We visited three stave churches yesterday. This one, at Reinli, near Valdres, was one of them. It was probably built during the late 1200s. We had more beautiful weather, though. \u00a0(Wikimedia CC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the arguments that Drs. Royal Skousen and, more recently Stanford Carmack are making in their remarkable work on the text of the Book of Mormon is that, in most if not all cases, what seems to be \u201cbad\u201d English (especially in the Original Manuscript) turns out to be English that was perfectly good at an earlier stage in the history of the English language \u2013 earlier than Joseph Smith\u2019s day and, sometimes, considerably earlier than that.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, on this trip, I\u2019ve been slowly reading through Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now<\/em>, the intriguing new book from Brian D. Stubbs.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In passing, although he\u2019s making no connection to either them or their argument, he provides a nice example of the sort of thing they\u2019re talking about.\u00a0 Perhaps it will help some people to understand Skousen and Carmack\u2019s point:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
English is a hybrid language, based on the Germanic tongue of Old English but with \u2013 to simplify things considerably \u2013 a vast and decisive admixture of, particularly, Latin and Norman French.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I sometimes like to illustrate this mixed character with paired terms.\u00a0 For example, the upper class Latinate manual<\/em> is a precise equivalent to the sturdy Germanic peasant handbook<\/em>.\u00a0 Or God<\/em> and godly<\/em>, paired with Deity<\/em> and divine<\/em>.\u00a0 Or Holy Ghost<\/em> and Holy Spirit<\/em>, reflecting German Geist<\/em>\u00a0(= spirit<\/em>) and Latin spiritus<\/em>.\u00a0 And so forth.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Such\u00a0double-layering is one of the elements that gives English its unique richness and flexibility.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s also left historical fossils that sometimes create \u201cproblems\u201d for English speakers and English learners.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the example from Brian Stubbs to which I referred:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
In much earlier and more Germanic English, the past tense of the verb to climb<\/em> was clomb<\/em>.\u00a0 With the passing of time, though, the past tense became climbed<\/em>, and clomb<\/em> (or, as it\u2019s sometimes said in the American Midwest,\u00a0climb<\/em>; as in I clumb a tree today<\/em>) dropped out of educated speech and far out of formal writing.\u00a0 Today, clumb<\/em> is often regarded as hick talk \u2013 which probably reflects the way Norman aristocrats viewed Anglo-Saxon peasants \u2013 but it\u2019s actually older than climbed<\/em>.\u00a0 And, of course, while the change from clomb<\/em> to climbed<\/em> was underway, before the new form had become dominant, it would have been the innovators, the folks using climbed<\/em> rather than clomb<\/em>\/clumb<\/em>, who were \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from R\u00f8isheim, near Lom, Norway<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 One of the arguments that Drs. Royal Skousen and, more recently Stanford Carmack are making in their remarkable work on the text of the Book of Mormon is that, in most if not all cases, what seems to be \u201cbad\u201d English (especially in the Original Manuscript) turns out to be English that was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Reinli](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/08\/800px-Reinli_Stave_Church.jpg\")
<\/a>