Talk:Old English/Archive 3

Rubbish

This article is rubbish. I could not find instructions on how to translate scentances into old english. FIX IT! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.197.50.143 (talk • contribs).

Maybe we should start a conversation class for you? --Doric Loon 09:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

pronunciation of Ġedǣġhwāmlīcan and dæġ?

How is Ġedǣġhwāmlīcan broken up syllabically and how is the h pronounced? Also, is dæġ pronounced with two syllables (dæy)?

- Christopher 22:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Ġe-dǣġ-hwām-lī-can. The hw is [ʍ], like wh in modern English accents that distinguish which and witch. dæġ is one syllable, with a diphthong. —Angr 04:20, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

In the archives of this talk page I mentioned how we needed pronunciation keys for various OE name articles, maybe you could follow up on that? Nagelfar 21:37, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Angr, your break down of Ġedǣġhwāmlīcan is slightly wrong in one place: Ġe-dǣġ-hwām-līc-an, the "c" is part of "līc" which is the Old English comparative which evolved into modern "like". "Līcan" itself is a conjugated form of "lī". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.68.113.215 (talk) 20:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I was breaking it into syllables (as the poster requested), not morphemes. —Angr 21:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Why is dæġ a dipthong? I only see the æ.

Because ġ is a semivowel /j/. —Angr 19:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I love this!

It is inaccurate to state that everyone stopped speaking Old English in 1099, and woke up on New Year's Day of 1100 speaking Middle English. Language change is gradual, and cannot be as easily demarcated as are historical or political events.

This a gem! Thank you. RedRabbit1983 04:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It's incorrect, though. Everyone did suddenly begin speaking middle english. --NEMT 19:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

This is indeed a paradox. Old English(Anglo-Saxon) eg in Beowulf is completely incomprensible to even a university graduate uless he speaks Swedish. And yet a child can undertand Chaucer of the 1200s. This is just not explicable in the traditional history as taught by University professors who's whole careers depend on perpetuating this myth. The fact is that English had always been spoken in England and a small Elite of Anglo-Saxons dominated the coloquial English. Pre-Norman writing was written in the Elite Anglo Saxon language(as was Norman briefly later on) Once the Anglo-Saxon Elite was overthrown by the Normans, we find that precisely 40 years after the invasion...suddenly modern English pops up! in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles. Its blindingly obvious what happened. The old Anglo-Saxon elite monks died of old age and younger coloquial English speaking monks took over. See Dyen, Oppenheimer, Pryor, Forster, Harper all of whom pretty much agree on this. DNA analysis has confirmed that 98% of British female genes have remained unchanged for millenia and the language is unlikely to have changed with it. The vast amount of latin in English couldnt have been introduced in the brief period of the tiny Norman dominance. English clearly got most of it during the Roman occupation.--92.4.68.223 (talk) 10:27, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

broken interwiki

f**k, why all interwikis redirect to template:legend?! In edit mode everything is ok... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trang Oul (talk • contribs) 17:26, June 18, 2007

Guys is "ignourant" ever used in old English? Or...

favourite, olde, and withe? I am in a discussion about language on Youtube here. Someone please reply to this post. -PatPeter 17:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

No; those spellings are more typical of Middle English and Early Modern English; favourite is still used in all English-speaking countries except the U.S. —Angr 19:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that guy on YouTube is biting my head off, telling me I spell from my arse, mostly over the spelling of ignourant. -PatPeter 18:36, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

However, 'ignourant' is not one of the spellings shown in the OED, unlike 'ignoraunt'. This is what I would have expected - the various '-our' spellings still common in British though not American English derive from the Old French form of the Latin nominal ending '-or', even inside words like 'favourite'. But 'ignorant' is not put together that way: it derives from 'ignore' which never had a 'u' in French. --ColinFine 23:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Old English and Modern Icelandic

It might be interesting to include in this article the similarities between old English and modern Icelandic. Here's a table with some examples:

English	Old English	Icelandic
age	ealdor	aldur
appearance	onsyn	ásýnd
art	list	list
bane	bana	bani
bow	boga	bogi
commander	heretoga	herforingi
embrace	fæðmian	faðma
entry	ongong	inngangur
happiness	sæl	sæla
know	cunnan	kunna
neck	hals	háls
peace	frið	friður
whale	hwæl	hvalur

Of course modern English has been infected by French so the two languages don't look so much alike nowadays. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 07:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this, but we must be sure to include the different sounds that characters make. For example: OE "sæl" and Icelandic "sæla" look similar written down, but one is pronounced "sal" and the other "sigh-la". SKC 13:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that this sort of chart is particularly useful for anything. —Angr 16:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

This sort of chart might give an idea of how similar old English and modern Icelandic are, nothing else. The reason why this good material for this article is because this is an article on old English and I don't think there's any language that is more similar to it than modern Icelandic, which is weird I guess. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 21:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Angr. It's not particularly notable—it's just because OE is an early Germanic language and Icelandic is a conservative-looking Germanic language. It's merely a result of the fact that OE is similar to Old Norse. AJD 00:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It's also cherry-picking some of the words that look most similar. You could just as easily make a table of 13 words in Old English and Icelandic that look nothing at all alike. —Angr 05:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Never mind then. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 20:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If anything, it should be on the Icelandic page, to show how archaic it is.Cameron Nedland 16:02, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

North-east English (lowlands scots)

I would like to discuss the pronounciation of the current dialects of North-east England (maybe lowlands scots too); Geordie, Mackem and Pitmatic.

There are certain pronounciations that some sources suggest may be close or actual Old English, unfortunately most of the things i've read are blogs, so i will not source them.

Words like 'Watter' for Water, 'Fower' for Four (pronounced like 'sour') and the word Find prounced like Wind (with an 'f' ofcourse). 194.193.170.84 15:25, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Not just those few words but also, northeast English remains the only dialect to use the words "gan" (OE "go", from gān) and "can" (OE "know"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.68.113.215 (talk) 20:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

/ʍ/ again

Didn't OE have this at least as an allophone of w after h~x?Cameron Nedland 16:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say in OE, as in the few remaining accents of Modern English that retain it (including mine), there is at the phonological level a cluster /hw/, which can be realized as [ʍ]. It's an allophone of the cluster, if that makes sense. —Angr 19:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

So should we put it in the chart?Cameron Nedland 17:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Not here, but the fact that the sequences /hw hl hn hr/ are realized as [ʍ l ̥ n ̥ r ̥] could be mentioned at Old English phonology. —Angr 18:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Consider it done.Cameron Nedland 19:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Dorsal fricatives

Which one appeared next to consonants?Cameron Nedland 16:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

You mean in forms like eolh and þurh? I don't know; I don't know if we can know. We're not even 100% sure there was [ç~x] allophony after vowels, like there is in German; the evidence for it is kind of spotty. In modern English, gh is pronounced [f] only in cases where a back vowel preceded in OE, but not in all such cases; this can be explained if [x] sometimes became [f] but [ç] never did. I can't think of any cases where gh is [f] in a position where a consonant preceded in OE, which points to [ç], but since [x] doesn't always become [f], it's not a very strong proof. In eolh > elk it seems to have become [k], but that's the only word where that happened. The OED suggests elk may be influenced by the German form Elch, and indeed the word does seem to have died out in English, only to be borrowed back later: the OED gives no attestations for it between ca. AD 900 and 1486. —Angr 19:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Dwarf is a word in which OE /h/ became modern /f/. AJD 21:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention the other indirect evidence for [ç~x] allomorphy besides the development to /f/. Since we know that original /k/ and /ɣ/ split into /k, tʃ/ and /ɣ, j/, it seems a priori rather likely from the point of view of symmetry that /x/ would have split into /x, ç/ as well. —Angr 21:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed.

• Inline citations are weak and not in places where they should be, mostly the development section.

I will check back in no less than seven days. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GA/R). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAC. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions. Regards, T Rex | talk 15:30, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Concerns not met, article is delisted. T Rex | talk 04:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a shame, though I agree the article hasn't kept up with Wikipedia's standards and needs a bit of work. --Chroniclev 05:37, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Parts of what is now England

The article says that Old English is spoken in parts of what is now England. Does anybody know what parts of England Old English was spoken in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.22.88.14 (talk) 21:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

By the time of the Norman Conquest, pretty much all of it except maybe Cornwall. —Angr 04:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The Lord's Prayer, Really and Truly!

I don't think you should end the translation of the Lord's Prayer with the word "soothly." The Old English word _sooth_ means *truly*, or *really*. The Middle-English word *forsooth* meant the same. So wrote Marion Zimmer Bradley in an article for the SCA. (She also writes that one king's favorite oath was "Forsooth and forsooth!") This is the equivalent to the Hebrew word _Amen_, used in Christian and Jewish religious services. Just use "truly." Could we have an Amen with that? 128.147.28.1 19:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC) 128.147.28.1 19:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

No! The translation is at pains to use modern cognates wherever possible, even if it has to add a gloss to explain them. If 'soþlice' had survived, it would be exactly 'soothly'. If your point is that people don't understand 'soothly', I'm inclined to disagree, for the very reasons you give; but if you think it is a problem, please add 'truly' in parenthesis as is done for other words. --ColinFine 23:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

My objection was that it was unnecessary quaintness, like "Ye olde" so and so. But I guess I'm overruled. 71.206.221.118 00:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

• I don't think it was quaint; 'soþlice' turns up in a lot of Old English texts that I've read and it was good to see it translated as literally as possible, instead of by a modern equivalent like 'Amen' or whatever. I actually think that the translations in this article are great. I wish I knew enough about the language to work on this article and get it up to featured level, because it's a fine article and I think they were idiots to delist it from 'good'. Lexo (talk) 13:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Learning it

Do people know of places where one can learn Old English instead of just reading a dictionary or the grammar? Maybe it could be included on the talk page if not on the article itself, for those who are really interested in learning this language. InnocentOdion 08:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It's taught at most major universities in the English-speaking world. —Angr 18:57, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of "Teach yourself"-style books available which typically include CDs for pronunciation. There's also a few correspondence courses, such as that run by the "Engliscan Gesiþas" (check out their web site at http://tha-engliscan-gesithas.org.uk/ ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swahilli (talk • contribs) 22:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Language Revival

I thought it might be worth adding a section on the Old English mini-revival that seems to be taking place. I know the language is mostly spoken by academics but the Engliscan Gesiþas have events called Leornungdæg as well as their magazine publications. Do you think it's a bit too unoticable for wiki? Witanofnorfolk 20:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It isn't usually spoken by academics either, just read by them. Whether the "mini-revival" you mention is notable enough for Wikipedia depends on to what extent it's been picked up on and reported on by people outside the movement itself. If you can point to two or three sources independent of the "Engliscan Gesiþas" and their magazine publications that have discussed them in detail (rather than just mentioning them in passing), then it's probably notable enough to be included here. —Angr 20:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hwaet!

um... I was reading the article now, and I saw that the word "hwaet" in the beginning of the Beowulf text is translated as "what", and I saw few other translations of Beofulf and they all agreed that "hwaet" is translated as "lo"... so i don't know, maybe I'm wrong

Yep. This is part of the issue I'm addressing in my post below.--91.148.159.4 21:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

IPA Alphabet

The alphabet section of this article is perplexing! The overwhelming majority of people who read that section of the article will not be experts (or even aware) of the IPA alphabet. Now while I believe it should be there, I find it ridiculous that it remains the ONLY clue as to how to pronounce the letter. I think we need examples of how the letters sound by equating them to words with similar sounds in modern English. The odd word saying "like land or possible lond" isn't enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.68.113.215 (talk) 20:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, that could work for the consonants (although it seems to me that would violate the principle that Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook), but it would be unworkable for vowels, partly because Old English has a whole lot of vowel sounds that don't occur in Modern English, and partly because Modern English dialects vary so greatly in their pronunciations of vowels. If I say "like the 'o' in 'pot'" that will mean something very different to someone from England, someone from Scotland, and someone from the U.S., for example. —Angr 21:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair point. The "a" of northern English sounds more like the "e" of southern English so "vowel standardisation" (for want of a better name) would be difficult. Maybe we could give two systems of pronunciation, one from the point of view of standard English and the other from a popular Northamerican dialect maybe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.194.60 (talk) 22:10, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Every other language article on Wikipedia uses IPA symbols, usually without further explanation. It may be rather inconvenient to look up each of those symbols to see what they represent, but it's far easier than including detailed descriptions of each sound in the article.

On a related note, the Old English R sound is listed as an approximant, which makes sense, as the modern English R is an approximant. But the symbol in the IPA table is "r," which in IPA actually refers to the alveolar trill (Spanish R). Shouldn't this symbol be ɹ instead? A. Parrot (talk) 00:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

We don't know the precise phonetics of the Old English r sound. We're using the symbol /r/ for convenience. —Angr 06:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Names of Letters

Do all of the letters in the Old English alphabet have names? I managed to find out that the Þ is called a 'thorn'. If anyone here has awesomely memorized the names of all the letters, listing them in the article would be a sweet addition! Ashleyisachild (talk) 21:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Old English / Modern English translator

---

I've found a good online Old English / Modern English translator at http://www.ethendun.plus.com/saxon/saxon-translator.htm and have added it to the external links section, hope that's ok with everyone. -Nick 82.109.120.34 12:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Scots

"developed into Middle English and Scots by the 12th century"

This is misleading on two counts. First it suggests that Middle English and Scots are distinct languages when in reality the latter evolved from the former and secondly it provides a date, "12th century", which is some 300 years or so before "Scots" ceased being "Inglis" when its speakers started calling it "Scots" around the late 15th/early 16th centuries. siarach (talk) 08:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Scots develops from Old English only via the stage labelled "Middle English". That's just chronological and historical fact. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Not an expert on Old English or Scots but having studied Historical Linguistics and having more than a passing interest in my lowland scots heritage I wanted to raise a concern. Doesn't 'Scots' refer colloquially to Scottish Gaelic? Isn't the dialect you want to refer to known as 'LOWLANDS Scots' or colloquially 'Lallans' ? I'd recommend a change to one of these terms. 08:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Proberton (talk • contribs)

I don't know a lot about the English varieties of English in Scotland, but all 3 of the linguistic books that I have about English simply calls it Scots, that is the language that is closely related but considered by many as a separate language and not a dialect. All the internet articles that I've read simply used the term Scots as well (not referring to the Gaelic language). Like you though, I'm not an expert. Kman543210 (talk) 08:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I just looked this up in on of my books, The Story of English (by Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil, and William Cran), and it states that the language of Northern Scotland was called Scots English and later became just Scots (this is referring to what is now considered the separate language). The Celtic language is referred to as Scottish Gaelic and the English variety is Scottish English. The Mother Tongue (by Bill Bryson) uses the exact terminology: Scots (anglo language) and Scottish Gaelic (celtic language). I hope I didn't confuse you, but I needed to check the books to make sure I remembered correctly. Kman543210 (talk) 08:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I read your first post, and thought it worth pointing out that its probably worth consulting references on the Scottish languages rather than Middle English, but then I read your second post. I haven't seen Bryson but I do follow what he ( and you) are saying. The wikipedia article on Lallans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lallans) describes it as "the language of Robbie Burns and Robert Louis Stevenson... and somewhat removed from traditional spoken Scots"...

I'm satisfied "Lallans" isn't the term we're looking for ( but interested to note that its evolved from Scots) and that SCOTS and Scottish Gaelic are mutually exclusive. Thanks for following it up! Proberton (talk) 10:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is it called OLD ENGLISH"?

Since a person speaking English can't read it, why is it called Old English. I think that question should be addressed. I mean French, Spanish and Italian all came from Latin, but we don't call Latin, Old French. I mean if the relationship is close enough to retain the name English how come it's a totally different language 4.143.232.137 (talk) 08:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)eric

Old French is not Latin. I understand that modern Francophones even have trouble with Middle French (as I and perhaps you would have difficulty with Middle English). Languages evolve. And certainly the Anglo-Saxon dialects have dibs on the word "English" (although they spelled it differently), so maybe we should change the name of the modern language.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I am speaking german. And I CAN pronounce and speak it. Actually that is really fantastic. But here we see old english is very closely related to german. It's really wonderful. patrick22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.114.183.219 (talk) 19:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Wrong Note

Note No.1 talks about the 19th century. This is, of course, not the Old English period anymore. Could someone who has got the book please correct that? It could be 9th or 10th and thus just a typo... THX!--81.32.145.229 (talk) 15:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

It's correct, but it's worded a little awkwardly. What it's saying is that in the 19th century, the language started to be called Old English (when discussing it in Modern English) rather than Anglo-Saxon. —Angr 17:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Jumbled

Quote: Old English spelling can therefore be regarded as even more jumbled than modern English spelling

This needs to be replaced with a statement which contains actual meaning of some sort. Even if "jumbled" could conceivably have some sort of useful meaning with respect to orthography, it's unclear what it's intended to mean here. Unless someone can think of a statement similar to this one which makes some sort of meaningful linguistic assertion, I'm just going to remove this one. But I encourage anyone who feels they can extract meaning from this statement to do so --Yst (talk) 23:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

West Saxon

In this article, it states that, despite the name similarities, that Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon aren't even directly related: "Furthermore, the difference between Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon is of such a nature that Late West Saxon is not directly descended from Early West Saxon (despite what the similarity in name implies)."

Yet on the Early West Saxon article it states that "By the time of the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the language had evolved into Late West Saxon. [2]" So which is right? Did Late West Saxon evolve from Early West Saxon? Also, if Late West Saxon didn't evolve from Early West Saxon, what did it evolve from? This isn't made clear in this article, Early West Saxon, or the Late West Saxon article. bob rulz (talk) 06:35, 24 June 2008 (UTC)