Customer Reviews

The Secret History of the English Language

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You might be a crank if:

1. You have one big idea, such as "What is is what was, unless you've got bone-chilling evidence to the contrary."

2. You view everything through the lens of this big idea (the English have always spoken English, etc.)

3. You insist that everyone else is an idiot if they don't share accept your big idea, and share your world-view.

M.J. Harper is a crank. He is also entertainingly rude, in a British sort of way. Which makes this book funny, and a fast read. It was originally published in the U.K. as The History of Britain Revealed, and others have reviewed the same text here:

The History of Britain Revealed

As one reviewer pointed out, his discussion of evolutionary biology is silly and uninformed. Even though I am not well-versed in the life sciences, I could tell he was missing more than a few key facts when he insisted that Darwinian theory was inherently unfalsifiable.

Unfortunately, that calls into question his other theories, which are neatly summarized in the product description. He completely ignores the role of phonetics, for example, as evidence of language change over time.

And after he reports a third and fourth imaginary conversation with some stuffy, addle-brained academic, I wondered if he hadn't actually had a few of those in real-life. Cranks are prone to such encounters, I would guess.

Still, I got the nagging feeling that some part of his theory might be correct. He does an excellent job at pointing out glaring problems with the received wisdom of English history, and his skewering of national creation myths is a must-read for budding historians.

Harper's book may be the literary equivalent of junk food, but then, we all need to pig out once in a while.

This book makes some bold claims. The Irish, Scottish, Welsh, etc. are not actually Celts. English is not actually a Germanic language. The English never spoke Anglo-Saxon because they never were Anglo-Saxons, but instead good Englishmen living next to the Welsh, Highland Scots, and Cornish since the beginning of time. Not only did the Romance languages not descend from Latin, but no one ever spoke Latin: it was a kind of short-hand invented to take notes so that the people who had spoken French, Italian, and Spanish since time immemorial could understand one another. Nor did anyone ever speak Hebrew, Sanskrit, classical Greek, or any other dead language. The whole concept of a dead language is as absurd as the concept of an extinct species. Because evolution is wrong. In fact, the most reasonable hypothesis is that all languages descend from English, because England was populated first, because all civilization started in the West and then moved East. The author then declares, "I suppose I ought to point out that an Atlantic origin for the Indo-Europeans is what the Thule Society advocated. Do you honestly want to line up behind Adolf Hilter? Yes, say Applied Epistemologists, if that's what it takes" (p. 184).

The author is an avowed Applied Epistemologist, which so far as I can tell just means someone who feels that their "common sense" releases them from the need to collect evidence (the author speaks of "we" applied epistemologists, but that is really more an invitation to join his online discussion board, plugged at the end of the book, than a statement of present fact). The entire argument for these bizarre claims boils down to a) university professors have to keep their jobs and so that is why they refuse to listen to the author and b) the author disbelieves that anything like the accepted history of the English language could possibly have occurred (or any other language, for that matter). No evidence is needed for (b), simply a refusal to believe. That is then called applied epistemology and declared to be sufficient justification.

Actually, there is one piece of evidence that the author points to. French, Italian, Spanish, etc. could not possibly have descended from Latin, because language change goes from the more complex to the more simple. And Latin is a simple language. One does not know where to begin with such a claim.

I did, however, finish the book, so one star seems a bit punitive. I have read worse books.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. While Harper clearly has an axe to grind re: academia, and I did tire of the ceaseless potshots, I really applaud his theories about the evolution of English as a language.

As a scholar of the history of the English language, I've always loved Anglo-Saxon and enjoyed Middle English, but something didn't really sit right with the timeline. Those who can read Anglo-Saxon (Old English) can attest to the fact that the language bears little resemblance to modern-day English, and that the theory that an Anglo-Franco pidgin (Modern Day English?) took hold over the space of a generation across the whole island feels rather preposterous.

Sadly, by its very nature Harper's theory rests on a lack of evidence, rather than a base of documents. Nevertheless, it feels like putting a jigsaw puzzle together and finding one piece missing...just because you don't have the piece in hand doesn't mean you don't know what it's shaped like.

I recommend this book to all who enjoy prescient new theories and thoughtful speculation, even if the source seems a bit cranky. It's a very entertaining and thought-provoking read.