Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

I began with five hesitant pioneers out of a school (exclusive of the first year) of about sixty members. The proportion today is 43 literary to 20 linguistic students… The instruction offered has been gradually extended, and now covers a large part of the field of English and Germanic philology. Courses are given on Old English heroic verse, the history of English*, various Old English and Middle English texts*, Old and Middle English philology*, introductory Germanic philology*, Gothic, Old Icelandic (a second-year* and third-year course), and Medieval Welsh*. All these courses I have from time to time given myself; those that I have given personally in the past year are marked*… Philology, indeed, appears to have lost for these students its connotations of terror if not of mystery. An active discussion-class has been conducted, on lines more familiar in schools of literature than of language, which has borne fruit in friendly rivalry and open debate with the corresponding literary assembly. A Viking Club has even been formed, by past and present students of Old Icelandic, which promises to carry on the same kind of activity independently of the staff. Old Icelandic has been a point of special development, and usually reaches a higher standard than the other special subjects, being studied for two years and in much the same detail as Anglo-Saxon….

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

In October 1920 I went to Leeds as Reader in English Language, with a free commission to develop the linguistic side of a large and growing School of English Studies, in which no regular provision had as yet been made for the linguistic specialist. I began with five hesitant pioneers out of a School (exclusive of the first year) of about sixty members. The proportion to-day is 43 literary to 20 linguistic students. The linguists are in no way isolated or cut off from the general life and work of the department, and share in many of the literary courses and activities of the School; but since 1922 their purely linguistic work has been conducted in special classes, and examined in distinct papers of special standard and attitude. The instruction offered has been gradually extended, and now covers a large part of the field of English and Germanic philology. Courses are given on Old English heroic verse, the history of English*, various Old English and Middle English texts*, Old and Middle English philology*, introductory Germanic philology*, Gothic, Old Icelandic (a second-year* and third-year course), and Medieval Welsh*. All these courses I have from time to time given myself; those that I have given personally in the past year are marked*. During this last session a course of voluntary reading of texts not specially considered in the current syllabus has attracted more than fifteen students, not all of them from the linguistic side of the department.

Philology, indeed, appears to have lost for these students its connotations of terror if not of mystery. An active discussion-class has been conducted, on lines more familiar in schools of literature than of language, which has borne fruit in friendly rivalry and open debate with the corresponding literary assembly. A Viking Club has even been formed, by past and present students of Old Icelandic, which promises to carry on the same kind of activity independently of the staff. Old Icelandic has been a point of special development, and usually reaches a higher standard than the other special subjects, being studied for two years and in much the same detail as Anglo-Saxon….

356 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• English language (7) ·
• English literature (3) ·
• German language (1) ·
• Gothic language (1) ·
• Icelandic language (1) ·
• Middle English (2) ·
• Middle Welsh (1) ·
• Old English (4) ·
• Old Norse (2) ·
• Old Welsh (1) ·
• Philology (5) ·
• Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel (1892-1973) (4), writer and philologist, Reader in English at Leeds University (1920-26) ·
• University of Leeds (8) ·
• Vikings (6) ·
• Welsh language (1) ·

All tags.

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