The languages of Britain By Glanville Price (review)

Abstract

210 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 62, NUMBER 1 (1986) The languages of Britain. By Glanville Price. London & Baltimore: Arnold, 1984. Pp. 245. P is concerned with the social history of 'the languages that have been spoken for some considerable length oftime, or were spoken at some time in the past, in those parts ofthe British Isles that are subject to the British Crown, i.e. the United Kingdom, the Isle ofMan, and the Channel Islands' (9). Over half is taken up with the Celtic languages: British (used to mean the language of the preUterary period), Irish and Scots GaeUc, Manx, Welsh GaeUc, Cornish, Cumbric, and Celtic Pictish (that form ofp-Celtic beheved to have been spoken in Pictland). Shorter sections are devoted to Latin; to the Germanic languages —with a chapter each on English, Scots (though P is noncommittal as to its status as a separate language), and Norse; to French (ofthe Channel Islands, as weU as Anglo-Normand); and to Romani. This last may seem a surprising choice until one realizes that Romani was first attested in the British Isles in 1547, and today has 50,000 speakers. Irish GaeUc as spoken in the RepubUc of Ireland is omitted, since that country Ues outside the political boundaries of the British Isles; thus no comparison is made with the situation in Northern Ireland, where the language is virtuaUy extinct. Shelta and Polari , although they fit P's criteria for inclusion in the volume, are not mentioned. P is primarily concerned with languages as social phenomena; he traces their arrival in Britain ; their status with respect to religion, education , and government; and the reasons for their decUne or survival. The evidence includes early inscriptions, Uterature, place names, loan words, and census data. Much more is known of the history of some of the languages (e.g. Welsh and Scottish GaeUc) than of others (e.g. Pictish and Cumbric); this is reflected in the length of the chapters. P gives reasonable discussions of the debates which have ensued regarding their histories; e.g., was Pictish related to Basque? WUl Welsh survive? How widespread was Anglo-Normand as a spoken language ? Is the modern variety called Cornish reaUy Cornish? P makes no attempt to describe the grammars of these different languages. When he uses linguistic terms, e.g. 'diglossia', he carefuUy defines them for the general reader. Those interested in the linguistic structures ofthe languages in question should consult P. TrudgiU (ed.), Language in theBritish Isles (Cambridge, 1984); for more on regional and social varieties ofEngUsh , see A. Hughes & P. TrudgiU, English accents and dialects (Arnold, 1979) and J. C. WeUs, Accents ofEnglish (Cambridge, 1982). Although P devotes only fifteen pages to the chapter on English, its influence is the theme which runs through the book—for, as P puts it, 'English is a killer. If there are stiU parts of the United Kingdom ... where sizeable communities speak languages that were there before English , sometimes as a first language, nowhere in these islands is English not in everyday use and understood by aU or virtually all. It is English that has now totally replaced Irish as a first language in Northern Ireland. And it is English that constitutes a major threat to Welsh and to Scottish GaeUc, and to French in the Channel Islands , so that their long-term future must be considered to be very greatly at risk' (170). On the whole, this is a very readable book which brings together a great deal of information . Though written at a level comprehensible to the lay reader, it contains much ofinterest to the linguist, who may be famihar with some— but most likely not all—of the languages discussed . [Ruth King, York University, Toronto.] Fortis and lenis in Germanic. By Gerda I. Alexander. (American university studies, I: Germanic languages and literatures, 18.) New York & Bern: Peter Lang, 1983. Pp. 171. $20.80. Alexander here reinterprets the obstruent series of Proto-Germanic, through a careful consideration of the evidence of early Germanic manuscripts and a Praguean theory ofhierarchy of oppositions. The traditional interpretation of the ProtoGermanic (PG) consonant system is in terms of voicing and occlusion, resulting in the set of contrasts /p/:/b/:/f/. Thus W. G...