1 Introduction 2 from Language Continuum to Linguistic Mosaic

Notes 1 Introduction 1. A common accusation. Wierzbicka is one among many who charge him with this. She says that 'Chomsky's thoughts on the subject of lexical universals are based on speculative reflection rather than on any empirical investigations' (Wierzbicka 1992: 6). 2. There was always some self-questioning within the group. See, for example, Rubin and Jernudd (1971). 3. Migration was temporarily halted by the oil crises of the mid-1970s that put the world into recession and made Western governments seek to stem the tide of labour from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. 4. See the special edition of MOST (2003). 5. The term Ecolinguistics was coined by Haugen (1972) to refer to the societal arrangements necessary if languages are to be preserved. 6. For a review of some of the analytical work recently carried out see Fill (2001) and Goatly (2001). 7. Together with two other major themes of LPLP, language and migration and lan guage and colonisation. I have not dealt with these two themes at length in this book. This is, in part, because of considerations of space and cohesion, but also because there is already a very rich literature in both areas. 2 From Language Continuum to Linguistic Mosaic: European Language Communities from the Feudal Period to the Age of Nationalism 1. Hroch (1985) wrote an influential comparative study of civic and ethnic nations in the late 1960s which was published in German and Czech. It was not available in English translation until 1985. For a fuller discussion of civic and ethnic nations, see Wright (2000a). 2. One can speculate that the language patterns described prevailed for the ten cen turies between the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Modern period. There is, of course, less evidence for language practices in the earlier period and the argument is based largely on the Late Medieval period (1200-1500) where contemporary accounts exist, but where, perhaps, the isolation of peasants on the land was lessening. 3. This differed in different parts of the continent, dropping to 60% in the Netherlands and in Italy and rising to 95% + in Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia and the Slavic East (Fossier 1970). Singman (1999) suggests that the low level of technology and poor health of the peasant class made agriculture very hungry for manpower. 4. There are, of course, exceptions. In periods of demographic growth, some mem bers of the agricultural class took part in the clearing of new lands. For example, as the Teutonic knights conquered East Prussia they recruited a peasant population from western Europe to farm the new lands (Davis 1988). 252 Notes 253 5. Fossier (1970) points out that this was a restriction designed to guarantee that the children born to serfs belonged indisputably to the master of the parents. Serfdom was dying out in many parts of Europe by 1300 although it lingered in England well into the century and resurfaced in the east of the continent as German settlers colonised Slav lands (Nicholas 1999). Bourin and Durand (1998) discuss the difficulty of marrying those outside one's own seigneurie which per sisted until very late in the period in the lands under French control. 6. Where other classes mentioned them the picture tends to be disparaging and stereotypical (Singman 1999). 7. The definition of feudal in this chapter is based on Bloch (1962): a subject peas antry, widespread use of the fief instead of a salary; a specialised warrior class with ties of obedience and protection; fragmentation of authority. 8. For the history of this period see Bideleux and Jeffries (1998). 9. For numerous examples see the Biographical Dictionary of the Late Medieval Age (Drees, C. (ed.) The Late Medieval Age of Crisis and Renewal, 1300-1500: A Biographical Dictionary, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 2001). 10. 'In the Middle Ages the people of Western Europe regarded themselves as a single society, which they often likened to the seamless robe of Christ' (Davis 1988: 350). 11. Although the Latin term nationes was used, for example, in the Sorbonne, it sim ply indicated the locality one came from, in a much more limited geographical sense than the modern term nationality (Seton-Watson 1977; Greenfeld 1992). 12. See below; the French king starts to address the problem with the Edict of Villers-Cotterets (1539) and the English king with the Act of Union (1536). 13. The few exceptions to this that have been recorded are the speeches to fighting forces, with perhaps the most famous example being the Serments de Strasbourg (842) where Charlemagne's grandsons swore oaths before their respective armies in the vernaculars of the two armies (lingua romana and lingua teudisca). 14. Increasingly armies became professionalised and paid from the fourteenth cen tury (Nicholas 1999). 15. For a comprehensive review of the literature on nationalism and an explanation of the different traditions of the scholarship in the area see ()zkirimli (2000). 16. Hroch (1985) includes Russia as one of the early state nations but I have left it out because it seems to me that the attitude of the Czars to their subjects was entirely in the mould of feudal monarchs and that the Russian state remained very much an agricultural society where the aspects of Modernity described here and seen to be contributory to the growth of nationalism did not occur until a later date. 17. There were minor adjustments to the boundary between France and Italy in 1947. 18. Between 1128 and 1279, the House of Burgundy took the crown and reconquered the territory that was to become Portugal. There is a general consensus that this happened mainly because Castile was too busy elsewhere to oppose the Portuguese: The question of the roots of Portuguese individuality and the formation of a separate monarchy in the southwest has provoked considerable discussion. The two great Portuguese historians of the nineteenth century, Alexandre Herculano and Oliveira Martins, considered Portuguese independence some what accidental, the consequence of fortuitous political developments in the twelfth century. (Payne 1976: 113) 19. The English monarchy retained only Calais. This was ceded to France in 1559 at the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. 254 Notes 20. The Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) and Nijmegen (1678) set the frontier between France and the Flemish north. In 1860 the south-eastern frontier of France was extended to include Nice and Savoy. Alsace, Lorraine and Franche Comte were conquered in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries although subsequently lost and conquered again. 21. This was not always unpopular. Nordman (1998) charts the history of local rivalries in the Cerdagne and notes that the Franco-Spanish border was welcomed by some groups as a way of differentiating themselves from their neighbours and rivals. 22. For example the Cathars who would not convert to Catholicism were massacred at Montsegur in 1244. For example the Muslims of Granada conquered in 1492 were forcibly converted under the direction of Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros (1436-1517). In the same year the Spanish monarchy ordered the expulsion of all Spanish Jews. 23. The rise of the idea of sovereignty was favourable to the development of the state nations but stemmed the process whereby subject peoples could break away from larger polities. The rise of the ethnic nation states did not begin, in part because of this, until the nineteenth century (Cobban 1969). 24. Although territory continued to be conquered and lost in Europe, this concern to stop anyone player becoming too powerful helped stabilise frontiers since rulers understood the sanctions if they challenged the balance. The race for colonies and the intra-European conflicts outside Europe both contravene this point and reinforce it. Changes of boundaries outside Europe were not seen in the same light, although the desire to retain the overall balance of power in colonial conquest remained. 25. Anderson (1983) has termed this variety print language but it is in many cases (e.g. French and English) identical with the language of the court and the capital and I would argue that the prestige deriving from its associations was a key fac tor in the choice of variety. If printers were principally driven by profit they are likely to have set out to secure the most prosperous market segments. It seems unnecessary then to call it print language in these states, since it does not develop separately. 26. The phenomenon was not solely in Protestant areas. A growing desire for access to the Bible meant that it was translated into the vernacular in Catholic countries too. Welsh was the only non-state language of Protestant Europe to become the medium of a published Bible within a century of the Reformation. The Irish did not get their own Bible until 1690; the Scots had to wait until 1801 for their Gaelic Bible, long after the Highland clearances and massive emigration had almost emptied the country of its Gaelic speakers. Interestingly, both Wyclif and Huss had translated the Scriptures, but, before the advent of printing, this had not had great impact. 27. Patriotism was, of course, republican vocabulary and it is slightly anachronistic to employ it here, but the term expresses the point. 28. Documentary evidence for this comes from texts such as Elizabeth I's Charter to Sir Walter Raleigh (1584). The race to discover parts of the world hitherto unknown to Europeans and to grab resources and claim colonies caused acute rivalry between monarchs and the colonisation race deepened the demarcation lines between their states. The last time the Europeans had set out ell masse to take ter ritory on other continents had been the Crusades.

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