Re: King Alfred died (26/10/899)

 Ar an séú lá is fiche de mí Deireadh Fómhair, scríobh Ross Clark:

 > His political importance is well known, his linguistic legacy less so.
 >
 > Alfred on the decline of learning in England after the Danish invasions:
 >
 > "...there were very few people on this side of the Humber who could understand
 > their service-books in English or translate even one written message from Latin
 > into English..."

That must have made administration and trade very difficult. Were they more
literate in Latin than in English, do we know?

 > He proposed a programme of translations, by means of which a younger English
 > generation could be made literate in their own language.
 >
 > As a result, "almost all surviving prose texts during the late ninth century
 > and into the tenth were written in the dialect used by Alfred and his scribes."
 > (Crystal)
 >
 > Alfred's West Saxon became the first approximation to a Standard English.
 >
 > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)