A New Old English? The chances of an Anglo-Saxon revival on the Internet
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Christina Neuland
Abstract
By facilitating the contact between smaller groups of people living in widely separated places, the new media stimulate the use of minority languages, including constructed and historical languages. This article looks at the international community of users of Old English as a living language on the Internet. It analyses the linguistic competence behind the modest Anglo-Saxon revival and the strategies applied to deal with the modern world. As a sample of online texts, especially from Wikipedia, shows, not only does neo-Old English suffer from haphazard grammar and pervasive interference from Modern English, but it also depends too essentially on lexical innovation to have much of a future.
Abstract
By facilitating the contact between smaller groups of people living in widely separated places, the new media stimulate the use of minority languages, including constructed and historical languages. This article looks at the international community of users of Old English as a living language on the Internet. It analyses the linguistic competence behind the modest Anglo-Saxon revival and the strategies applied to deal with the modern world. As a sample of online texts, especially from Wikipedia, shows, not only does neo-Old English suffer from haphazard grammar and pervasive interference from Modern English, but it also depends too essentially on lexical innovation to have much of a future.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Series editor’s preface ix
- Editors’ preface: The evolution of Englishes xi
- Introduction 1
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Part I: The Dynamic Model
- Convergence and endonormativity at Phase Four of the Dynamic Model 21
- The identity issue in bi- and multilingual repertoires in South Africa 39
- The sociophonetic effects of Event X 58
- Beyond Nativization? Philippine English in Schneider's Dynamic Model 70
- Stylistic and sociolinguistic variation in Schneider’s Nativization Phase 86
- Differentiation in Australian English 107
- The Evolution of Singlish: Beyond Phase 5? 126
- Emergence of “new varieties” in speech as a complex system 142
- The cognitive evolution of Englishes 160
- English in Cyprus and Namibia 181
- English in Germany 203
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Part II: Beyond the Dynamic Model - Empirical and theoretical perspectives on World Englishes
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Focus 1: Contributions with a theoretical focus
- On cafeterias and new dialects 231
- Does money talk, and do languages have price tags? Economic perspectives on English as a global language 249
- Language variation and education 267
- The evolution of English(es) 282
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Focus 2: Cross-varietal contributions
- At the crossroads of variation studies and corpus linguistics 301
- Compounding and Suffixation in World Englishes 312
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Focus 3: United States
- When did Southern American English really begin? 331
- The English origins of African American Vernacular English 349
- Innovation in pre-World War II AAVE? 365
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Focus 4: Asia and Africa
- Non-standard or new standards or errors? 386
- Yesterday’s founder population, today’s Englishes 401
- The evolution of Brunei English 420
- The evolutionary trajectory of Cameroonian Creole and its varying sociolinguistic statuses 434
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Focus 5: Old varieties, new perspectives
- Lexical creativity reconsidered 448
- The language of butchery, the UK’s last public craft 470
- A New Old English? The chances of an Anglo-Saxon revival on the Internet 486
- Name index 505
- Subject index 507
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Series editor’s preface ix
- Editors’ preface: The evolution of Englishes xi
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: The Dynamic Model
- Convergence and endonormativity at Phase Four of the Dynamic Model 21
- The identity issue in bi- and multilingual repertoires in South Africa 39
- The sociophonetic effects of Event X 58
- Beyond Nativization? Philippine English in Schneider's Dynamic Model 70
- Stylistic and sociolinguistic variation in Schneider’s Nativization Phase 86
- Differentiation in Australian English 107
- The Evolution of Singlish: Beyond Phase 5? 126
- Emergence of “new varieties” in speech as a complex system 142
- The cognitive evolution of Englishes 160
- English in Cyprus and Namibia 181
- English in Germany 203
-
Part II: Beyond the Dynamic Model - Empirical and theoretical perspectives on World Englishes
-
Focus 1: Contributions with a theoretical focus
- On cafeterias and new dialects 231
- Does money talk, and do languages have price tags? Economic perspectives on English as a global language 249
- Language variation and education 267
- The evolution of English(es) 282
-
Focus 2: Cross-varietal contributions
- At the crossroads of variation studies and corpus linguistics 301
- Compounding and Suffixation in World Englishes 312
-
Focus 3: United States
- When did Southern American English really begin? 331
- The English origins of African American Vernacular English 349
- Innovation in pre-World War II AAVE? 365
-
Focus 4: Asia and Africa
- Non-standard or new standards or errors? 386
- Yesterday’s founder population, today’s Englishes 401
- The evolution of Brunei English 420
- The evolutionary trajectory of Cameroonian Creole and its varying sociolinguistic statuses 434
-
Focus 5: Old varieties, new perspectives
- Lexical creativity reconsidered 448
- The language of butchery, the UK’s last public craft 470
- A New Old English? The chances of an Anglo-Saxon revival on the Internet 486
- Name index 505
- Subject index 507
