Michael Gilleland of Laudator Temporis Acti posts this inspiring quote from Toynbee’s A Study of History, Vol. X:
Professor H.W. Bailey (natus A.D. 1899), a philologist of world-wide renown who in A.D. 1952 was the Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge, had awoken to consciousness as a child on a farm in Western Australia; and it would be hard to think of a more unpromising environment than this for producing a savant in the field of Oriental languages. The virgin soil of a recently colonized terra nullius exhaled no folk-lore to play the part of those local legends that had put Heinrich Schliemann, in his Varangian village, on the track of buried treasure; but the local human environment in Western Australia in the first decade of the twentieth century of the Christian Era did provide Harold Walter Bailey with the equivalent of the Universal History that had given the decisive turn to Heinrich Schliemann’s life when it had come into Schliemann’s hands on Christmas Day, 1829. The books that descended from Heaven upon the boy on the West Australian farm were ‘a set of seven volumes of an encyclopaedia (eagerly devoured) and four other volumes with lessons in French, Latin, German, Greek, Italian, and Spanish. Later came Arabic and Persian, out of which Persian took the lead (joined later to Sanskrit)’.
This was the trove that set Bailey’s curiosity on fire; and in A.D. 1943 the present writer induced the modest scholar to describe to him how his family used to watch him, with a benign but whimsical gaze, while, during the noonday rest from their common labours in the field, he would be conning his Avestan grammar in the shade of an Antipodean haystack. By the time when he was approaching the age to matriculate at a university, the young student of Oriental languages had become aware that he had reached the limit of what he could teach himself, unaided, out of the books on which he could lay hands. What was the next step? At the University of Western Australia at this date there was no provision for Oriental studies; for help in these, the would-be student would have to go on to Western Europe or to North America. So Bailey taught himself Latin and Greek; took these as his subjects at his own university; won a scholarship at the University of Western Australia to take him to the University of Oxford; and found at Oxford the help that he needed in order to complete his mastery of Oriental languages.
Yet even Cambridge, England, could not provide this Australian philologist with a chair specifically allocated to the Khotanese language, akin to Persian and to Sanskrit, which had been introduced into the Tarim Basin by the Sakas and which, while H.W. Bailey was studying Avestan under his haystack in Western Australia, had been recovered from oblivion by the labours of a series of Western pioneers in the Tarim Basin, culminating in the Hungarian-British archaeologist-explorer Sir Aurel Stein’s trove of religious and secular literature in known and still all but unknown languages, on which this path-finder had lighted in May 1907 in a Taoist shrine at Ch’ien Fo-tung (‘the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas’), near Tun-huang in the Su-lo-ho Basin, ‘a natural corridor’ leading from North-Western China into Central Asia, at the Western terminus of the former limes of a Sinic universal state; and Khotanese and Tokharian were the fields in which Bailey, in the next stage of his intellectual career, was to give the most impressive demonstrations of his prowess in advancing the frontiers of philological knowledge.
I am amused by Toynbee’s confident Balliol-bred “natus” and “limes,” and of course wowed by Bailey’s accomplishments. In a later post, Gilleland quotes this piquant bit from Alan Rush’s 1996 obituary of Bailey:
A task now facing Bailey’s colleagues is the elucidation of his rhyming diaries. When told at our last meeting that the course of a lifetime had transformed these into an epic of over 3,000 verses in a private language concocted from classical Sarmatian inscriptions, I asked Bailey why he was so fond of obscurity. “Well, the diaries are not really so obscure,” he said. “Indeed I’d say there’s hardly a line that could not have been understood by any Persian of the fourth century.”
‘He was known for his immensely erudite lectures, and once confessed: “I have talked for ten and a half hours on the problem of one word without approaching the further problem of its meaning.”” (Note BTW that Toynbee was incorrect: Bailey was born in Wiltshire, only a two-hour railroad journey away from Oxford, and was 10 years old when his family removed to remote Western Australia.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Walter_Bailey
Re the rather sniffy “virgin soil of a … terra nullius,” the Bailey family farm appears to have been in the erstwhile territory (or “range” if that’s a better word) of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Njakinjaki. It is obviously not the young Bailey’s fault if he did not have access to any books describing their folklore or “local legends,” but that doesn’t mean that no such thing had existed.
That old idea of the impoverished intellectual environment of the farm. In my outpost of Europe, reading farmers with a wide range of intellectual interests have been common for a long time, and their offspring have gone from small countryside schools to become world class scientists, artists and politicians. I doubt other western countries were much different.
Are we sure that that final 176-word sentence isn’t the result of a GPT-4 prompt for “produce an over-the-top parody of Toynbee”?
A number of anecdotes about H.W. Bailey as a person have appeared in Iranian-linguistics publications, and the oldest living generation of Iranists can still recount their own firsthand impressions of him. A lifelong bachelor with that obsessive interest, I get the impression that he was autistic, though I have not yet heard anyone use that word. Interestingly, in spite of his Australian upbringing, I am told that Bailey spoke throughout his life with the Wiltshire accent of his birthplace and family, with Australian English having had no discernible impact on his speech.
“Limes” look good here.
“Teminus of the […] limes” less good.
I agree with Trond, dung is not the only thing that occupies a savage mind.
Of course illiterate villagers (or savages) are illiterate, whatever exposure they have to whatever analog of what is written in our books they have, it is oral. Yes, a village with books is not the same as just a village (and what were those centers of intellectual life in antiquity if not large villages?:))).
I could easily reconcile the two traditions of the Bailey origin myth by saying that although he was born under the Southern Cross (as Tolkien said of himself), there were no anglophones other than his parents for NNN miles in any direction, and so he natively acquired their Wiltshire accent, there being no other for him to acquire. (I believe this was actually true of some settlers in N.Z.)
@drasvi: Since I was talking about reading farmers specifically I limited my generalization to “Western countries”, i.e. countries that have had universal education since before modern telecommunications. From at least about the middle of the 19th century Norwegian farmers (not all, and not only farmers, of course) bought books and subscribed to newspapers and a wide variety of journals and magazines.
But obviously this didn’t come from nowhere. There will always have been philosophers and inquiring minds, thinking deeply about and discussing religion, law, history, natural phenomena, language, etc. This must have been the constitutional base of society, the process that maintained, challenged and developed orally transmitted understanding of how the world works (and should work). The institution that brought these thinkers together was the þing. After the middle ages, judgment (or conclusion) was increasingly monopolized through the professional judiciary and the Church, but people didn’t stop thinking.or talking. And the role of priests and public officials (and their wives) was always a dual one. As educated people with a wide network they became a channel that brought new thinking and fresh scientific knowledge out to the broad population. The history of reading farmers owe a lot to the history of scientists in a priest’s collar. Eventually, the Church would also be the institution responsible for providing mass education with a curriculum far outside the Bible.
And 19th century reading farmers weren’t a uniform block. It gave rise to artists and scientists, but also to lay preachers and prophets who were reacting to the secular message of the priests.
Societies without this specific history of monopolized philosophy and mass education will have maintained older traditions to different degrees, but there will hardly be a society anywhere with no tradition for philosophy about itself and the wider worid, (The reported Pirahã taboo on discussing anything beyond the immediate is an obvious counterpoint, but it could also be a political reaction to the encroaching modern world, ideologically similar to reactionary movements in Christianity and Islam.)
That last paragraph may owe a lot to Graeber & Wenslow. It’s not a new revelation, not even to me, but I’ve been provoked to think clearer about it.
Sounds like another symptom of the autism spectrum to me: he consciously noticed all the Australian peculiarities and simply didn’t decide to actively adopt them.
Of course illiterate villagers (or savages) are illiterate, whatever exposure they have to whatever analog of what is written in our books they have, it is oral.
They’re otodidacts.
Nice one!
When I read, the content mostly passes through my eye and goes into my mind’s ear, bypassing the vocal cords altogether (hence my speed-reading abilities).
The word autodidact generally seems fine to me, but often when I see (or even more, hear) “autodidactic,” I inwardly and sarcastically want to follow it up with “asphyxiation.” (You’re welcome.)
“there were no anglophones other than his parents for NNN miles in any direction, and so he natively acquired their Wiltshire accent, there being no other for him to acquire.”
That sounds quite plausible. Still, among Australian philologists who made a career at Oxford, it definitely sets H.W. Bailey apart from Bruce Mitchell, who did arrive in England with an Australian accent and kept it during his career.
Bruce Mitchell
Oh, one more Bruce from down under.
Heinrich Schliemann, in his Varangian village
I can’t believe nobody picked up on this in 2023 (including me), but what on earth does this mean? Schliemann was from Neubukow in Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, and I can’t see any connection with the Varangians.
After 1648, parts of Mecklenburg (the city of Wismar, for example) were Swedish, but as far as I can make out (historical atlases not being that detailed), Neubukow was not. Anyway, this state of affairs only lasted until the Napoleonic wars.
Oh, one more Bruce from down under.
This comic, by Lindsay Arnold, is my go-to for Australian Bruces. He’s got a good ear for language, too.
I don’t know if that episode was inspired by the MP routine or if it’s just something that happens.
I wonder if “Varangian” was just a poetic conceit, with the historical Varangians representing any Teuton from the shores of the Baltic who eventually ended up engaged in adventures in-or-near Constantinople.
Says WP:
“By the time of the Emperor Alexios Komnenos in the late 11th century, the Varangian Guard was largely recruited from Anglo-Saxons”
This has long been a favourite fact(oid) of mine, up there with the Upper Nile Hungarians.
Some day I will write a historical blockbuster called “Derek the Varangian.”
Is there any source for that other than Anna? She mentions the Varangians as being from “Thule,” but she clearly has a pretty hazy understanding of northern and western Europe.
@David E.: Isn’t “Derek” an anachronistic given name? You need one that unquestionably runs straight back to Anglo-Saxon times like “Nigel” or “Trevor.” (In Some Circles, this is all explained by the pious Orthodoxy of the Anglo-Saxons and their resistance to the Normans’ introduction of post-1054 Popish heresies into England by the wicked Lanfranc.)
Isn’t “Derek” an anachronistic given name?
I wasn’t planning on too much historical accuracy …
(It just holds up the bodice-ripping action, I find.)
“Alf the Varangian” might do, though.
@Brett: Wikipedia mentions other sources, including ‘Likewise, the Byzantine civil-servant, soldier and historian John Kinnamos calls these “axe-bearers” that guarded the Emperor “the British nation, which has been in service to the Romans’ Emperors from a long time back”.[26]’
Also, it says without a source that the Varangians were referred to as “Englinbarrangoi (Anglo-Varangians)”. This must be the same as the Énklinobarrangoi (hope I transliterated that right) you can see at this GB link. The WP version seems to indicate England more clearly.
I had come across this notion of late-Varangian Englishness before, in actual dead-tree books, but unfortunately I can’t remember where, exactly.
Anglia spills over into Scotland, whatever those marshpeople might think. The most English bits of England are Saxon, and merely misnamed. (Gaelic and Welsh get the name right.)
(Actually, Welsh might only get the name of the language right – I’m not sure if that’s also the general adjective.)
@Jerry Friedman: Anna* mentions the Thule Varangians as bearing axes too. I will have to read Kinnamos and see what details he has about the next couple of generations of Varangian bodyguards.
* There is, I realize now, a very specific personal reason why I call the Byzantine princess just “Anna.” My daughter’s once best friend of that name ended up backstabbing her, and I don’t know why. (Lillian might know why they really fell out, but if she does she has had years to share it and chosen not to.) So I like to have another referent to call just “Anna.” (While actress Imogen Stubbs is arguably the most beautiful woman in the world, obscure British television character Anna Lee is not iconic enough to capture the name.)
The comic I linked to above says (on its third page), “I never get called ‘cobber’ anywhere in Australia except Tasmania.” WAry says cobber is “slang, dated”, but it seems here it was still surviving in Tas in the 1970s. The etymology is “uncertain”, perhaps indirectly from Hebrew via Yiddish khaver via Dutch, perhaps from a “British dialectal term cob (‘ take a liking to’), or a conflation of both”. Green says the same.
The OED clarifies some. Under cobber, it says,
So how did it get to Suffolk then? EDD says under cob Suf. “to take a liking to any one; to ‘cotton’ to,” but comments “Not known to our other correspondents.”
On the other hand, I trust that “no worries”, which features so prominently in the comic, is alive and well. No wucking furries.
Welsh might only get the name of the language right – I’m not sure if that’s also the general adjective.
No: “English” as an adjective is Seisnig too (the language being Saesneg.) And an Englishman is a Sais, plural Saeson, while an Englishwoman is a Saesnes.
Parallel to “Sassenach”, Saes can in principle mean a non-Welsh-speaking Welshman, but I don’t think that would go down very well.
However, the territory that the Saeson have temporarily occupied is called Lloegr. The origin of this name seems to be a mystery. The name turns up as “Logres” in Arthurian legends in English, but that is presumably borrowed from Welsh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logres
anywhere in Australia except Tasmania.
Not that we count as “in Australia”, but ‘cobber’ is still current in NZ. Yes it’s slang, dated, and from Australian. I’m surprised at the < Yiddish.
'cob' has many dialect meanings in Blighty — "heap, lump, rounded object," also "head," says etymonline. I'd add a particular shape of loaf.
a type of natural building/material made from a mixture of clay, sand, and straw gives cob cottage, cob house (plenty of those historically in Aus/NZ). 'cobber' = house-mate?
From Google AI overview, and entirely unsubstantiated by any of the refs it gives:
Re Varangians, there’s also Tolkien’s Variags; is that from a Slavic borrowing?
It must be: Old East Slavic варяги (varyagi).
The Yiddish origin of cobber is supported by Green’s earliest quote, from 1888: “My cobber came back to Melbourne disgusted at his mozzel. When we totted it up one night in Auckland, we found the trip had cost us A Couple of Hundred.” Mozzel ‘luck’ is attested from England as early as 1848. What’s odd is the /b/. The OED says “Yiddish regional (Germany) khaber“, but is there really any Yiddish dialect in which that medial ב would be a /b/ instead of /v/?
The same ultimately reflex of Hebrew spirantized בֿ as b is also found in (Rotwelsch >) German Haberer and (Bargoens >) Dutch gabber. (But note the variation Hawara ~ Habarer in German. Perhaps there was etymological nativization to /b/ by speakers of the standard when encountering spirantized lenis plosives in a colloquial pronunciation? I don’t think this would work for Bargoens, but what do I know?)
Short comment because I am on the road.
Note also Beider, The Origins of Yiddish Dialects (2015:103) for the inherited Germanic vocabulary:
If anyone has access to Franz J. Beranek, Westjiddischer Sprachatlas (1965), maybe check maps 33 and 97 in relation to the alternation b ~ v.
Ingwer and other ‘ginger’ words in 2003.
Then also, supposing there is such a dialect, you’d also need a large enough presence of it within the (Australian?) Yiddish-speaking community for its particular forms to take hold as the stereotypical pronunciation.
you’d also need a large enough presence of it within the (Australian?) Yiddish-speaking community for its particular forms to take hold as the stereotypical pronunciation.
Can we be really really sure the Yiddish contact was purely in Aus? In general, I’d expect the contact in London slums, then transport the crim slang to Aus.
Green’s 1888 for ‘cobber’ seems awful late compared to 1848 ‘mozzel’ attested _in England_.
Indeed, but then cobber is not attested in England.
@David Eddyshaw: That Wikipedia link informs me that Logres was used in Over Sea, Under Stone (probably in the incomplete description of when and where Arthur would return, which was retconned in the sequels). From Wikipedia, I also learn that there was a British television movie made of the book in 1969, starring Graham Crowden as Merlin; however, like so much British TV from that era, all copies were destroyed.
Re Lloegr, there is an Old Irish male name of almost identical form: Lóegaire.
I could not find an etymology, but Matasovic has for P-C:
—
*lugra ‘moon’ [Noun]
W: OW loyr , MW lloer [f]
BRET: OBret. loir, loer, MBret. and MoBret. loar [f]
CO: OCo. luir gl. luna, Co. lo(e)r
PIE: *lewg- ‘to bend, twist’ (IEW: 685f.)
COGN: Gr. lygizd ‘bend’, Lith. liignas ‘twisted’, Skt. rujati ‘breaks’
ETYM: The semantics of this derivation are somewhat stretched; however, this can be remedied if one starts from the meaning ‘young moon’ as ‘twisted, bent’. Pokomy’s (IEW 690) connection with the root *lewk- ‘to shine’ (Lat. liix, etc.) is implausible from the phonological point of view (there is no evidence for the variant of this root with a voiced velar). A different etymology is offered ‘as a mere possibility’ by Schrijver (1995: 332). He relates W lloer etc. to Lat. luridus ‘pale, yellow’, from a putative PIE *lows-.
REF: GPC II: 2198, Pedersen II: 50, DGVB 245, Deshayes 2003: 470, Schrijver 1995: 233f., 332.
—
So “moonieland” or Lóegaire-land? We have to exclude “bent-land” for reasons of political correctness, and because there is no evidence the Saxons were that way inclined at that time (i.e, before the establishment of public schools).
Lloegr. The origin of this name seems to be a mystery.
You’re not crediting the Matasović (2009) conjecture?
Ah, you wanted a serious possibility. I just liked the coincidence with Lóegaire and the rather contorted bent > moon derivation
“Warriors of the Moon” FTW.
“Warriors of the Bent Moon” might be even better.
“Heathens” it is, then.
Yeah, that’s /haʋɐrɐ/ (still common in Vienna as of 20 years ago). Many German dialects, possibly including all Bavarian ones this side of Cimbrian, have long merged intervocalic /b/ into /ʋ/; the spelling with b is an etymological guess.
(And I have indeed seen a somewhat desperate etymological just-so story that started from Haber, obsolete for “oats”. That would actually make the stressed vowel more difficult to explain in the dialects.)