h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As ever happens when others edit material and try to clarify material they don't quite understand, confusion is compounded!


This paragraph...

"The area became the Scottish Kingdom, which was run by a mix of English-speaking, Gaelic-speaking and Norman French-speaking aristocrats and tribal leaders. The clarity of these influences, however, is somewhat obscured by the mass slaughter that the Normans wreaked upon the diehard Norse/Saxon mix of the region, whose language base had already begun to melt into a form of English that, some people claim, came to dominate all of England."

Would be slightly less confusing if it went as follows:

"The area to the north of the Danelaw, became the Scottish Kingdom, which was run by a mix of English-speaking, Gaelic-speaking and Norman French-speaking aristocrats and tribal leaders. The clarity of the various ethnic influences upon the area that became known as Yorkshire, however, is somewhat obscured by the mass slaughter that the Normans wreaked upon the diehard Norse/Saxon mix of the region, whose language base had already begun to melt into a form of English that, some people claim, came to replace the Old-English forms spoken by both the lowlands of Scotland and the South of England."


I hope that's a bit clearer.

Is the second version used in your original article?

The original text was...

There is a certain amount of confusion among foreign visitors about how English is a Yorkshireman, considering that Yorkshiremen supported Eric Bloodaxe, the last viking monarch in England, and have Norse words peppering their dialect. However, it should also be remembered that this region saw the first Saxon kings in England and that these early "English" settlements were surrounded by a sea of Celts who stayed, and intermingled, creating a hybrid population related to what has now become known as Scottish Lowlanders. In Yorkshire they then absorbed a relatively small number of politically dominant Viking settlers and separated themselves by language from the English speaking Scot! The clarity of these influences however is somewhat obscured by the mass slaughter that the Normans reeked upon the diehard Norse/Saxon mix of the region, whose language base had already begun to melt into a form of English that some people claim to have come to dominate all of England. Even so, a Yorkshireman is different, and considering the naturally bolshy nature of the Yorkshireman, inexplicably supported Charles 1st against the Parliamentarians during the Civil War, probably laying the political foundations for the economic, cultural and political dominance of the south despite the many natural resources of the region.