So, just how English are the English? (The History of Britain Revealed - M. J. Harper)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	The History of Britain Revealed - M. J. Harper
Date:	01/01/09 (146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Thought provoking

Disadvantages: Some arguments are suspect

By now you will undoubtedly have gathered that I love language. Most especially I love the English language. Mind you, since that's the language I [mostly] speak, it would be strange if it were any other way. Over the years I have read a large number of books on the subject and many TV programmes, such as Eddie Izzard's "Mongrel Nation".

What has surprised me is how the opinions on our origins and that of our language seem to be have been cast in stone, with very little dissent. With the publication of M J Harper's book, that all changes. That is really the basis of his book. Why is it that we speak English? What is English (and who are the English - the two are inextricably linked)? And where, if anywhere, do the Anglo-Saxons fit into all of this? Why are we all "proud" to call ourselves Anglo-Saxons despite the fact that the Angles were Danes and the Saxons, Germans.

Harper challenges the "Perceived Wisdoms" about the origins of the English and their language and does so with very thought provoking and plausible arguments. He describes himself as a Revisionist and a subscriber to the "science" of Applied Epistemology. Yes, I also had to look that one up. Harper describes it as the principle that "...everybody gets everything wrong...".

Fundamentally his argument is that "...nothing can be proved...". So, when a leading academic states that English evolved from and is derived from Anglo-Saxon ("Old" English), via Middle English into Modern English, or what we speak today, his answer is, "Prove it!". And when they try to do so we see so many clearly evident anomalies in the "proof" that you know that they are simply repeating what someone once told them and which they never themselves bothered to examine to determine if it was actually all a load of codswallop.

Harper's basic principle is "What was is what is, unless there is conclusive proof to the contrary". In the case of English (the language and the people), he opines, there is no conclusive proof. And, when you think about it, that makes sense.

Harper examines all of the popularly cited influences, the Celts, the Druids, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and, of course, the Normans. He questions just how influential they really were on the indigenous population. His starting point is that the British Isles has always been the "bread basket" of Europe and a land rich in resources such as tin, copper, gold and so on. As such the population of these islands would have been abundant and settled even before the Romans arrived, both a reliable recipe for stability. Stability in language and genetic stability. So, by claiming you're a Anglo-Saxon you're just saying that you are descended from just another bunch of economic immigrant invaders and not "True English".

So, what language was spoken here before the Romans came? Celtic? Says who? Where's the evidence? And, in any case, what does "Celtic" actually mean? It seems to be a general catch-all tag that has been added to a whole bunch of different and very loosely associated groups of people of uncertain origin. How do we know what language the Celts spoke! Where did they originate (The Danube Delta has been suggested, which would make them Romanians!)? They are supposed to have dominated the whole of Europe before the Romans. Did they really all speak just one language? After all, the so called Celtic languages such as Welsh and Scots Gaelic have significant differences. And they lived right next door to one another!

Harper's basic argument is, why can't we accept that the English that we speak today be fundamentally the same English we spoke a 800 years ago (which we know it is) or even a thousand years ago when the Normans arrived or even two thousand years ago, when the Romans arrive. After all, we were certainly speaking something that wasn't Anglo-Saxon before the Anglo-Saxons arrived, and as sure as hell it wasn't Latin, though many Latin words will undoubtedly have crept into the language over the period of 500 years!

The problem is that there is no evidence. English, being the language of the man in the field, was not a written language. He had no need. Everything he needed to know he learned at his parents' knee and by on-the-job learning. No one ever had a need to write anything down. You only need to do that if you are into religion or political administration. Hence, the Romans did that, the Anglo-Saxons did that, the Normans did that (in spades!) and only after the end of the Norman influence 800 years ago, did the English do that. The man in the field didn't. He just spoke English, as he had always done, as had his parents and their parents and their parents...

So, where did all these theories (for that's really all they are, no matter how authoritative the proponent) come from? Harper goes on to examine all these ideas and sets against them his arguments based on the copious anomalies which the academics are at pains to either dismiss with a wave of the hand or to ignore and pass the buck.

Harper's arguments are very persuasive, not that I accept all that he proposes. When he gets on to geological analogies I feel him to be standing on much less stable ground. When he talks about dating and fossil records and how there cannot be certainty about exactly what happened where and when, he conveniently overlooks the incontrovertible evidence of global catastrophes of such things as the K-T boundary that resulted from the Yucatan asteroid strike, which left its indelible mark over the entire planet 65 million years ago.

Harper's book is a highly enjoyable read. His ideas are all well presented and argued. One thing is for certain, once you have read the book you will never again accept as "conclusive" the received wisdom from the so called experts about just who we, the English, really are.

Like me you will say, "Prove it" and when they try you will confidently be able to say "Bullshit" and quote Harper to your defence.

Summary: A very thought provoking examination of the origins of English and the English