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They definitely did think English was not a language worth engaging with. Even literate people in England barely thought of English as a language worth studyin

They definitely did think English was not a language worth engaging with. Even literate people in England barely thought of English as a language worth studying -- they wrote everything in Latin. Certainly the Norman conquerers only bothered to learn the minimum amount of English they had to to talk to the locals. That's why there are so many French words in English. I think the status of a "creole" language is sort of time limited. After enough people are born speaking it and it's diverged enough from it's origin languages, it's just a language. English probably was very much like a creole language in particular places and times (particularly in northern england after the viking invasions for example).

tremon 2y ago
That attitude is not unique to England though. Latin was the lingua franca of the European literate and scientific world, first because of the Church, and then because of the Renaissance. Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza also wrote primarily in Latin instead of their country's language. Pretty similar to how we are conversing in English right now, regardless of what language we speak in our home town.
imbnwa 2y ago
>They definitely did think English was not a language worth engaging with. Even literate people in England barely thought of English as a language worth studying -- they wrote everything in Latin. This... the point of the matter is that no one thought English was not a language in its own right. Not which landed aristocrat or educated clergymen wrote in English for other non-English speakers, which was the point of writing in Ecclesiastical Latin.