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A study of the ‘lowly’ English language and a time when conversation guides taught how to insult enemies
There has never been a language as globally dominant as English is today. Yet 400 years ago, it was the lowly tongue of an insignificant backwater on the edge of Europe. Unlike French, Italian, Spanish or even Dutch, it had no cultural prestige, and was useless overseas. Anyone who aspired to real civility, or to travel or trade with mainland Europe, had no option but to learn its languages. How English men and women of the late 15th to the early 18th century went about doing so is the subject of John Gallagher’s fascinating new book, a welcome attempt to show that the history of language encompasses much more than just the history of words.
It’s always difficult to reconstruct an essentially oral practice from written evidence, but Gallagher trawls through an immense variety of printed and manuscript sources to capture the voices of soldiers, servants, captives and beggars, as well as students, tourists and diplomats. The teaching of languages in this era took place largely outside traditional educational institutions: at home, with a tutor; alongside the formal curriculum at Oxford and Cambridge; at the royal court; in London, with its numerous immigrant communities and language schools; and when travelling in mainland Europe itself, an increasingly fashionable educational experience for rich young Englishmen. Continue reading...