Why English is not dead: A rejoinder to Emonds and Faarlund

Abstract

This article argues against the claim by Emonds and Faarlund (2014,English: The language of the vikings. Palacký University: Olomouc) that English died out after the Norman Conquest, and was replaced by a North Germanic variety referred to as “Anglicised Norse”, which had been formed in the Danelaw area in a concerted effort by the Norse and Anglo-Saxon populations, presumably to overthrow the ruling French elite. Emonds and Faarlund base their claim on the existence of some 20–25 linguistic features which are said to have been absent from Old English, but which are present in Present-Day English and in Scandinavian languages. This article argues that genetic affiliation cannot be inferred from shared syntactic, morphological or lexical features, which may easily result from independent convergence in historically related languages. The main counter-argument, however, is chronological: the majority of the features adduced are indeed attested in Old English and often in other West Germanic languages also, and hence may not be attributed to Old Norse; nor can features which are not attested in English until late Middle English or early Modern English come from Old Norse. The continuity of English in the written record likewise renders the suggested scenario highly unlikely.

The Middle English Creolization Hypothesis: Persistence, Implications, and Language Ideology

“…2014: 27Emonds and Faarlund base their conclusions on an examination of a broad range of syntactic evidence (more than 20 constructions), making the reasonable point that lexical evidence is of less value in determining linguistic inheritance (after all, Modern English would be a Romance language if familial membership were determined by counting lexemes). While the argumentation of these authors finds a degree of approval (see, for example, the review by Lightfoot 2016), their syntactic evidence is answered with devastating force by Bech and Walkden (2016), who also point out Emonds and Faarlund's neglect of phonological evidence, and by Stenbrenden (2016), who shows their argumentation to be anachronistic -that is, it uses grammatical features as evidence without attention to when those features are attested. Furthermore, it should be added that some of the evidence against creolization (summarized above), such as late West Saxon case syncretism and the increasing frequency of functors, also serves as evidence against Emonds and Faarlund.…”

The noun phrase and the ‘Viking Hypothesis’

“…Nevertheless, Bech and Walkden (2016:66) noted that “The proposal, like any other, should be evaluated based on the evidence and argumentation provided.” Similarly, Lightfoot (2016:476) stated that, “Their hypothesis is intrinsically interesting and is certainly an empirical claim. Consequently, it will stimulate productive research as scholars seek to build on what [Emonds and Faarlund] have done or to refute the basic claim.” Arguing that Emonds and Faarlund often misinterpreted the literature and the data, and using empirical evidence that, for the most part, has already been published, the responses to Emonds and Faarlund in Barnes (2016), Bech and Walkden (2016), Stenbrenden (2016), and the various contributions to the 2016 special issue (6.1) of Language Dynamics and Change (by Font-Santiago and Salmons, van Gelderen, Holmberg, van Kemenade, Kortmann, Los, McWhorter, Thomason, Trudgill), collectively demonstrated that the evidence presented by Emonds and Faarlund fails to support the claim that ME descends from ON.…”

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“…51 Dyen et al (1992); Ringe et al (2002); Jäger (2015). 52 Barnes (2016); Bech and Walkden (2016); Stenbrenden (2016); Crisma and Pintzuk (2019), and the contributions to the 2016 issue, 6.1, of Language Dynamics and Change. 53 Hutterer (1975), a.o.…”