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Multimodal Communication
in Young Multilingual
Children
BILINGUAL EDUCATION & BILINGUALISM
Series Editors: Nancy H. Hornberger, University of Pennsylvania, USA
and Wayne E. Wright, Purdue University, USA

Bilingual Education and Bilingualism is an international, multidisciplinary

series publishing research on the philosophy, politics, policy, provision
and practice of language planning, Indigenous and minority language
education, multilingualism, multiculturalism, biliteracy, bilingualism
and bilingual education. The series aims to mirror current debates and
discussions. New proposals for single-authored, multiple-authored, or
edited books in the series are warmly welcomed, in any of the following
categories or others authors may propose: overview or introductory
texts; course readers or general reference texts; focus books on particular
multilingual education program types; school-based case studies; national
case studies; collected cases with a clear programmatic or conceptual
theme; and professional education manuals.

All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed.

Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications
can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to
Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1
2AW, UK.
BILINGUAL EDUCATION & BILINGUALISM: 136

Multimodal
Communication in
Young Multilingual
Children
Learning Beyond Words

Jieun Kiaer

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS
Bristol • Jackson
DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/KIAER3337
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Names: Kiaer, Jieun, author.
Title: Multimodal Communication in Young Multilingual Children:
Learning Beyond Words/Jieun Kiaer.
Description: Bristol; Jackson: Multilingual Matters, [2023] | Series:
Bilingual Education & Bilingualism: 136 | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Summary: ‘This longitudinal study explores young
children’s language acquisition in Korean-English multilingual
households, investigating how children acquire multiple strategies of
verbal and non-verbal communication and use a range of multimodal
resources to communicate effectively with members of their family’ –
Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022044347 (print) | LCCN 2022044348 (ebook) | ISBN
9781800413337 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800413344 (pdf) | ISBN
9781800413351 (ePub)
Subjects: LCSH: Multilingualism in children. | Translanguaging
(Linguistics) | Korean language – Acquisition. | English language – Acquisition.
Classification: LCC P115.2 .K53 2023 (print) | LCC P115.2 (ebook) |
DDC – 495.7/04221083 – dc23/eng/20221208
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022044347
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022044348
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-80041-333-7 (hbk)
Multilingual Matters
UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.
USA: Ingram, Jackson, TN, USA.
Website: www.multilingual-matters.com
Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters
Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com
Copyright © 2023 Jieun Kiaer.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher.
The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that
are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable
forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy,
preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification.
The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has
been granted to the printer concerned.
Typeset by Riverside Publishing Solutions.
Contents

Figures vii
Acknowledgements ix
Notes on Romanisation xi
Notes on Videos xiii
Preface xv

1 Everyday Talk: Beyond Languages and Cultures 1

1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Researching Asian–English Multilingualism 3
1.3 How are Family Languages Made? 5
1.4 Translanguaging in Everyday Talk 7
1.5 Havens of Translanguaging: Home and the Community 9
1.6 Beyond Words 9
1.7 Data Collection 10
1.8 Overview of the Book 12
2 Linguistic Tapestry of a Multilingual Family 15
2.1 Introduction 15
2.2 Weaving a Linguistic Tapestry 18
2.3 Translanguaging Competence 26
2.4 Making Meanings: Translingual Collaboration
between Father and Daughter 29
2.5 A Typical Breakfast Talk 35
2.6 Summary 40
3 Learning Together: A Case Study 41
3.1 Learning and Making Languages Together 41
3.2 Translanguaging in Mother–Daughter Reading Practice 45
3.3 Summary 58
4 Attitudes and Emotions 59
4.1 Pragmatic Awareness in Young Children 60
4.2 Language Awareness 64
4.3 Switching Accents to Accommodate Others 73
4.4 Korean vs. English – Comfy vs. Oomphy 76
4.5 Summary 79

v
vi Multimodal Communication in Young Multilingual Children

5 Politeness Matters 80
5.1 Defining Politeness 81
5.2 Honorifics and Speech Styles in Korean 85
5.3 More Than Words 92
5.4 Multilingual Politeness 96
5.5 Summary 104
6 Talking with Parents 106
6.1 Mother Tongue? Parents’ Tongues? 107
6.2 Family Language as Social Practice 109
6.3 Diversity in Family Language Practice 112
6.4 Relations Matter 118
6.5 Summary 124
7 Talking with Grandparents, Wider Family and Carers 125
7.1 Maintaining Heritage Languages 127
7.2 Cultural Activities 131
7.3 Metalinguistic Awareness and Language Socialisation 132
7.4 The Importance and Challenges of Digital Connectivity 134
7.5 A Joint Effort: Grandfather and Grandchildren 136
7.6 Summary 143
8 Sibling and Peer Talk 145
8.1 Varying Concepts of Siblings and Peers 145
8.2 The Importance of Peer Talk 147
8.3 The Language of Play 153
8.4 Translanguaging Practice among Siblings and Peers 156
8.5 Summary 162

Epilogue: Towards a Culture of Translanguaging 163

References166
Index171
Figures

1.1 Lexicon of five-year-old Hyun-woo 6

2.1 Jessie shrugs in response to her mother’s question 23
2.2 Five languages at the table 24
2.3 Jessie puts her finger to her mouth while thinking
of an answer 33
2.4 Jessie touches her throat to explain to Ian that
Daniel has a sore throat 34
2.5 Ian clarifies that he understands Daniel has a
sore throat by touching his throat 34
2.6 Jessie watching her older sister at the
breakfast table 35
3.1 A page from Yeoni’s Day Out in Seoul 45
3.2 Jessie bringing a turquoise-coloured pencil crayon 48
3.3 Jessie pointing at ‘rich people’ 50
3.4 Korean women washing clothes 51
3.5 Jessie bringing lamp 53
5.1 Fiery subtitle used by a Korean TV show to show how
shocking neo (너 ‘you’ casual) is when used to refer
to one’s husband 98
5.2 Sarah’s letter to her cousin 100
7.1 Anna and David complain that grandma isn’t a real
grandma, unbeknownst to grandma 126
7.2 Reasons for KE children wanting to learn Korean 128
7.3 Sarah’s Hangul mnemonic chart129
7.4 Sarah using Hangul to write to Korean family130
7.5 Dumpling making tradition on Lunar New Year’s Eve132
7.6 FaceTime communication with Korean family135
7.7 Jessie wiggles pen in front of paper to indicate that
she wants Grandad to write something for her139
7.8 After calling Grandad (‘Dandan’), Jessie points at the
paper to indicate what she wants Grandad to do139

vii
viii Multimodal Communication in Young Multilingual Children

7.9 Jessie points at the window to direct Grandad’s

attention at the moon, before saying ‘moon’140
7.10 Grandad directing Jessie’s attention to her
mum for guidance140
7.11 ‘Can I get um, pink- moves finger one place
pan- moves finger one place een- moves finger
one place juh?’141
7.12 Jessie holds up scissors and exclaims ‘bbang!’142
8.1 Jessie plays with a toy mouse and some tickets
while talking in English153

viii
Acknowledgements

So many friends and colleagues helped and encouraged me to continue

this project and, as I mention in the book, it isn’t complete but ongoing.
I am grateful to Youngshin Jung who looked after my two daughters
with love and kindness. I was commuting from London to Oxford with
no time to see my children sometimes, but often Mrs Jung left a small
memo for me saying that Sarah had learned this word today or Jessie had
said this word. She was like a mother to me and a grandma to my kids.
A big thank you to her and her husband.
My Korean friends living in a small Korean community in London
also provided a safe place for my kids to grow as bilinguals. Thank you
to them also for their contribution to this book. They provided valuable
comments that have demonstrated that we learn from our mistakes and
that sharing is a great source of power to overcome difficulties when
living as multilingual families.
I am very grateful to Louise Hossien for helping me at every stage
of this project. Thanks also go to the wonderful editors of Multilingual
Matters.
I dedicate this book to my late father Mr Taehoon Joe and my late
father-in-law Stanley Kiaer whom I, together with my family, miss very
much.

ix
Notes on Romanisation

The Revised Romanisation system has been used throughout the text.
Korean names have been Romanised in a surname (space) first name
format, where a two syllable first name may have a hyphen between the
two syllables.
Where interviews have been conducted in Korean, I have provided
the original hangul and English translation. While the Romanisations of
in-text Korean terms have been provided, Romanisations of long inter-
view transcripts will not be provided, as I believe that they will be of
little use to non-Korean speaking readers.

xi
Notes on Videos

The main body of evidence in this book is videos of my own family com-
municating together. I have uploaded most of these videos to YouTube
and inserted the links into the text. However, for privacy reasons, not all
videos are included.

List of Videos in Order of Appearance:

https://tinyurl.com/multilingual3
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual4
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual5
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual6
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual7
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual8
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual9
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual10
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual12
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual13
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual14
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual15
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual16
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual17
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual18a
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual19
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual22a
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual23
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual24a
https://tinyurl.com/multilingual25

xiii
Preface

This book shares the language journey on which my family has

embarked and which it is still on. I used to think children learn their
parents’ languages. I have since found that there are no teachers and no
students; we all learn every day from each other. No-one speaks a perfect
language, but our language arguably becomes perfect, tailored for our
own unique needs.
My Korean-English family develops our own languages, mixing them
together just as we cook food that is neither Korean nor English. In the
process of tailoring our language, words matter, but so do gesture and
prosody. We have learnt how different ingredients from each language
carry particular nuances, be they emotional or attitudinal. It’s a bit
like seasoning. You might add some sugar to a particularly sour sauce
to tone it down, just as my children might add Korean address terms to
create solidarity when talking to a Korean person, even if the rest of the
sentence is in English. Different words and gestures bring new meanings,
and my family negotiates these meanings every day.
Crossing languages and combining the resources that we have is
comparable to making a jigsaw puzzle. As a multilingual family, we make
meanings using the puzzle pieces between and beyond our languages
and cultures. In this practice of mixing and sharing our languages, we
grow and nurture them. We learn not only how to speak and express
ourselves but also how to listen and care for others. This is not a journey
that we make as a family alone. Our languages are also built through our
encounters with others, such as friends, neighbours, relatives. In the AI
era, virtual assistants also interact with and impact us. On this journey,
we also face conflict with ourselves and with others. It is not just words
and languages that we must take into consideration: the cultures that we
belong to also matter greatly. Our free and border-crossing manner of
communication can be misunderstood as being incorrect and broken.
Although it may look broken at first glance, I want to suggest we have
found the perfect language of our own. It helps us to find our sense of
belonging and identity that enriches our lives. I hope this book provides
some insight into multilingual families as they navigate and explore their
multilingual and multicultural world through language.

xv
1 Everyday Talk: Beyond
Languages and Cultures

1.1 Introduction
Language is closely tied to identity. When my 12-year-old daughter
introduces herself, she says, ‘My mum is Korean. My dad is half
Danish, a quarter Scottish, and a quarter English, which makes me half
Korean, a quarter Danish, an eighth Scottish and an eighth English’.
My husband is English, but his family history is equally complex: his
father’s grandparents were from Denmark, his grandmother was born
and raised in Shanghai and his mother was Scottish. It’s not just us,
most people’s family histories are complex and diverse. For instance, in
our neighbourhood, Irene is from Catalonia and Theo is from Denmark,
but both moved to England. Because of this, their son Luke can speak
Danish and Catalan, although he speaks mainly English when he goes to
nursery. Their family speaks more than three languages on a daily basis,
though mainly English. Because of their family history, their version of
English is a little bit different from ours, as they mix Spanish, Catalan
and Danish words into their English. Our other neighbours, Henry and
Tess, are from Hungary and the Philippines, respectively. Tess’s family
is originally from the Philippines, but they moved to Los Angeles when
Tess was a young girl. Tess then moved to the UK. Henry used to live in
Budapest and speaks Hungarian and English, while Tess speaks English
with a bit of Tagalog. Their son, Lorenzo, speaks English in nursery but
can also speak and understand a bit of Tagalog and Hungarian, which
he uses when they visit his grandparents. For my neighbours, English is
the language that binds everyone in the family together, however, it is not
necessarily the language that each member, particularly the parents, finds
the most comfortable or familiar. Families like these exist all over the
globe. Over the past 20 years, the percentage of students in UK schools
whose first language is not English has almost doubled. In 2002, 10% of
pupils spoke English as an additional language (NALDIC, 2012). As of
2021, 19.3% of pupils have been reported to have a first language other
than English (United Kingdom Statistics Authority, 2021).

1
2 Multimodal Communication in Young Multilingual Children

Today, our world is more multilingual than ever before. There are
also more multilingual families than ever. According to Grosjean (2010),
more than half of the world’s population is bilingual, although I would
recommend taking these figures with a pinch of salt as it is extremely
difficult to measure precisely. I have personally been surprised by the
number of bilinguals that I encounter in my daily life in the UK. I was
surprised to learn that pupils at my daughter’s small primary school in
Oxfordshire speak over 40 different languages at home. My twelve-year-
old daughter, who is now in Year 7, once told me that there are no real
English people in her class. By this, she meant that none of the pupils in
her class were monolingual in English. It’s an exciting reality: everyone
speaks English at her school, yet everyone has a different linguistic and
cultural background.
Each multilingual family communicates in their own unique way
at home. Families mould and build their languages through interacting
with each other. It is an on-going process that involves children, their
parents and the wider communities of which they are part. This book
aims to focus on how children and their families embark on a journey
together, learning from each other and nurturing their language. For
most multilingual families, the most convenient and comfortable way of
speaking is to mix languages. The mixing phenomenon, which is coined
either as code switching or translanguaging, is found not only in young
children but also in their parents and wider communities they belong
to. This isn’t transitional but is found consistently in everyday talk by
multilingual families throughout their lifetime. Through this kind of
language mixing, each family creates a unique language that is different
from the languages that monolingual families speak. Language mixing is
often viewed as incorrect language use, for instance, the use of Konglish
in Korean societies (Kiaer, 2019a). Overseas Koreans and their children
are often pressured by their Korean relatives and families to speak
‘proper’ Korean, meaning just Korean without any added English. Yet,
mixing languages is the defining attribute of multilingual families that
fundamentally enables them to build their life together. In doing so, they
will better understand each other, find identities and a sense of belonging
as those who share life trajectories between and beyond multiple
languages and cultures. This practice is best understood through the lens
of translanguaging.
Translanguaging characterises multilingual individuals’ language and
literacy practices, insofar as they not only go back and forth between
two languages, but also flexibly and creatively interweave various
linguistic features from two or more languages in their language and
literacy practices (García & Li, 2014). In households where more than
one language is spoken, children seamlessly travel around languages and
create borderless languages of their own. They are always translating,
always experimenting and always learning, through dynamic multimodal
 Everyday Talk: Beyond Languages and Cultures 3

interaction. However, they also know the differences between the

languages, particularly their nuanced meanings and cultural norms.
They translanguage creatively, using all the verbal and non-verbal
resources available to them to create meaning. Flexibility and creativity
are indeed at the heart of language practice, as we shall observe in this
book. Hence, in this book, I will adopt the term translanguaging to
further explain the practice of language mixing in multilingual families.
Through research on Korean–English (henceforth KE) children and
their family language, I will show the innovative dimension of their
interaction that goes beyond just a verbal exchange. A KE child is a
child who lives and speaks between and beyond Korean and English at
home in their everyday life. Also, as I shall explore, language mixing or
translanguaging on a pragmatic level requires a holistic understanding
of languages and cultures. In this sense, as Zhu Hua and Li Wei have
argued, I will move away from focusing on multilingualism from the
perspective of language maintenance and language transfer, and instead
view multilingualism as an ‘experience’ that needs to ‘be studied
holistically and multidimensionally’ (2016: 665). Hence, this book
investigates the complex linguistic tapestries of KE children from a
holistic viewpoint, focusing on the ways in which these multilingual
children communicate multimodally in various contexts.

1.2 Researching Asian–English Multilingualism

The holistic and multidimensional approach matters particularly in
studying young Asian multilingual children who grow in the English-
speaking world as the languages and cultures they engage in are very
different from each other (Chapter 5). Although the young Asian
population and Asian–English families are growing in the English-
speaking world, to date, the research on multilingual children and their
family languages remains predominantly Euro-centric. According to
a report published by the United Kingdom Statistics Authority, over
one in five children now have a mother tongue other than English,
and this figure has risen steadily over the past few years (UK Gov,
2021). The most spoken languages in the UK other than English are
Polish, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Arabic, French and Chinese.
Notably, three quarters of the most spoken languages in the UK are
Asian languages, and yet there has been very little linguistic study
of non-European and non-American multilingual households. The
situation is similar in other English-speaking countries. According to
Canada’s 2021 census results published by Statistics Canada, there has
been an increase from 9.7% in 2000 to 12.7% in 2021 in the number
of people who primarily speak another language at home other than
English and French, in particular languages from South Asia, East
Asia, Southeast Asia and Central Asia. Among the top 12 languages
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with a tempered or “puddled” earth, which formed a close and
extremely compact mass—and the mound raised over it. This mound
or hillock was called a hlœw, or a beorh, beorgh, or bearw, from the
first of which the name now commonly used, low, is derived, and
from the last the equally common name barrow originates.

Fig. 325.

With the females, necklaces, rings, ear-rings, brooches, chatelaines,

keys, buckets, caskets, beads, combs, pins, needles, bracelets,
thread-boxes, tumblers, and a variety of other articles were found.
With the males, swords, spears, knives, shields, buckles, brooches,
querns, draught-men, etc., etc., are found. The warrior was usually
laid, in his full dress, flat on his back (as already spoken of); his
spears lying on his right side, his sword and knife on his left, and his
shield laid on the centre of his body. The accompanying engraving
(fig. 325) of a grave opened by the late Mr. Bateman, on Lapwing
Hill, will pretty tolerably illustrate this mode of Anglo-Saxon burial.
Beneath the bones of the skeleton were “traces of light-coloured
hair, as if from a hide, resting upon a considerable quantity of
decayed wood, indicating a plank of some thickness, or the bottom
of a coffin. At the left of the body was a long and broad iron sword,
enclosed in a sheath made of thin wood covered with ornamental
leather. Under or by the hilt of the sword was a short iron knife, and
a little way above the right shoulder were two small javelin heads,
four and a half inches long, of the same metal, which had lain so
near each other as to become united by corrosion. Among the
stones which filled the grave, and about a foot from the bottom,
were many objects of corroded iron, including nine loops of hoop
iron (as shown in the engraving) about an inch broad, which had
been fixed to thick wood by long nails; eight staples, or eyes, which
had been driven through a plank, and clenched; and one or two
other objects of more uncertain application, all which were dispersed
at intervals round the corpse throughout the length of the grave,
and which may therefore have been attached to a bier or coffin in
which the deceased was conveyed to the grave from some distant
place. Indications existed of the shield having been placed in its
usual position over the centre of the body, but no umbone was in
this instance found. The mounds are usually, as in this instance, very
low, frequently not being raised more than a foot above the natural
surface of the ground. The earth was, as I have stated, usually
“puddled” or tempered with water, and thus the body in the grave
became closely imbedded in a compact and tenacious mass.”

That the tempering, or puddling, was accompanied with some

corrosive preparation, there can be little doubt; for it is a fact,
though a very remarkable one, that whilst the skeletons of the Celtic
period are found in good condition, and in some instances perfect
and sound, those of the Anglo-Saxons have, almost invariably,
entirely disappeared. Thus, in a Celtic barrow, the primary interment
of that period may be found in perfect condition, while the
secondary interment, that of the Anglo-Saxon, although some
centuries later in date, and some three or four feet nearer the
surface, will have decayed away and completely disappeared. Thus,
in a barrow at Wyaston, which had been raised over the body of a
Saxon lady, every indication of the body had disappeared, with the
exception of the enamel coating of the teeth, while a splendid
necklace of beads, a silver ring, silver ear-rings, and a silver brooch
or fibula, remained in situ where the flesh and bones had once been.
Another instance (to which I shall have occasion again to allude)
which may be named, was the barrow at Benty Grange—a mound
not more than two feet in elevation, but of considerable dimensions,
and surrounded by a small fosse or trench, raised over the remains
of a Saxon of high rank. In this mound, although a curious and
unique helmet, the silver mountings of a leather drinking-cup, some
highly interesting and beautiful enamelled ornaments, and other
objects, as well as indications of the garments, remained, not a
vestige of the body, with the exception of some of the hair, was to
be seen. The lovely and delicate form of the female and the form of
the stalwart warrior or noble had alike returned to their parent earth,
leaving no trace behind, save the enamel of her teeth and traces of
his hair alone, while the ornaments they wore and took pride in, and
the surroundings of their stations, remained to tell their tale at this
distant date. In a barrow at Tissington, in which the primary (Celtic)
interment was perfect, the later Saxon one had entirely disappeared,
while the sword and umbone of the shield remained as they had
been placed.

The mode of interment with the funeral fire, as well as the raising of
the barrow, is curiously illustrated by the opening of two Saxon
graves at Winster. A large wood fire had, apparently, been made
upon the natural surface of the ground. In this a part of the stones
to be used for covering the body, and some of the weapons of the
deceased, were burned. After the fire was exhausted the body was
laid on the spot where it had been kindled, the spear, sword, or what
not, placed about it, and the stones which had been burnt piled over
it. The soil was then heaped up to the required height to form the
mound.

Usually, of course, the graves contain only one body, but instances
occasionally occur in which two or more bodies have been buried at
the same time. For instance, at Ozengal a grave has been opened
which was found to contain two skeletons. They were those of a
man and a woman who were laid close together, side by side, with
their faces to each other. In another were three skeletons, those of a
man, a woman, and a little girl. The lady lay in the middle, her
husband on her right hand, and their little daughter on her left; they
lay arm in arm. In other cases two or more interments have been
found, usually lying side by side, on their backs.

In many Anglo-Saxon barrows, bones, thrown in indiscriminate

heaps or otherwise, are found at the top, over the original
interments. These are, very plausibly, conjectured to be the remains
of slaves or captives slain at the funeral, and thrown on the graves
of their master or mistress.

When the burial has been by cremation, the ashes, after the burning
of the body which is so graphically described in the extract I have
given from Beowulf, were collected together and placed in urns.
These were usually buried in small graves, and their mouths not
unfrequently covered with flat stones. Some very extensive
cemeteries where the burials have been by this mode, have been
discovered in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, and
other counties. With these it is very unusual to find any remains of
personal ornaments or weapons. Two extensive and remarkable
cemeteries of this kind have been discovered at Kingston and at
King’s Newton, both near Derby. At the first of these places an
extensive cemetery was uncovered in 1844, and resulted in the
exhumation of a large number of urns—indeed, so large a number
that, unfortunately, at least two hundred were totally destroyed by
the workmen before the fact of the discovery became known. On the
surface no indication of burials existed; but as the ground had, some
sixty years before, for a long period been under plough cultivation,
and as the mounds would originally have been very low, this is not
remarkable. The urns had been placed on the ground in shallow pits
or trenches. They were filled with burnt bones, and the mouth of
each had been covered with a flat stone. They were, when found,
close to the surface, so that the mounds could only have been
slightly elevated when first formed. Of the form of the urns I shall
have to speak later on. The cemetery at King’s Newton was
discovered during the autumn of 1867, and a large number of
fragmentary urns were exhumed. The mode of interment was
precisely similar to that at Kingston, and the urns were of the same
character as those there discovered. There were no traces, in either
instance, of mounds having been raised, although most probably
they had originally existed. To the pottery found in these cemeteries
I shall refer later on. Cremation was the predominating practice
among the Angles, including Mercia, and the modes of burning the
body, and of interment of the calcined bones in ornamental urns,
which I have described in the two cemeteries just spoken of, are
characteristic of that kingdom. King’s Newton is within three miles of
Repton (Repandune), the capital of the kingdom of Mercia, and the
burial place of Mercian kings, and Kingston is also but a few miles
distant.

In some cases the burial has been without urns—the ashes being
simply gathered together in a small heap in the grave, or on the
surface, and the mound raised over it.

I will now, as in the previous divisions, proceed to speak of the more

usual descriptions of relics which are found in the grave-mounds of
the Anglo-Saxons, and I will, as in those divisions, commence with
the fictile remains.
 CHAPTER XII.
Anglo-Saxon Period—Pottery, general characteristics of—Cinerary
Urns—Saxon Urn with Roman Inscription—Frankish and other
Urns—Cemeteries at King’s Newton, etc.—Mode of Manufacture
—Impressed Ornaments.

T HE pottery of the Anglo-Saxon period, so far as examples have

come down to us, are almost, if not entirely, confined to
sepulchral urns. We know, from the illuminated MSS. of the period,
to which we are accustomed to turn for information upon almost any
point, that other vessels—pitchers, dishes, etc.—were made and
used, but for those which have come down to us we are indebted to
the grave-mounds; and, in these, sepulchral vessels, almost
exclusively, are found to occur. Cinerary urns are, therefore, almost
the only known productions of the Saxon potteries, and these, like
those of the Celtic period, were doubtless, in most cases, made near
the spot where the burial took place, and were formed of the clays
of the neighbourhood. This is proved, incontestably, in the case of
the urns found at King’s Newton, where the bed of clay still exists,
and has very recently been used for common pottery purposes.
 Fig. 326.

The shapes of the cinerary urns are somewhat peculiar, and partake
largely of the Frankish form. Instead of being wide at the mouth, like
the Celtic urns, they are contracted, and have a kind of neck instead
of the overhanging lip or rim which characterizes so much of the
sepulchral pottery of that period. The urns are formed by hand, not
on the wheel, like so many of the Romano-British period, and they
are, as a rule, perhaps, more firmly fired than the Celtic ones. They
are usually of a dark-coloured clay, sometimes nearly black, at other
times they are dark brown, and occasionally of a slate or greenish
tint, produced by surface colouring. The general form of these
interesting fictile vessels will be best understood by reference to the
engravings which follow. One of these (on fig. 326) will be seen to
have projecting knobs or bosses, which have been formed by simply
pressing out the pliant clay from the inside with the hand. In other
examples these raised bosses take the form of ribs gradually
swelling out from the bottom, till, at the top they expand into semi-
egg-shaped protuberances. The ornamentation on the urns from
these cemeteries usually consists of encircling incised lines in bands
or otherwise, and vertical or zigzag lines arranged in a variety of
ways, and not unfrequently the knobs or protuberances of which I
have just spoken. Sometimes, also, they present evident attempts at
imitation of the Roman egg-and-tongue ornament. The marked
features of the pottery of this period are the frequency of small
punctured or impressed ornaments, which are introduced along with
the lines or bands with very good effect. These ornaments were
evidently produced by the end of a stick cut and notched across in
different directions so as to produce crosses and other patterns. In
some districts—especially in the East Angles—these vessels are
ornamented with simple patterns painted upon their surface in
white; but so far as my knowledge goes, no example of this kind of
decoration has been found in the Mercian cemeteries.

Of these urns—the East Anglian, etc.—Mr. Wright (to whom, and to

Mr. Roach Smith, is mainly due the credit of having correctly
appropriated them to the Anglo-Saxon period), thus speaks:—

“The pottery is usually made of a rather dark clay, coloured outside

brown or dark slate colour, which has sometimes a tint of green, and
is sometimes black. These urns appear often to have been made
with the hand, without the employment of the lathe; the texture of
the clay is rather coarse, and they are rarely well baked. The
favourite ornaments are bands of parallel lines encircling the vessel,
or vertical and zigzags, sometimes arranged in small bands, and
sometimes on a larger scale covering half the elevation of the urn;
and in this latter case the spaces are filled up with small circles and
crosses, and other marks, stamped or painted in white. Other
ornaments are met with, some of which are evidently unskilful
attempts at imitating the well-known egg-and-tongue and other
ornaments of the Roman Samian ware, which, from the specimens,
and even fragments, found in their graves, appear to have been
much admired and valued by the Anglo-Saxons. But a still more
characteristic peculiarity of the pottery of the Anglo-Saxon burial
urns consists in raised knobs or bosses, arranged symmetrically
round them, and sometimes forming a sort of ribs, while in the ruder
examples they become mere round lumps, or even present only a
slight swelling of the surface of the vessel.
Fig. 327.

Fig. 328.
 Fig. 329.

“That these vessels belong to the early Anglo-Saxon period is proved

beyond any doubt by the various objects, such as arms, personal
ornaments, etc., which are found with them, and they present
evident imitations both of Roman forms and of Roman
ornamentation. But one of these urns has been found accompanied
with remarkable circumstances, which not only show its relative
date, but illustrate a fact in the ethnological history of this early
period. Among the Faussett collection of Anglo-Saxon antiquities is
an urn which Bryan Faussett appears to have obtained from North
Elmham, in Norfolk, and which contained the bones of a child. It is
represented in the accompanying engraving (fig. 327), and will be
seen at once to be perfectly identical in character with the East
Anglian sepulchral urns. But Mr. Roach Smith, in examining the
various objects in the Faussett collection, preparatory to his edition
of Bryan Faussett’s ‘Inventorum Sepulchrale,’ discovered on one side
of this urn a Roman sepulchral inscription, which is easily read as
follows:—

D. M. ‘To the gods of the shades.

LAELIAE To Lælia
RVFINAE Rufina.
 VIXIT·A·XIII She lived thirteen years,
M·III·D·VI. three months, and six days.’

To this Roman girl, with a purely Roman name, belonged, no doubt,

the few bones which were found in the Anglo-Saxon burial urn when
Bryan Faussett received it, and this circumstance illustrates several
important as well as interesting questions relating to our early
history. It proves, in the first place, what no judicious historian now
doubts, that the Roman population remained in the island after the
withdrawal of the Roman power, and mixed with the Anglo-Saxon
conquerors; that they continued to retain for some time at least their
old manners and language, and even their Paganism and their burial
ceremonies, for this is the purely Roman form of sepulchral
inscriptions; and that, with their own ceremonies, they buried in the
common cemetery of the new Anglo-Saxon possessors of the land,
for this urn was found in an Anglo-Saxon burial ground. This last
circumstance had already been suspected by antiquaries, for traces
of Roman interment in the well-known Roman leaden coffins had
been found in the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Ozingell, in the Isle of
Thanet; and other similar discoveries have, I believe, been made
elsewhere. The fact of this Roman inscription on an Anglo-Saxon
burial urn, found immediately in the district of the Anglo-Saxon
cemeteries, which have produced so many of these East Anglian
urns, proves further that these urns belong to a period following
immediately upon the close of what we call the Roman period.”

The sepulchral vases found in the district of the middle Angles vary
but slightly in form from the East Anglian burial urns. An example is
given in fig. 328, from Chestersovers, in Warwickshire, where it was
found with an iron sword, a spear-head, and other articles of Anglo-
Saxon character.

“If we had not abundant proofs of the Anglo-Saxon character of this

pottery at home,” continues Mr. Wright, “we should find sufficient
evidences of it among the remains of the kindred tribes on the
Continent, the old Germans, or Alemanni, and the Franks. Some
years ago an early cemetery, belonging to the Germans, or
Alemanni, who then occupied the banks of the Upper Rhine, was
discovered near a hamlet called Selzen, on the northern bank of that
river, not far above Mayence, and the rather numerous objects found
in it are, I believe, preserved in the Mayence Museum. They were
communicated to the public by the brothers Lindenschmit, in a well-
illustrated volume published in 1848, under the title ‘Das
Germanische Todtenlager bei Selzen in der Provinz Reinhessen.’
When this book appeared in England, our antiquaries were
astonished to find in the objects discovered in the Alemannic
cemeteries of the country bordering on the Rhine a character
entirely identical with that of their own Anglo-Saxon antiquities, by
which the close affinity of the two races was strikingly illustrated.
More recently, the subject has been further illustrated in the
description by Ludwig Lindenschmit of the collection of the national
antiquities in the Ducal Museum of Hohenzollern, and in other
publications. About the same time with the first labours of the
Lindenschmits, a French antiquary, Dr. Rigollot, was calling attention
in France to similar discoveries in the cemeteries which the Teutonic
invaders of Picardy had left behind them, and in which he recognized
the same character as that displayed by the similar remains of the
Anglo-Saxons in our island. Similar discoveries have been made in
Burgundy and in Switzerland, the ancient country of the Helvetii;
and it is hardly necessary here to do more than mention the great
and valuable researches carried on by the Abbé Cochet among the
Frankish graves in Normandy. It has thus become an established fact
that the varied remains of the tribes, all of Teutonic descent, who
settled on the borders of the Roman empire along the whole extent
of the country from Great Britain to Switzerland, present the same
character and bear a close resemblance.”

A few figures will be sufficient to illustrate this resemblance as far as

regards the pottery, and these are here given, in which figs. 330 and
332 are Alemannic vases from the cemetery of Selzen. It will be
seen that they resemble exactly in form those East Anglian urns we
have given in our plate, and the same ornamentation is also found
among our Anglo-Saxon pottery. These urns are described as being
usually made of the clay of the neighbourhood, in most cases turned
on a lathe, but many of them imperfectly baked. They are found in
graves where the body had not undergone cremation, and were
used for containing articles of a miscellaneous description. In one
grave, at the feet of the skeleton of a gigantic warrior, was found
one of these urns, containing two bronze fibulæ, a comb, a number
of beads, a pair of shears, flints and steel, and a bronze ring. Fig.
334 is an urn procured at Cologne, and is slate-coloured, with an
ornament of circular stamps.

Fig. 331.
Fig. 332.
Fig. 330.

Fig. 333.

Fig. 334.

Figs. 331 and 333 are Frankish urns obtained by the Abbé Cochet
from Londinières in Normandy, and show at a glance the identity of
the Frankish pottery with the Germanic as well as with the Anglo-
Saxon. The first of these is surrounded with a row of the well-known
bosses, which are equally characteristic of the three divisions of this
Teutonic pottery, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, and Alemannic. Above
these bosses is an ornament identical with that of the East Anglian
urn with the sepulchral inscription, given on fig. 327. The urn
represented in fig. 331 has an ornament which is evidently an
imitation of the egg-and-tongue ornament so common on the
Roman pottery. The Abbé Cochet collected in the course of his
excavations in Normandy several hundreds of these Frankish urns,
which all present the same general character.

The next four examples are earthen vessels found in the lacustrine
habitations of Switzerland, of which so much has been written
during the last few years. Figs. 335, 336, and 337, are taken from
the plates illustrative of the communications of Dr. Ferdinand Keller
to the Transactions of the Antiquarian Society of Zurich, and fig. 338,
also from the Zurich Transactions, and found in a Pfahlbau, near
Allensbach on the Untersee, on the borders of Switzerland and
Germany. A single glance will show a great similarity of form with
those of the Anglo-Saxons from our own country.
 Fig. 339. Fig. 340.

The following engravings will exhibit a striking variety of cinerary

urns of the Anglo-Saxon period, from the Mercian cemetery at King’s
Newton. Fig. 339 is six and a quarter inches in height. It is
ornamented with encircling bands or lines and impressed ornaments.
In the upper band is a series of small circular indentations, with a
dot in the centre of each, and in the lower band are three rows of
dots. Between these bands is a series of indented crosses, which
may be described as in some degree approaching to crosses patée in
form. At the bottom are also small square indentations, with
diagonal lines. Fig. 342 is seven inches in height. It is ornamented
with encircling lines, the central band bearing a double row of dots;
the band at the bottom of the neck a series of small indented
quatre-foil flowers; and the lower one a series of square indentations
with diagonal lines. Fig. 341 is one of the most elaborately
ornamented urns which has ever been discovered.51 The remainder
of the examples vary from these and from each other, in point both
of form and decoration. Some of these have herring-bone lines,
others simple punctures, and others, again, encircling lines only. The
marked features of the pottery of this period is the frequency of
small punctured or impressed ornaments, which are introduced
along with the lines or bands, with very good effect. These
ornaments were evidently produced by the end of a stick, cut and
notched across in different directions, so as to produce crosses and
other patterns, and by twisted slips of metal, etc. In the annexed
woodcut I have endeavoured to show two of the notched stick
“punches,” such as I have reason to believe were used for pressing
into the soft clay, and also two of the impressed patterns produced
by it.
 Figs. 335.

Figs. 337.

Figs. 336.
 Figs. 338.

Fig. 341.
Fig. 342.
 Fig. 343.

Fig. 344. Fig. 345.

Fig. 346.

Fig. 347.
 Fig. 348.

Fig. 350.
Fig. 349.

Fig. 351. Fig. 352.

Other varieties of pottery found in the Anglo-Saxon graves are a

species of cup, and upright vessels, one of which is shown on fig.
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