists to desist from adopting Irish as a community vernacular. Ironically, no mention is made of Norman-French in the Statutes themselves. It is clear that what was at issue was a contest for supremacy between Irish and English as the principal vernacular among the colonists.[...]…
Author details: | Liam Mac Mathúna |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19286 |
Publication type: | Part of a Book |
Language: | English |
Publication year: | 2007 |
Publishing institution: | Universität Potsdam |
Release date: | 2008/07/16 |
RVK - Regensburg classification: | EY 100 |
Organizational units: | Philosophische Fakultät / Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik |
DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 49 Andere Sprachen / 490 Andere Sprachen |
Collection(s): | Universität Potsdam / Sammelwerke (nicht fortlaufend) / The Celtic Languages in Contact |
License (German): | Keine öffentliche Lizenz: Unter Urheberrechtsschutz |
External remark: | erschienen in: The Celtic languages in contact : Papers from the workshop within the framework of the XIII International Congress of Celtic Studies, Bonn, 26-27 July 2007 / Hildegard L. C. Tristram (e.d.). - Potsdam : Universitätsverlag Potsdam, 2007. - II, 335 S. : graph. Darst., Kt. ISBN 978-3-940793-07-2 URN: urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-15682 --> bestellen |