Talking Like an Angle

When I was in law school, many years ago, I had a visiting professor from Poland, who was there to teach socialist law. (This was back when Poland was a communist country.) I clearly remember him saying to our class one day that it was a peculiarity of our legal system that "nothing is ever null, and nothing is ever void. They are only 'null and void.'"

He asked us if any of us knew why that was. And none of us knew the answer. I don't know how many of my classmates have learned the answer since then, but it took me about 35 years. But now I know the answer, and I'm going to tell you. (Because I don't know where my professor is.)

The great thing about English, and something every writer who intends to use the language should know, is that it is really three languages in one. The foundation of the English language is Anglo-Saxon. Layered over that is Norman French. And on the top, the roof, if you will, is classical Greek and Latin.

This is why English has so many words, and often words that mean the same thing, or are at least close synonyms.

When William the Conqueror and his buddies took over Anglo-Saxon England, their French became the language of rule. And that means it became the language of law. But there were still high-ranking Anglo-Saxons in post-Conquest England, and so it became customary in legal documents to pair the Anglo-Saxon legal term with the French legal term, to make sure everyone knew what they were talking about.

Of course, the language barrier between the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans stopped being a problem more than 800 years ago, but the custom of pairing Anglo-Saxon and French legal terms together in a legal  document persisted all the way into the here-and-now twenty-first century, and it is still going strong. "Null and void" is one such example. If you think about it for a minute, you can probably tell that "null" is a Germanic Anglo-Saxon word and "void" looks suspiciously French. (The "oi" diphthong is a dead giveaway.) There are many other examples:

terms and conditions

cease and desist

liens and encumbrances

goods and chattels

breaking and entering

will and testament

let or hindrance

due and payable

sale and transfer

have and hold

fit and proper

There are many more, but you get the idea.

This is important to anyone using the English language, because most of the time when you choose a word, you will have a choice between at least two and possibly all three types of English words: Anglo-Saxon, French, and Greek/Latin. Every word has a history! And that history colors your writing. So you need to choose words that color your language as you express your vision. Or shade your meaning as you tell a story. (Did you see what I just did there?)

Obviously, there is much more to be said about this than can be said in one blog post. So I'll be coming back to it. But since I'm writing a novel set in and around Mercia, an Angle kingdom, there's a second, more specialized issue. Most of my characters (with the prominent exception of Abanoub, the protagonist) are going to be Angles, which means that when they speak, they should speak in Anglo-Saxon words. If I take you into their private thoughts, they should be thinking in Anglo-Saxon words. When Abanoub talks to an Angle, he should use Anglo-Saxon words, too, because the person he's speaking to will need to understand him. (Mostly.) If I take you into Abanoub's private thoughts, well, that's different. He's not an Angle. In fact, if you remember his background, you'll realize that it is altogether fitting and proper that  he use Latin and Greek words in his own mind, since he surely speaks both those languages. His first language is undoubtedly Greek.

There are a lot of challenges to writing this way, but it's a lot of fun, too. More on this next time.