Alfred The Great

I have finally found a mentor. Unfortunately, he died around 1100 years back. Alfred the Great (849-899) was a visionary, the first king of the "Anglo-Saxons" and the only English king to be rewarded "the Great" epithet. He strongly encouraged education, defended his kingdom against the marauding Danish barbarians and basically brought law and order to his filthy peasants. But his contribution to the English language is what really won me over.

According to the audiobook, "The Adventure of English" by Melvin Bragg, that I am currently enjoying, Alfred the Great herded the regional dialects into his own West Saxon dialect. He brought in scribes to record local tales and formalized the language of government as "Old English". He initiated programs to have religious works translated into English and he himself is said to have translated Pope Gregory the First's work on administration "Pastoral Care" from Latin to Old English. All in all a Renaissance man, long before the Renaissance. The Normans of course, after Hastings in 1066, messed all this up, and it seems a miracle (or according to Bragg, a testimony to the absorbent nature of the English language) that today we are not all speaking French.

This whole walking and listening to audiobooks is great. I feel I am being Oh so efficient, double using my time. Being kind to the body while expanding the mind. And even though its Sunday and the start of the week here, my fascination with the history of the English language let me mostly ignore the piles of shit left on the beach by the weekend hordes.