Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World
Page 71
12. Buck (1955: 10-14).
13. Strabo, vi.1.2.
14. Segs 30.1664 and 20.326 (Greek-Aramaic Buddhist text), Schlumberger et al. (1958). See Chapter 5, ‘The character of Sanskrit’, p. 187, and Chapter 3, ‘Aramaic—the desert song: Interlingua of western Asia’, p. 84.
15. Salomon (1998: 265-7). Hēliodōros comes out as Heliodora-, but Antialkidas as Amtalikita.- Very much in the Aśoka tradition, it contains gratuitous urgings to Buddhist virtue. See Chapter 5, ‘Outsiders’ views’, p. 192.
16. Ghirshman (1954: 229-30).
17. Mango (1980: ch. 1).
18. Plutarch, Mark Antony, xxvii.
19. Cambridge Ancient History, vol. vii.12, p. 180.
20. Drew-Bear et al. (1999).
21. Strabo, iv.1.5.
22. Plautus, Epidicus, iii.3.29.
23. Polybius, Histories, iii.59.
24. Vergil, Aeneid, vi.847-53.
25. pergraecari est epulis et potationibus inservire: in the dictionary of Sextus Pomponius Festus of the late second century AD. The word is common in Plautus, the great adapter of Greek plays for Roman audiences in the second century BC.
26. Sawyer (1999: 37).
27. ibid.: 35.
28. The source is an Athenian sophist, Philostratus, whose Life of Apollonius of Tyana was commissioned at the end of the second century AD by the wife of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus. This is a work of devotional literature, and so its accuracy has been questioned; but Woodcock (1966: 130) argues that archaeology shows the author was in fact well informed about details of this land so remote from contemporary Rome and the Mediterranean.
29. Wiesehöfer (2001: 122).
30. ibid.: 155.
31. Itinerarium Aetheriae (ed. H. Pétré, Paris, 1948), xlvii.3-4 (quoted in Mango 1980: 19).
32. Mango (1980: 25).
33. De Thematibus, Introduction, Pertusi edn, 1952, quoted in Horrocks (1997:150).
34. Procopius, Secret History, xviii.20-21.
35. Third Part of the Ecclesiastical History of John Bishop of Ephesus, trans. R. Payne Smith. Oxford, 1860, pp. 423-4 (quoted in Mango 1980: 24).
36. P. Lemerle, La Chronique improprement dite de Monemvasie, in Revue des etudes byzantines, xxi (1963), pp. 9-10 (quoted in Mango 1980: 24). The Kafirs were perhaps Muslim converts; the Thracēsians were not Thracians, but from the Thracēsian theme, in the west of Anatolia.
37. Leo VI, Tactica, in Patrologia Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne, cvii, 969A (quoted in Mango 1980: 28).
7 Contesting Europe: Celt, Roman, German and Slav
1. Herodotus, ii.33, iv.49. The Cynetes, aka Cynesians, may have been correctly placed just beyond the Pillars of Hercules, since Strabo, iii.1.4, calls this area, the modern Algarve, Cuneus—though he thought that it was named in Latin after its wedge-like shape.
2. Jacoby (1923: no. 70, fr. 30).
3. Strabo, vii.3.8; Arrian, i.4.6-8.
4. Táin Bo Cúailnge (Book of Leinster, 2nd Recension), 11. 4733-6, trans. Cecile O’ Rahilly: mono tháeth in fhirmimintni cona frossaib rétland for dunignúis in talman nó mani thí in fharrgi eithrech ochargorm for tulmóing in bethad nó mani máe in talam…
5. Caesar, De Bello Gallico, i.l.
6. Diodorus Siculus, v.29-31.
7. Strabo, vii. 1.2.
8. Aristotle, fr. 610; Politics, vii.10.
9. Pliny, iii.57, quoting Clitarchus, who was there. Arrian, vii. 15.5-6, is inclined to discount it, ‘given that no other people [than the Romans] was so possessed by hatred of despotism and its very name’.
10. Polybius, Histories, i.l.5.
11. ibid., vi.52.
12. ibid., vi.56.
13. Strabo, vi.1.2.
14. Pliny, Natural History, 29.1.7.-14.
15. Juvenal, vi.455.
16. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, xvii. 17.
17. Strabo, v.3.6.
18. Tacitus was right to classify the Veneti and Fenni as neither Germans nor Sarmatians (who were Iranian nomads, related to the Scythians). But he goes on to identify the Peucini with the Bastarnae, known to have been Germanic (Strabo, vii.3.17).
19. Tacitus, Germania, xlvi.
20. Ptolemy, Geography, iii.5: ’katékhei dè tèbar;n Sarmatían éthnē mégista hoí te Ouenédai par’ hólon tòn Ouenedikòn kólpon’.
21. Strabo, vii.3.2, vii.5.2.
22. Lambert (1997: 123). These two were found in the regions of Nièvre and Autun in France. The ordinal numbers from the potter’s kiln in La Graufenesque are on p. 131.
23. Polybius, Histories, ii.17; Livy, v.34. Cf. Cunliffe (1997:71).
24. Martial, Epigrams, iv.60.8.
25. Lehmann (1987:76ff.).
26. Isidore, Etymologiae, xiv.6.6: ’Scotia idem et Hibernia proxima Britanniae insula, spatio terrarum angustior, sed situ fecundior. Haec ab Africa in Boream porrigitur. Cuius parles priores Hiberiam et Cantabricum Oceanum intendunt, unde et Hibernia dicta …’
27. Avienus, Ora Maritima, 11. 108-16: ’Ast hinc duobus in sacram, sic insulam / Dixere prisci, solibus cursi rati est. / Haec inter undas multa[m] caespitem iacet,/Eamque late gens Hiernorum colit./Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet./Tartesiisque in terminos Oestrumnidum/negotiandi mos erat. Carthaginis/Etiam coloni[s] et vulgus inter Herculis/Agitans columnas haec ad[h]ibant aequora.’
28. ibid., II. 98-9: ’ …metallo divites/stanni atque plumbi …’
29. Cunliffe (1997, ch. 8); Cunliffe (2001, esp. ch. 7).
30. They are detailed meticulously, and compared globally, in Gensler (1993).
31. Polybius, Histories, ii.17.
32. Reported in Cary (1954: 180).
33. Gildas, De Excidio Britonum, 6: ‘…ita ut in proverbium et derisum longe lateque efferretur quod Britanni nec in bello fortes nec in pace fideles’.
34. Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus, x. 1-2.
35. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i, preface.
36. Domitius Ulpianus, Digest, xxxi.1.11.
37. Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae, iii.3.
38. Plutarch, Marius, fin.
39. Tacitus, Agricola, xxi.
40. Juvenal, Satires, xv.110-12.
41. Jackson (1994 [1953]: 107-10); Smith (1983).
42. Tomlin (1987).
43. Menéndez Pidal (1968: 19).
44. Harris (1989: 315-16).
45. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, prologue 4.
46. Caesarius Arelatensis, Sermones, vi.l-2; viii.l.
47. Eutropius had written in the fourth century: ‘Trajan, having conquered Dacia, had transferred there boundless numbers of people from all over the Roman world to tend the fields and the cities.’ Breviarium ab urbe condita, viii.6.
48. Bourciez (1967: 30, 135-7).
49. The evidence is marshalled in Keys (1999, chs 13-16).
50. Weale et al. (2002).
51. Terrence Kaufman’s calculation, using the standard Swadesh list of two hundred basic word meanings. Thomason and Kaufman (1988: 365).
8 The First Death of Latin
1. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum, i, 1.31.14.
2. This is quoted in Wright (1982:109), as at Vienna Nationalbibliothek 795. I have followed Migne (also quoted by Wright) in correcting sene to sine.
3. I am stating here as simple fact the thesis established with great documentary effort by Roger Wright since 1982. The alternative would be to suppose that the pronunciation of Latin had been kept constant for the preceding four centuries, without any special pleading or teaching. The experience in England since the Great Vowel Shift (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries) shows that scholars even of a written language that is quite distinct from their own do not, without copious urging and dispute, exert themselves to keep its sound system separate from that used in their daily speech.
4. De dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici pii, iii, ch. 5, dated by Studer and Waters (1924: 24) to 841-3. The text is there quoted in full.
5. Wright (1982: 124).
6. ‘…Et ut easdem omel
ias quisque aperte transferre studeat in rusticam Romanam linguam aut Thiotiscam, quo facilius cuncti possint intellegere quae dicuntur.’ As quoted in ibid.: 120, 122, from Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum, iii, 2.1.
7. Menéndez Pidal (1972: 24-5); also quoted in Wright (1982: 173).
8. Dante, De vulgari eloquentia, i.9.8-11: ’nec aliter mirum videatur quod dicimus, quam percipere iuvenem exoletum, quern exolescere non videmus: nam quae paulatim moventur, minime perpenduntur a nobis, et quanto longiora tempora variatio rei ad perpendi requirit, tanto rem illam stabiliorem putamus. non etenim admiramur, si extimationes hominum, qui parum distant a brutis, putant eandem civitatem sub invariabili semper civicasse sermone, cum sermonis variatio civitatis eiusdem non sine longissima temporum successione paulatim contingat, et hominum vita sit etiam, ipsa sua natura, brevissima. si ergo per eandem gentem sermo variatur, ut dictum est, successive per tempora, nec stare ullo modo potest, necesse est, ut disiunctim abmotimque morantibus varie varietur, ceu varie variantur mores et habitus, qui nec natura nec consortio confirmantur, sed humanis beneplacitis localique congruitate nascuntur. hinc moti sunt inventores grammaticae facultatis: quae quidem grammatica nihil aliud est quam quaedam inalterabilis locutionis identitas diversihus temporibus atque locis.’
9. Dante, Convivio, i.2.9: ’Movemi limore d’infamia, e movemi desiderio di dottrina dare la quale altri veramente dare non può.’
III Languages by Sea
9 The Second Death of Latin
1. Dialogues in the English and Malaiane Languages: or, Certaine Common Formes of Speech, first written in Latin, Malaian, and Madasgascar tongues, by the diligence and painfull endeuour of Master Gotardus Arthusius, a Dantisker, and now faithfully translated into the English tongue by Augustine Spalding Merchant, for their sakes, who happily shall hereafter undertake a voyage to the East-Indies. At London, Imprinted by Felix Kyngston for William Welby, and are to bee sold at his shop in Pauls Church-yard, at the signe of the Swan, 1614.
2. Reynolds and Wilson (1968: 120).
3. Febvre and Martin (1976: 248-9).
4. ibid.: 289-95.
5. Anderson (1991: 39-41).
10 Usurpers of Greatness: Spanish in the New World
1. Herodotus, iv.106; Strabo, iv.5.4.
2. ’E certifico a vuestra alteza que yo conté desde una mezquita cuatrocientos treinta y tantas tones en la dicha ciudad, y todas son de mezquitas.’ Cortés, Cartas de Relación de la Conquista de México, Carta Segunda (1982, Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 7th edn, p. 50).
3. Joseph de Acosta, The Natural and Moral History of the Indies, i, p. 160 (quoted in Crosby 1972: 38).
4. ’…pareció al Almirante que debía llevar a Castilla … algunos indios paraque aprendiesen la lengua de Castilla y saber dellos los secretos de la tierra, y para instruillos en las cosas de la fe …’ De las Casas (1957 [c.1530], i.46: 163). De las Casas, describing the events fifty years later, found this act unpardonable, since it amounted to kidnapping.
5. e.g. in Rosenblat (1964: 192-3).
6. Inca Garcilaso, according to Gómez (1995: 82).
7. Inca Garcilaso, according to Abbott (1996: 685).
8. Instrucción Real, 20 and 29 March 1503, to Nicolas Ovando, in Collección de documentos inéditos del Archivo de Indias, xxxi, pp. 163-4.
9. This is described in, for example, Alvar (2000).
10. There is a list of noted mestizo generals and writers, especially historians, in Rosenblat (1964: 211).
11. Father Blas Valera’s words, quoted by Inca Garcilaso, Commentarios Reales, part I, vii.3: ’… La cual opinión ninguno que la oye deja de entender que nació antes de flaqueza de ánimo que torpeza de entendimiento.’
12. By Abbott (1996: 91).
13. Father Blas Valera’s words, quoted by Inca Garcilaso, Commentarios Reales, part I, vii.3: ‘… porqué la semejanza y conformidad de las palabras casi siempre suelen reconciliar y traer a verdadera union y amistad a los hombres.’
14. Ricard (1933 [1966]: 23) says that in Mexico in 1559 there were 380 Franciscans, 210 Dominicans and 212 Augustinians. They were thinly spread: the average convent had five religious staff. Rosenblat (1964: 210) gives the then population of Mexico as 4.5 million, with the number of Spanish vecinos (heads of households) as 6,464.
15. La Paz (Bolivia) followed in 1610, Guatemala in 1660. Other major capitals in the Americas did not, however, begin to produce printed books until the eighteenth century, e.g. Bogotá in 1737, Buenos Aires in 1780 (Quilis 1992: 46-7). So for the Chibcha language, although it was officially constituted as the lengua general in New Granada, the first extant grammar had to be printed in Madrid in 1619. This was a serious problem for such technical publications in foreign languages, because the author, an ocean away from the printing house, would be unable to correct errors in the proofs, and the learners of course might well be misled by them.
16. Viñaza (1892). These could be compared with the Summer Institute for Linguistics’ estimate of the number of distinct languages in the Americas: 888, with 408 of them in South America (Harmon 1995: 26-7).
17. Rosenblat (1964: 191).
18. Sherzer (1993: 251).
19. Lara (1989: 99).
20. Lara (1971: 14) mentions a manuscript codex by Pedro Aparicio of 1540 (Arte, vocabulario, sermones etc…en quichua), and notes that in the Relación del consilio Limense, published in 1551, the language is referred to as Quichua o general del Peru.
21. Cerrón-Palomino (1987: 35). He finds support for this in the words of the chroniclers Pedro Cieza de León (El señorío de los Incas, 1550), xxiv.119, and Bernabé Cobo (Historia del Nuevo Mundo, 1653), xiv. 1.235.
22. In this account, I follow Hardman (1985), an author whose lifetime of experience in the area makes her a better guide than most to this murky and complex area of pre-Hispanic history. It is reassuring that Cerrón-Palomino also comes down (1987: 348) in favour of a coastal origin for Que-chua. Their major inspiration is Alfredo Torero (e.g. 1974).
23. Father Blas Valera’s words, quoted by Inca Garcilaso, Commentarios Reales, part I, vii.3.
24. ibid., part I, vii.2.
25. Triana y Antorveza (1987: 157).
26. Cieza de León, p. 296, cited in Triana y Antorveza (1987: 157).
27. From Cadogan (1959), quoted in Vanaya (1986:42).
28. From Godoy (1982), quoted in Vanaya (1986:51).
29. Vanaya (1986: 6-7).
30. Arte y Grammatica muy copiosa de la lengua Aymara, Father Ludovico Bertonio, Jesuit (Rome, 1603); Gramatica de la Lengua general del Nuevo Reino, llamada Mosca, Father Fray Bernardo de Lugo, Dominican (Madrid, 1619); Arte, y Bocabulario de la lengua guarani, Father Antonio Ruiz, Jesuit (Madrid, 1640).
31. Cuevas (1914: 159).
32. Colleción Muñoz, vol. 86, fol. 54v.: ’Somos muy pocos para enseñar la lengua de Castilla a indios. Ellos no quieren hablalla. Mejor sería hacer general la mexicana, que es harto general y le tienen afición, y en ella hay escrito doctrina y sermones y arte y vocabulario.’
33. Father Blas Valera’s words, quoted by Inca Garcilaso, Commentarios Reales, part I, vii.3: ‘Si los españoles que son de ingenio muy agudo y muy sabios en ciencias, no pueden como ellos dicen, aprender la lengua general del Cuzco, ¿cómo se podrá hacer, que los indios no cultivados ni enseñados en letras aprendan la lengua castellana?’
34. Quilis (1992: 64); Rosenblat (1964: 194).
35. Rosenblat (1964: 193-5); Quilis (1992: 55).
36. Carlos V, Real Cédula of Valladolid, to the viceroy of New Spain, 7 June 1550, copied with some variants to all the Dominican, Augustinian and Franciscan provincials of Mexico, and to the viceroy of Peru and the Audiencia of Lima (Rosenblat 1964: 206).
37. Quoted in Triana y Antorveza (1987: 300). ‘This Kingdom’, the New Kingdom of Granada, was supposed have Chibcha as its lengua general, but evidently the archbishop found it inadequate for his mission. Probably it was never used beyond the original area of Chibcha dominance, a rather small part of the whole.
38. Figures derived from Rosenblat (1964: 210-12). In 1810, according to him, mestizos would have made up 27 per cent of the Mexican population.
39. Rosenblat (1964) quotes a letter on these lines from Domingo de Almeida, writing in the name of the bishopric of Charcas (in Peru). It explicitly did not ask for priests to stop learning the natives’ languages.