The Historical Ponderings Society

[EverySongbirdSays]

Following on from the thread "What questions do you have about stuff from History or am I the only one?" Which is here

Ever wondered how we got from the clothes of Cave people to the clothes of today?

Who was the first person to make and eat Cheese? Or cake?

How ideas became widespread

Why the Aztecs didn't have the wheel?

Why Elizabeth I never married?

How accurate historical fiction is?

Then this your thread and we are your people.

PROCEED HISTORY LOVERS

I'm from Yorkshire and remember my grandad (miner in South Yorks coalfield) and his mates speaking really broad dialect. I know some words I use (or did as a child) came from Norse/Viking.

E.g. Kids used to talk about laiking out (although pronounced it 'Lekkin aht' and I subsequently discovered that laik means to play in old Norse.

Also beck meaning stream which is still widely used today up here.

Language wise when I first moved to Yorkshire from down south I struggled to understand some dialect. I was a teacher and a boy once said to me "I'm not sitting on ma sen". No clue. Later found out that sen means myself/own.

Depends on your accent, and the area. Very RP would fit in better a few decades ago (it's odd when "real people" sound posher than BBC newsreaders now). Some areas change pretty slowly, but things like Estuary English and youth London accents are very recent developments. Those, especially the latter wouldn't fit too well even in the 70s or 80s.

With the others it's very difficult to tell exactly because of the lack of written records showing how people thought.

However, there was something of a cultural explosion around 30 000 years ago (also associated with the Venus figurines mentioned in the previous thread, the Aurignacian period and thereabouts) which may signify a leap forward in communication abilities. That idea of cultural creativity is based on what has survived archaeologically. Cloth, leather and other organic materials very rarely survive long unless in ice or bogland.

However, modern speech anatomy is older. A lazy search found this paper (pdf academic article) www.cog.brown.edu/people/lieberman/pdfFiles/Lieberman%20P.%202007.%20The%20evolution%20of%20human%20speech,%20Its%20anatom.pdf
which suggest about 50000 years ago.

Concepts is a big term though. It seems that even "privacy" was a strange concept only a few centuries ago. (Though I do wonder if people with ASD always wanted more privacy than average.) Other psychosocial concepts that came up in the last thread, like boundaries and consent, wouldn't even be seen quite the same way a century ago by the vast majority. A lot of our reasoning based on underlying acceptance of germ theory (eg "an infection) and other aspects of science and the non existence of god would be incompatible - depending on class, educational level etc when you went back to.
"work" isn't a concept that necessarily makes sense to hunter gathers

DH accent remains very much as he grew up - however last visit back he sound out of place with people his generation - though not so far of his parents generation. Last 20 years as people have moved there priced out of nearby cities - local accent has noticeable drifted.

One of the local towns has odd pronunciation - as newcomers have moved it it changing it's name to how it written and is increasing referred to by that.

I am watching Danny Dyer on Who Do You Think You Are

For some reason he is desperate for his family to be GEEZERS and STRONG MEN

But instead he is posher than most of the celebs that go on it!
(Not watched /watching whole thing, just heard a report about it.)

Very interesting MrsWhitewash - similar to some elderly immigrants who teach their language to children and grandchildren without travelling back to the old country much, they end up with somewhat archaic accent and vocab.

It's actually quite amusing.

"So this would be SEVERE READIES then yeah?

SEVERE READIES" eg Rich

I wonder if people used lanolin (from sheep's wool) as lip balm, because it's still great for that purpose!

I haven't seen any recipes with lanolin (wool fat) but I imagine that's because you don't really need a recipe, you just smear it on as it is. I think if you were in a wool producing area you would - if you're working with raw fleeces your hands get so lanolinny anyway you would probably smear it on your mouth without even thinking.

Loved the previous thread. I know nothing about history as I had the most boring teacher at school but I love history.
I volunteer at school one afternoon a week and this term their topic has been the tudors- I have learnt so much, mainly from the children!

Egges vs eyren - 15th century merchant trying to buy some eggs

And specyally he axyed after eggys. And the good wyf answerde that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry for he also coude speke no frenshe but wold haue hadde egges and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde haue eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understood hym we.

It feels to me like I can understand what's written there and so I could communicate with these people, but they can't even communicate with each other! And of course it would have been pronounced very differently.

The eggs vs eyren is a good one. Egg comes via Norse and eyren is from old English (and is in fact the similar as the modern Dutch for eggs which is eieren - pronounced 'ay-er-ren').

So if brock for badger was a Brythonic survival for badger, is tod one for fox?

A friend of mine is a really old countryman (he can remember men with scythes going into the fields to make the first cut round for the reaper-binder) and he uses plant names not in the books - bellbine for bindweed, and spear-grass for couch grass.

I would love to join the HPS.

I studied under Professor Eric Ives at Uni - (he of the Anne Boleyn book mentioned in the previous thread). He was amazing - a real inspiration. and he gave us hot chocolate and biscuits in our seminars

He and David Starkey were big "Tudor Rivals" - Prof Ives used to disparage (politely and professionally) Starkey's historical views. Though he made us read, digest and debate Starkey's work.

One thing he showed us was that Lady Jane Grey was made queen (and then dies for it) due to either a forged or certainly amended document. In Edward VI's will, outlining who should inherit the crown the text is changed from "L Janes heires masles" (ie Lady Jane's sons) to "L Jane and her heires masles"

The words "and her" was added above/between "L Janes" and "heires" and the "s" deleted. See fourth line down on the picture. This totally changes the succession. From the crown going to an as yet unborn boy - to Lady Jane herself. The change was an act of desperation as Edward VI was ill/on deathbed. It ultimately thrust Jane onto the throne and her death 9 days later.

There are arguments the Edward wrote it/made the change himself. Prof Ives largely suspected that Duke of Northumberland (by this point Jane's father-in-law) did it.

Love history. Thank you for this thread.

Yes, Poor Lady Jane. I have Weir's Innocent Traitor somewhere

How did we end up with a patriarchy and not a matriarchy.

Were things more equal culturally at one time?

I have questions about the history of witchcraft and what was considered witchcraft.

As lots of women were burned for it. I wonder what "knowledge" was lost that way.

LRD

WHAT DID I SAY??

Why should one spit at the phrase?

Ye oldene dayes

On the subject of language - in Norfolk, a ladybird is a Bishy Barnaby. Why? Where did that come from?

I also wonder about this: for centuries, across most of the world, roughly half of the population (the female half) has been held back by social convention. How far advanced, as a species, would we be if every human being had the chance to reach their full potential? How many potential Ada Lovelaces died in childbirth without ever getting the opportunity to reinvent the wheel, or whatever?

Aaahhh...new thread.

Oh I've always wanted to join a Historical Society, I'm sure I have nothing of interest to add but I'm finding these threads facinating

I wish there was more stuff like this in real life

I would really like to do History A Level, but I don't really want to do it online. Can't find anywhere local even offering it.

I wanted to start for September

Watching with interest!

I wonder what the Victorians would think of our society, our technology, how we dress etc. Did 2020 sound so futuristic and far away?

Saw this on Facebook today and made me think of this thread