Standing Stone/s:  OS Grid Reference – SE 2060 4351

Also Known as:

• Boon Stones
• Boul Stones
• Bull Stone of Otley Chevin
  

Getting Here

Bull Stone, near Otley Chevin

Worth checking this if you aint seen it before! Head up to the back (south-side) of Otley Chevin (where the cup-and-ring Knotties Stone lies sleeping), following the road there and park up near/at the Royalty pub.  Take the footpath behind the pub which crosses the fields and once into the second field, head diagonally down to the far-left corner.  From here, look over the wall — you can’t really miss it!

Archaeology & History

An intriguing site for various reasons.  All we have left to see of any value nowadays is this nigh-on 6-foot tall thick monolith, standing alone in the field halfway between West Carlton and Otley Chevin.  Completely missed in local archaeological surveys, the place was mentioned briefly by Slater (1880), it appears to have been first described in any detail by Eric Cowling (1946), who suspected the stone may have Roman origins (though didn’t seem too convinced!), saying that:

“near the ground the section is almost oblong, with sides three-feet six-inches by one-foot ten-inches; two feet from top, the section is almost circular.”

The fact that the stone stands very close to the line of an all-but forgotten Roman road that runs right past it added weight to this thought (the road runs towards a Roman settlement a mile east of here near Yeadon).  But this standing stone is unlikely to be Roman.  More recent evidence seems to indicate a relationship with a now-lost giant cairn about 100 yards to the south.  The only remains we have of this place are scatterings of many small loose stones nearby.  And it seems a very distinct possibility that the extra standing stones that were once hereby, stood in a line.

The very first reference to this site also indicates that there was more than one stone here in the past!  In 1720 this site was known as the ‘Boon Stones’; and the plural was still being used by the time the 1840 Tithe Awards called them the ‘Boul Stones.’  Initially it was thought that both words were plural for “bulls” — as A.H. Smith (1962) propounds in his otherwise superb survey — but this no longer appears tenable. (see Folklore)

Folklore

A piece of folklore that seems to have been described first by Philemon Slater (1880) relates to the pastime of bull-baiting here, that is -

“fastening bulls to it when they were baited by dogs, a custom…still known to the Carlton farmers” (North Yorkshire).

Cowling (1946) told that he heard the stone was said to be lucky as well as being a source of fertility.  This ‘fertility’ motif may relate to the meaning of the stone’s early name, the Boon Stones.  Both boon and boul are all-but obsolete northern dialect words.  ‘Boul’ is interesting in its association with a prominent folklore character, as it was used as a contemptuous term “for an old man.”  Now whether we can relate this boul to the notion of the ‘Old Man’ in British folklore, i.e., the devil, or satan — as with the lost standing stone of The Old Man of Snowden, north of Otley — is difficult to say.

More interestingly perhaps is the word ‘boon’, as it is an old dialect word for “a band of reapers, shearers, or turf-cutters.”  This band of reapers ordinarly consisted of five or six people and would collect the harvest at old harvest times.  And as the early description talks of Boon Stones, this plurality would make sense.  One curious, though not unsurprising folklore relic relating to these boons was described at another megalithic site (now gone) by John Brand (1908), where in the parish of Mousewald in Dumfries,

“The inhabitants can now laugh at the superstition and credulity of their ancestors, who, it is said, could swallow down the absurd nonsense of ‘a boon of shearers,’ i.e., reapers being turned into large grey stones on account of their kemping, i.e., striving.”

Standing stones with the folklore of them being men or women turned to stone is common all over the world.  If we accept the dialect word ‘boon’ as the first name of this old stone, there may once have been some harvest-time events occurrent here long ago (and this is quite likely).  Equally however, we must also take on the possibility that this Bull Stone has always been a loner and that its name came from the now obsolete Yorkshire word, a bull-steann, meaning a stone used for sharpening tools, or a whetstone.

Take your pick!

…to be continued…

References:

Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
Brand, John, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain – volume 2, George Bell: London 1908.
Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
Jackson, Sidney, ‘The Bull Stone,’ in Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 2:5, 1956.
Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements – 2 volumes, Cambridge University Press 1956.
Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 7, Cambridge University Press 1962.
Slater, Philemon, The History of the Ancient Parish of Guiseley, William Walker: Otley 1880.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

We’re working on a piece about the popularity, or unpopularity of Shanghai’s local dialect, so we drove out to deepest Pudong to visit the Modern Baby kindergarten. Opened three years ago, by Ling Jie, it was the first kindergarten in the city to teach its pupils Shanghainese. The kids spend three days a week being taught in Mandarin, while Wednesday is English day and Friday is Shanghainese day. In each class, there is a Mandarin teacher and a Shanghainese teacher, who cajoles the children along in roll call and with other parts of their day. I was surprised to hear that even names are pronounced differently in Shanghainese. My Mandarin name, Ma Qian, which means Humble Horse, is Mo Qie.

Ling Jie told us that she had the idea after discovering that her own 12-year-old son, a native Shanghainese, couldn’t speak the local dialect. His nanny, of course, was from outside Shanghai and so she spoke to him in Mandarin. Ling Jie and her husband spoke to each other in Shanghainese, but not to their son. She also said 60 per cent of his classmates were similarly mute. It was important to her, as a Shanghainese, to do something about it, and there remains a huge pride about the city’s dialect. Mrs Ling explained how Mandarin had deliberately simplified its language while Shanghainese remained descriptive and idiomatic, with many different ways of saying something. Instead of Hao (good) and Feichang Hao (very good), there are a range of Shanghainese words to convey everything from sparklingly brilliant to excellent or amazing.

After years of insisting that standard Mandarin was the only tongue worth having, the city government is now supporting Shanghainese and Shanghai culture. But it is still impossible to find Shanghainese spoken in any junior, middle or senior schools. With such a large population of migrants in Shanghai, teaching in Shanghainese is seen as divisive. Which may be precisely the reason that the locals are suddenly falling back in love with the dialect. With many Shanghainese growing increasingly resentful of the waidiren (the people from outside the city) who arrive to take their jobs and display country-bumpkin ignorance, it makes perfect sense to start communicating once again in a language that can only be understood by real insiders.*

* According to Qian Nairong, a professor of linguistics who we interviewed earlier this year, it can take up to a year for a Chinese from elsewhere to assimilate Shanghainese, and that’s with total immersion.

凌女士夫妇都是上海人，自己12岁的儿子却不怎么会说上海话。他们家的保姆也是外地人，家里除了夫妻间的交流，基本都用普通话。凌女士还发现儿子班上60％的学生都不会说上海话。凌女士觉得很震惊，觉得有必要对沪语的保护推广做些工作。凌认为沪语传承了上海文化，上海人也以乡音为傲。凌女士举了些例子说明普通话为了推广方便故意简化了用语，而上海方言却保有了其鲜活地道，丰富多样的特性。譬如称赞的用语，普通话一般会用“好”，“很好”等相对贫乏的词汇，上海话却有一系列的词语去描述，像是灵啊，赞啊，哈灵，老赞的。

经年不遗余力的推广普通话，奉其为圭臬，上海市政府现在也开始支持推广上海话以及保护上海文化。然而，目前在上海的小学，初中，高中，上海话几乎没有立足的地方。上海的外来人口庞大，学校开设沪语课程可能会被视为歧视排外。这大概也是当前上海话回潮的一个原因。很多上海人开始排斥甚至痛恨外地人，因其抢占了自己的资源空间，工作机会，并带有乡野的一些陋习和无知。上海人说上海话，这给他们一种“自家人”的感觉。

我们先前采访的钱乃荣教授说只要用心学习，一般外地人不出一年就可以学好用好上海话。

The gentile caresses me

Long twitchy fingers of sweet distinction

Dropping  my pretentious faces

Clicking my name with an accent I am stranger to

On his wide keyboard of thoughts

The gentile embraces me

Thick wintry hugs of remote places

Brightening my patronising gestures

Wrapping my scarf with a dialect I’m not familiar with

On an arm of a chair he rest upon

The gentile seduces me

Smouldering eyes of secluded emotions

Confusing my mixed intentions

Spreading my clothes with an idiom I find peculiar

On a red rug belayed on a cold floor

Let’s face it, we talk sloppy.  We leave out words. We shove whole phases into single words. We contract our words.  We talk in dialect. What we don’t do is plan what we want to say. Instead, we speak off-the cuff. We blurt out our words. Of course that is unless we want to make a point with our spouse. Then we might rehearse our words over and over again and enunciate clearly.

Normally, however, we don’t plan what we’re going to say, we just say it, knowing we can clean it up if need be. Most of us have habitual phrases we repeat over and over until others get tired hearing it. When we speak, we make mistakes, and we often make the same mistake repeatedly. If you don’t believe that, ask someone. They know.

As writers, when we write dialogue, we must simulate real speech. We must attempt to bring the above speech patterns into our dialog to make it sound real without going overboard. Our every sentence of dialog must have a reason and a purpose for being there. Dialogue must give the illusion of real conversation, even though it isn’t real.  Even though we plan our dialogue, we must make it look like it isn’t planned.  It must look like it is unexpected by the listener when in fact we have planned it out and have control over every element in it.

Our characters can’t just talk for the sake of talking. In real life, sometimes we have to tolerate people who go on and on, talking about useless information we don’t want to listen to, but no reader wants to put up with a character who does that. Their talk must have a reason, a purpose, or it doesn’t belong there.

Our dialogue must advance our plot, reveal our characters and their motivation, and help establish mood, emotion and tone. It also replaces narration.

Look at your dialog and see if it fulfills at least one of these. If it doesn’t, you might not need it, and it is taking up valuable space. Replace it with something that does.

We have lived in a few different Arabic-speaking countries now, and we aren’t sure if this has been good or bad for our Arabic skills.  We started off in Jordan for two years where we studied the Jordanian dialect as well as the Modern Standard Arabic which is what people read and write, but rarely speak.  Next we spent two years in Tunisia where the spoken dialect seemed to be about 100% different from what we learned.  At first, we didn’t understand anything people were saying to us.  It seems some people understood some of what we were saying, as they compared it to Egyptian Arabic which is widely known throughout the Arab world due to Egypt’s high movie output.  Well, just about the time we were getting comfortable in the Tunisian dialect, we moved to Egypt.  Egyptian Arabic is much closer to Jordanian Arabic, so we were excited to be “coming back” to what we learned in a sense, but the problem is, Tunisian Arabic is what is on our tongues.  We have been adjusting over these last couple months, and some things came easier than others, but I wanted to try to give some examples of these dialect differences to either let you sympathize with us, or at least get a good laugh.

One of the major ways Egyptian Arabic differs from both Jordanian and Tunisian, is in the pronunciation of one letter, the “jeem.”  We see/hear this letter and pronounce it as a “j” sound, but Egyptians change it to “geem” or the “g” sound.  This has provided some difficulties in adjusting.  For instance, we weren’t sure if our names would be Gulie and Gayson here, but it does seem they make allowances for western names as we’ve actually met many people with the letter “J” at the beginning of their name. 

One word I use a lot is “zawgi” which means “my husband.”  This word has been tricky for me. You see, in Jordan, we learned this word for husband, but with the “j” sound – “zawji.”  Then, in Tunisia, they use a totally different word, “rajul,” which we translated “man” in Jordan.  So every time I said “rajuli” in Tunisia, I translated it in my head, “my man.”  It fits, but it’s not quite the same as my husband.  So, now we came to Egypt, and I have to remember that they don’t use “rajuli,” for husband, and if they did, it would be “raguli,” which to them would mean, “my man,” but they use “zawji” like I learned in Jordan but pronounce it “zawgi.”  This is still my thought process almost every time I use this word, and people wonder why it takes me so long to say “my husband.”  You would think I was a newlywed and am just learning to talk about having a husband, but we’ve been married for 7 years and I’ve been referring to him as my husband, in Arabic, for about 5; it just hasn’t been the same word all five years!

The original word we learned for house was “bait”.  Not too hard.  Well, in Tunisia, they use a different word for house, “daar”.  It wasn’t a new word to us; in Jordan we learned the word “daar” also means house, it’s just that’s not what the Jordanians used.  So, the Tunisians used “daar” for house and used the word “bait” for room.  It took us awhile to get that.  It’s an important word to learn quickly as you are house hunting because you are looking for a certain number of bedrooms and we kept saying “gurfitayn”, meaning two rooms in Jordanian, but they were looking for “baitayn” which to us meant “two houses.”  We certainly didn’t need two houses.  Well, that was Tunisia.  Now we are in Egypt, and they again use the word “bait” for house. Good.  The problem is they have a new word for room which I don’t know too well yet, and since I don’t know it well, I automatically fall back on Tunisian, “bait.”  So the other day when a friend was visiting and looking at our apartment, I was telling her a little about our apartment search and that we saw many apartments with either “two houses” or “three houses” in them.  Whoops.  I kind of realized it as I was talking, but then couldn’t think of the Egyptian word for room.  I think she got the idea, though, but it made me feel kind of silly.  Gotta learn that word for room!

Here’s another word I messed up the other day.  We use the verb, “to go” a lot.  In Jordan, we learned to say “aruuh” for “I go.”  It conjugates differently depending on who is speaking, but the root is the same.  So we got used to that using it there.  Then we went to Tunisia and they use the word “amshi” for “I go.”  Now, we learned this verb in Jordan, but it meant, “I walk.”  Subtle difference.  The words could be used interchangeably at times…especially since we do walk so much here, but it doesn’t always fit.  However, it seems they just used this one word for both meanings in Tunisia and you sometimes had to specify “walking” over “going” by saying, “with my legs.” Now we’re in Egypt and we’re back to “aruuh” for “to go” and “amshi” for “to walk.”  But since my Tunisian is on the tip of my tongue, I was talking to my landlord the other day about getting us a refrigerator … stay tuned for this story to come … and told her that if she wanted me to, I would “walk” with her to the large store (which is located about a 30 minute drive away.)  She kind of looked surprised and said, “Carrefour is very far!”  It didn’t quite occur to me yet that I used the wrong word, I just said, oh I know it’s far, I don’t mean “walk, but walk.”  It wasn’t until after I left that I realized I was using the word for two meanings and she was only hearing one.

All of this is further complicated when I Skype with one of my Tunisian friends.  She kind of laughs at me as I’m trying to speak Tunisian, but keep throwing in Egyptian words here and there.  Fortunately she understands me well, but it’s a big mind game trying to learn the Egyptian and at the same time, not totally forget the Tunisian.  Welcome to the Arabic language … it’s beautiful, and at times, painful!

I was unlocking my bike after choir practice last night (I know, I know, I’m turning into a character out of the Archers’) ready to cycle home.

‘Is it just you all alone in the dark on that bike?’ someone asked as I prepared to cycle off. ‘You’d better watch out for the bogles.’

As I turned out of the village with its streetlights and into the very dark road that runs beneath the trees, I reflected that bogles had better glow in the dark because otherwise I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of seeing them, bike light or no bike light. Working out where I am in the road is challenge enough at night, even with a fullish moon and the glow of Bigtown on the horizon.

It also would help if I had an idea what a ‘bogle’ was. Or is. Perhaps it is the thing that is posting comment spam to one of my old blogs at the rate of about one ad for fake replica watches a minute. In which case, if I catch it, it had better watch out for me…

View of Castle Hill from Sikh Temple in Springwood

With transport being so readily available and travel instant, people are diluting their accents to an acceptable form as they are no longer restricted to living and working in one town or city. I am born and bred in ‘uddersfield, and with fellow Yorkshire men and lasses my accent will go back to the Yorkshire form it should be, but in the workplace and even on the phone I find I am speaking the way one should… but how should one speak? and how long will we be able to keep our regional accents and dialects without diluting them to the extent they no longer exist?

Oral history is the way in which this can be preserved. For years now oral historians have been recoding and archiving hundreds if not thousands of interviews with people on subjects of the past. Going back to World War I and the experience of the soldiers in the trenches, World War II and the migration of the South Asian community after the collapse of the British Empire. Here are just a few of the subject areas in which people have delved into, but listening back to the sound archives makes you appreciate the language and tones in which ordinary people communicated in. How times have changed, how diverse language has become, with the Oxford dictionary taking on new words constantly, words originating from across cultures and continents, it is something to think of. Try recording your older generations on your phone and see if you can catch a glimpse of the past through their voice.

The International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA) is a collection of primary source dialect and accent recordings for the performing arts. You might want to submit your own recording if you have a dialect that’s not included on the site. Pompey, perhaps? 

http://web.ku.edu/~idea/index.htm

[Thanks to RW for this suggestion]

“Bittersweet Bilingualism“. I always did wonder how parents make the conscious decision for their kids to be bilingual? To me, it’s always been a cultural thing more than an advantage. I am of Chinese descent therefore it makes sense that I should learn the Chinese language to better understand my roots and my culture. There are some parents who think differently. They have the full intention of allowing their kids to be bilingual so that they can have the advantage they never had.

Having grown up in a multiracial country where Malay is the national language, and each ethnic group speaks in their own dialect, it has always been just a distinction between the cultures. However, these days with the opening of free trade in China, more and more parents of different descent are putting their children through Chinese primary schools so that they would learn Chinese as their primary language – therefore setting themselves apart from the rest in their community.

Before I was unleashed into the main stream schooling system in Malaysia, I only knew English. I had the concept of ‘other languages’ but they were just another language. The concept of multiple ‘other languages’ completely deluded me.

My parents, in the case of me and my brother, made a conscious decision to do it that way. To them, who graduated from university in Canada, they wanted us to have the advantage of speaking English, which they reckon was the most important language, natively. It worked for me, but not so much for my brother. Interesting, considering we were brought up in the same environment by the same parents.

I then continued to pick up Chinese at my primary school where we were prohibited from speaking any other language other than Chinese. This rule did not apply when we were taking language classes. Through that strict regiment I picked up Chinese in a gusto. In Year 1, I was exposed to Chinese and Malay, then in Year 3 English was added as an additional subject. We were taught ABCs in Year 3. For me it was child’s play. Interestingly enough, English was taught in English, unlike in countries such as Japan and Taiwan where English is taught in their native language.

While at school, I also picked up Cantonese which is a Chinese dialect and can now speak fluently. Some of my Hong Kong friends even say that I speak it like a native. Later on in high school, I proceeded to learn Japanese as a fifth language. I find that bilingualism is not necessarily easy for everyone. I myself spent years at Chinese primary school, and I would not even endeavor to say that my Chinese is anywhere near satisfactory levels.

The point, however, lies with the fact of whether or not excelling at a language is important as opposed to being able to communicate effectively in it. To me, I think that’s all that matters. Communication, be it sign language or klingon, is just a way in which human beings interact. It is certainly a convenience, but also a convenience we can live without in this day and age where pocket sized translators exist.

More on “Being a bilingual“.

Omda den Misten, bie momenten ook Rauwtjie genoemd, gin inspiratie eet goa kik hier moa een twa schrieven. In ‘t Brugs, het is een ki een twa anders. Woa zegt ge? Je verstoat ta nie? Spietig hé. Wa dak zoen willen over schrieven is nie echt iets origineels. Er worden hier in da bloglandje stokskes deure gegeven me muziek als oenderwerp. Liedjies da je content makt en liedjies da je triestig makt. Ik goan moa beginnen met de eerste zekers? Liedjies da je content makt. Ewel, ik weten nie wa dat giender doa van viend enmoa er zien liedjies me vil humor dak vree geestig vienden. ‘t moet doavoren nie persée parodieën zien op bestaande liedjies, oal is dat ook geestig. ‘T eerste liedjie kennen oal bienna gil mien leven. ‘Tis eentje van de Dubliners. Je wit wel: die bende Ieren die al joaren ziengen en oak wel leute kunnen maken. Nu moek joender er wel bie vertellen dak oal gil mien leven een bitje moeite aan om da liedje te verstaon. Die Ieren klappen een bitje moeilijk. En doa bie: ze ziengen ziender over zeven dagen moa ze raken ziender moa toe an vriedag. Van moandag toe vriedag: da zien der toch mo 5 dagen? Gelukkig bestaot er nu zoiets gelik Goegel. Zoekt nen ki noa de tekst van da liedjie en je begriept aol een bitje beters woarom ze de zoaterdag en de zundag weg geloaten en.

Je wit giender verzekers oal langer dak een bitje zot zien van Star Trek. Den Misten oak eigenlik. Da wil wel nie zeggen da wiender nie een ki kunnen lachen met ons zelven (en anderen oak natuurlik). ‘T volgend liedjie is eentje dat lacht met Star Trek en dus eigenlijk oak een bitje me Star Trek fans. ‘T is eigenlijk oak aol een oet liedjie en gemakt door Iengelse. Iengelse humor – tis een twa aparts.  Moa k’en vinden ‘t nog altied geestig. Giender oak?

Den dezen ek oal een ki gebruukt. Voe Mencks roze blogweke of zo’n twa. ‘K een wetent eigenlijk nie me zo goet. Soit, omda op YouTube nogal winnig goe klieptjes stoan voe de liedjies dak hier willen zetten goak den dienen hier moa were zetten. ‘T is eigenlik wel een geestig liedjie oal is verzekers nie iedereens goeste.

Meschiensten ziek nu tevele bezig me de klieptjes in plekke van de muziek en doek nu nie helemoale gelik d’andere bloggers gelik Elke of Margo of Menck en zovoorts da gedoan en. Ken eigenlijk aoltied een beetje anders gewist dan de reste. Oak ot over muziek gien waorek altied anders dan de meeste menshen. Moa ik zien opgegroed me een voader die een groate collectie ploaten had goande van klassieke muziek noa bloes, djass, rock en popmuziek. Een groate keuze en smoake. Pak doa noch een moeder bie die liever noa opera lustert en ginder kunnen verzekers wel verstoan dak een bitje vanolles geiren hoaren. Gelik da Iengels Madammeke da in Ierland is upgegroeid moa eigenlijk van Gregorgië. Je ke ur verzekers wel. Een schoon wuffetje dat schone ka ziengen en geestige liedjies schrieft. Allez Elke: je meugt er up dansen wei.

Je mag gerust zien. Tis nie omdat hier een twa zetten van Katie Melua dak nu goan beginnen me men ander lief. Dus gin liedjie van Lene Marlin. Neen, zo erg ist nog nie.   In de plekke nog een Iengels groeptje dat voe één van under liedjies een geestig klieptje gemoakt en. Of loaten maken want die gasten kunnen verzekers allene moa muziek moaken. Iedereen zien stiel hé. Tis verzekers omdat een bitje sciencefictionachtig is dak het geiren zien. Giender oak?

Ik wilden hier nog wa zetten in ‘t Vlams. Of int Nederlands. Olst moa geestig is. Wa peinsen giender da ‘t volgende liedjie?

Een utsmieter om te stoppen: een bitje klappen over liedjies. Toon hermans klapt hier over de teksten van sommige liedjies en hoe dom da sommige van die teksten eigenlijk kunnen zien. Doa zien er eigenlik vele van. Voaral die liefdesliedjies. Doa moe je toch echt een ki noa toe luusteren. Je lacht je echt een breuke.

Tussen haakjes: ben ik de enige die vind dat WordPress de laatste weken zo verdomd traag is?

]]> http://kurtisneilmcinnis.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/spoken-by-my-maternal-grandfather-august-27-1994/ Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:37:03 +0000 kmcinnis http://kurtisneilmcinnis.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/spoken-by-my-maternal-grandfather-august-27-1994/

My first dialect poem.  One day while working at my family’s business, I overheard my grandfather telling my mother these words.  It was simple, just information, small talk.  But when I heard it, it was one of those quickening moments when your eyes widen and you scramble to find a pen and paper.  I wrote down the “poem” on the back of a receipt, exactly as I heard it.  I love the old-timey feel of the words he used.

__________

I fount an old sack

Maw gave me

back ‘fore she died.

It had a few pennies,

some lucky charms,

and a foolsgold rock.

(1994)

Some of Leeds finest MCs on one track check it out and leave comments folks.

Big tune massive lyrics listen up and comments

Big tune which is also featured on the upcoming mixtape Dawn Of a New Era (D.O.N.E) this project is packed with some raw talent from some of leeds finest to manchester`s finest listen out for the mixtape. Listen up and comment

Listen up and leave comments

During the feudal days, knowedge of Latin and Greek was the criterion for recognising a gentleman, as a learned man. English was not considred a language. There was much opposition to translating bible into English.

Almost a similar approach was noticeable in India. Here Samskrutam was the language of the elite.  All dicussions and philosophical debates were in that language, including poetry, drama etc. The poet who first wrote his poetry in Malayalam was rediculed as a half poet! Malaayala had no grammar even. It was just a dialect. More than half of its words were borrowed from Tamil. When, the writers began using it, they added Samskrutam words liberally. Today, it is a mixture of both. English phrases were blindly translated into Samskrutised Malayalam. Konakam, a piece of cloth used as cover to hide private parts, became coupeenam.
Kodungallur Kunjukuttan Thampuran (K.T.), a close friend of my maternal grandfather, who was very intelligent and took interest in literature and arts, from whom I must have inherited  something in this direction, translated the whole MAHABHARATAM into simple Malayalam sans Samskrutam words. I strongly recommend this book to every Keralite, as our great epic is not only the greatest anti-war propaganda, but it is a source of wisdom.

They say, there is nothing that is not found in this book.
There is an anecdot about how K.T. was doing his translation.
Hearing about this great venture, the populr poet Vallathol, who established  Kalamandalam, at Cheruthuruti, Shoranur, near Bharatapuzha, went to see him. K.T., who was concentrating on a thick volume and dictating to three men well versed in the art of hearing, retaining in memory a whole stanza and writing down at lightning speed, as there is no short hand in my language. Vallathol thought he was dictating what he had already written in the book. When he came close, his surprise knew no bounds to see that K.T. WAS INDEED CONCENTATING ON THE SAMSKRUTAM TEXT AND DICTATING THE MALAYALAM VERSION !
As he cannot wait even for a moment, he engaged three men. He took no time in doing the tranlation into Malayalam. If his writers forgot something and wanted K.T. TO REPEAT A PARTIULAR STANZA, HE WOLD SAY A NEW  ONE !
Now, if some one is able to perform such a feat, he will find a mention in the guinnes BOOK OF RECORDS