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From: rickw@eskimo.com (Richard Wojcik)
Subject: Re: Anglo-Saxons & Celts
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References: <1995Mar17.154647.9595@onionsnatcorp.ox.ac.uk> <dnb105.127.2F6FEC1C@psu.edu> <SMAILL.95Mar23093903@papa.dcs.ed.ac.uk> <dnb105.141.2F7218BF@psu.edu>
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 1995 04:06:35 GMT
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One possible exception to Koontz's "administrative language wins"
hypothesis might be the Polish-Lithuanian Empire, which had "Ruski" (a.k.a.
Old Byelorussian) as its administrative language in its early years.  What
happened was that Jagiello, the ruler of Lithuania, married "King" (sic)
Jadwiga of Poland (who had acutally come from Anjou).  She died rather
suddenly after the marriage, leaving the whole shebang to Jagiello.  The
court language of the Lithuanian court, which just happened not to be
Lithuanian, became that of the Jagiellonian empire.  Gradually, however,
Polish supplanted it, as Polish nobles came to have increasing dominance in
the Empire.  The moral is that the "administrative language" tends to be
whatever society dictates it to be at any given point in time.  In England,
it was French for a long time, but the Germanic indigenes ultimately
prevailed.
-- 
Rick Wojcik  rickw@eskimo.com     Seattle (for locals: Bellevue), WA
             http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw/
