Without the Battle of Hastings, we wouldn't have the English language we know today; that was the door that opened to allow the Latinate Norman French vocabulary to graft onto the Germanic Anglo-Saxon roots of English. I have a hard time celebrating any conquest, but I'm oddly grateful for the lexical and linguistic richness that one left behind.
Gonna have to give real thought to my own personal year(s) that changed everything. Thanks for the excellent reflections and prompt!
The complexity of the English language was one of the things that Jennifer Paxton highlighted in her course 1066: The Year That Changed Everything. Apparently, the outcome also oriented England more toward Western Europe rather than the Nordic countries.
That makes sense, though I don't think I would've arrived at that on my own. (I've been thinking about the history and peccadilloes of the English language for a couple of decades now and that insight had eluded me until your comment! I wonder what else I'm missing...)
There are several years that "changed everything" for me. As I think about getting back into journal and other writing, I think "The year that changed ...." will prove to be an excellent template or starting point. Appreciate it!
Without the Battle of Hastings, we wouldn't have the English language we know today; that was the door that opened to allow the Latinate Norman French vocabulary to graft onto the Germanic Anglo-Saxon roots of English. I have a hard time celebrating any conquest, but I'm oddly grateful for the lexical and linguistic richness that one left behind.
Gonna have to give real thought to my own personal year(s) that changed everything. Thanks for the excellent reflections and prompt!
The complexity of the English language was one of the things that Jennifer Paxton highlighted in her course 1066: The Year That Changed Everything. Apparently, the outcome also oriented England more toward Western Europe rather than the Nordic countries.
That makes sense, though I don't think I would've arrived at that on my own. (I've been thinking about the history and peccadilloes of the English language for a couple of decades now and that insight had eluded me until your comment! I wonder what else I'm missing...)
There are several years that "changed everything" for me. As I think about getting back into journal and other writing, I think "The year that changed ...." will prove to be an excellent template or starting point. Appreciate it!