Ancient and ArchaeologyÌý permalink
Old English Dialects??
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by beethovenspiano (U5093596) on Saturday, 23rd October 2010
What are the main differences between old English spoken in Northumbria and say south east England?
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Message 2
Posted by Pete- Weatherman (U14670985) on Thursday, 4th November 2010
In the Very brordest of terms Northen language and accents are based on Celtic/Nordic Phanetic (I think I spelt that right) were West country is Celtic/Welsh And South East is a mix of Celtic, French and Latin,and every thing in between. Three guesses were we got invaded mostly
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Message 3
Posted by MB (U177470) on Thursday, 4th November 2010
Aren't there major differences which survive through to English spoken today in the North and South of England - actual words, pronunciation and grammar.
Though of course those in the South mistakenly think their English is the correct version :=(
MB -
Message 4
Posted by Pete- Weatherman (U14670985) on Thursday, 4th November 2010
To give you some Idea how an accent or dierlect can change, my own accent has gone from West country ( 6years)to Hampshire( 14Years) to London. Now the daft thing is I only lived in London for 4 years, then joind up and then came back to Hants but I ended up in what was classed as an over spill town and there for still had that London accent around me. But depending on what and how I say some words thay can still come out sounding like I am still eather a from Bristol or Winchester depending on how excited i am, if you get my drift. Changing areas can change the accent but it only adds to the language/dierlect you have.
I have had freinds from up north who move down here for a time and I needed a translater to undder stand them at first, but by the time they moved back it was there family that needed one. -
Message 5
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 4th November 2010
In the Very brordest of terms Northen language and accents are based on Celtic/Nordic Phanetic (I think I spelt that right) were West country is Celtic/Welsh And South East is a mix of Celtic, French and Latin,and every thing in between. Three guesses were we got invaded mostlyÌý
I'm sorry Pete but that is not correct - we're talking about Old English so there was no French influence (or very little anyway).
Due to the paucity of written material from the time, plus the fact that for much of the latter Anglo-Saxon period there was a written standard that pretty much hid regional variations, it is difficult to accurately define OE dialects. There are also differences in where written materials originated depending on which of the traditional heptarchy kingdoms was in ascendency - so much of the early material is Northumbrian, then we see Mercian sources increasing, and finally when Wessex became the most powerful kingdom (and its dialect became the written standard) that dialect became the most common source; we end up with a lot of material from the 10th and 11th centuries, but numbers of written records trail off quickly the further back you go.
Grammatical and lexical differences to arise however which we can with some confidence attribute to dialectal variations rather than personal variation, but it is strewn with difficulty. Often you can get clues about the origins of an individual scribe, with for example a scribe in Canterbury spelling words slightly different from the Wessex norm in a way that shows he came from Mercia (it's all in the vowels!).
Essentially, OE can be broadly divided into three main dialect areas - Wessex, Mercian, and Northumbrian, with Kentish also being recognisable (considered a sub-set of Wessex by some, especially in the latter centuries), and Mercian being divided into West and East varieties.
All varieties up to the settling of the Norsemen in the north and east are clearly Germanic varieties with hardly any Celtic borrowings (there are some, but not many), and with a number of Latin borrowings (in ecclesiastical language for example). With the coming of the Norsemen however, all writings in English are in the West Saxon standard so we get very little primary data to determine what's happening linguistically in the Danelaw.
I said earlier that there was little French influence - there was of course some, especially in the 11th century when Normandy was becoming more powerful and English politics was becoming more intwined with Normandy - one of the more famous French borrowings of the period is the word "castle", which entered the language before the Conquest. -
Message 6
Posted by Pete- Weatherman (U14670985) on Thursday, 4th November 2010
Stoggler you have explaind in a far more acadmic why than my limeted knowledge could, Thank you. What I ment by French was the Normans, but thats irelavent as you have explaind in a far better way than me. One thing I will suggest Beethovenspiano dose is try (and I mean TRY) and read an origanel copy of the Canterbury tales as writen by Chaucer this is writen in old english and will give some under standing to how English sounded to us 100s of years ago.
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Message 7
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Thursday, 4th November 2010
Chaucer wrote in Middle English, not Old English, and heavy Norman influence is obvious in it. For OE, you need to go back to Beowulf, or perhaps the Battle of Maldon
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Message 8
Posted by Priscilla (U14315550) on Friday, 5th November 2010
The Battle of Maldon - and good luck is said to be the oldest of example of Old English. I recommend you get several translation.
Is there a collection of recorded dialect from abross the British Isles anywhere? cecil Sharpe did this for music and dance soI hope someone has done similar for language. I doubt it would be accessible to rank and file.
It might be an interesting addition to our own lille town museum - must think on that. Though word has it that in Council asset stripping it may be rehoused or closed.
So where are the dialect collections?
Regards, P. -
Message 9
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Friday, 5th November 2010
Priscilla, this might be a starting point although it seems to be more uniform in accent than I might have suspected.
I haven't explored all the options, I really shouldn't be avoiding what I'm meant to be doing! -
Message 10
Posted by Eliza (U14650257) on Friday, 5th November 2010
I remember hearing Melvyn Bragg, who is Cumbrian, say on the radio that when he went to Iceland he was intrigued to realise he understood a fair amount of the vocabulary, courtesy of the Vikings.
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Message 11
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Friday, 5th November 2010
Hi Eliza
Not only Cumbria. Many Yorkshire dialect words are also Norse: beck (stream), withy, dale, fell, gill or ghyll (ravine), garth (yard), flegg (as in Yellow Flag), mire, syke, kirk, and so forth.
Mind you I'm not sure of the origin of 'arethee eckerslike' meaning 'they're not'.
TP -
Message 12
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Saturday, 6th November 2010
Quote from TP:
"Mind you I'm not sure of the origin of 'aretheeeckerslike' ... "
I'm not absolutely sure, TP, but I think you'll find that's from the Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane - just after that pithy exhortation (third fragment, stanza 14): "Sit thissendahn yer daftaputh." -
Message 13
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Saturday, 6th November 2010
As sung in the court of Harold Halfwit or Thorkill the Snotty perhaps?
YP -
Message 14
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Monday, 8th November 2010
The Battle of Maldon - and good luck is said to be the oldest of example of Old English.Ìý
The Battle of Maldon poem isn't the earliest example of Old English at all - the actual battle itself took place in 991, so it cannot predate that date. But before that date, we have plenty examples. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for example was started by King Alfred the century beforehand, in the late 800s. But even before that, there are plenty of writings, from the time of Offa (reigned 757-796), all the way back to runic inscriptions from the 5th century and 6th centuries. -
Message 15
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Monday, 8th November 2010
Is there a collection of recorded dialect from abross the British Isles anywhere? cecil Sharpe did this for music and dance soI hope someone has done similar for language. I doubt it would be accessible to rank and file.
Ìý
Hi Priscilla
You might be interested in this link:
The Â鶹ԼÅÄ undertook a study a couple of years ago to record the accents and variations of English - all very interesting. I recall a couple of TV programmes as well as a number of radio programmes too.
The British Library I believe has some material too, and they are in fact having an exhibition there starting next week about the changing nature of the language:
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Message 16
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Monday, 8th November 2010
Don't forget Caedmon's Hymn! (657-680ish)
Runic Ruthwell Cross and the Franks Casket are a bit later (I think?), but some scholars believe the Ruthwell Cross inscriptions are from one of Caedmon's lost poems.
There's Cynewulf too, but no one is sure about when or where he was writing. -
Message 17
Posted by Priscilla (U14315550) on Monday, 8th November 2010
Thank you Stog for the links. Surely Linguistics depts in our Universities have collections also? They do so of many obscure foreign ones.
I recall a charming African who was keeping the bar at a very smart hostel attached to a University where I was doing a short course. He was there for a Masters, with an obscure dialect of his people for his special paper. There was a hint that there were very few who spoke that dialect - possibly only one. However, his lecturers were wised up to that and said he was wearing himself thin (relatively) inventing stuff . They would allow him to flounder for a bit and then redirect his research.
A week later he was no longer tending the bar - and so I was told, he was set to recording local dialects around that area and to do linguistics studies. I suspect, he found his random samples to record close to other bars.
Regards, P. -
Message 18
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Monday, 8th November 2010
Surely Linguistics depts in our Universities have collections also?Ìý
I imagine they do. UCL would be good, for example, and Edinburgh. There have been plenty of publications of English dialects since the Victorian era, and there have been regional dialect organisations too in the past (and possibly now).
There has been much study of English and its different varieties, whether geographically, socially or over time (or synchronic and diachronic variations to use the linguistic terms!
), and I have noticed that large Waterstones books shops have a book or two on English accents and dialects. -
Message 19
Posted by Dai Digital (U13628545) on Monday, 22nd November 2010
In reply to beethovenspiano:
What are the main differences between old English spoken in Northumbria and say south east England?Ìý
Until the first bible in English, they would have been almost incomprehensible to each other. -
Message 20
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Tuesday, 23rd November 2010
Until the first bible in English, they would have been almost incomprehensible to each otherÌý
What are you basing that on Dai? They were comprehenisible - people all over England (or what was to become England) could communicate with each other with seemingly minimal problems. The fact that scribes from Mercia worked in the Canterbury scriptorium for example suggests that they could communicate effectively.
Sure, differences in lexicon, morphology and accent would have existed and definite differences are evident from the written evidence that we have, but the differences were not to such a degree that they wouldn't have understood each other. -
Message 21
Posted by Penny (U14700137) on Tuesday, 23rd November 2010
Unfortunately I can't answer your question but you could take a look in the Â鶹ԼÅÄ history website under British Pre-History; the Anglo-Saxons; Ages of English.
It's highly entertaining and very informative too. Check out the Beowolf poem.
Cheers
Penny
PS I can't help thinking that the difference would be enormous, as it's easy to hear the variances even today, in this hyper communicative age! -
Message 22
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Wednesday, 24th November 2010
... but the differences were not to such a degree that they wouldn't have understood each other. Ìý
I'm not so sure - I think Dai Digital has a point.
There's that lovely story from Caxton about the "egges". In the preface to "Eneydos" Caxton related how some merchants (obviously from just north of the Watford Gap) headed south down the Thames. There was no wind so they landed on the Kent side of the river and tried to buy some food.
"And specyally he axyed after eggys. And the good wyf answerde that she coulde speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry for he also coulde speke no frenshe but wold haue hadde egges and she vnderstode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde haue *eyren*. Then the good wyf sayd that she vnderstode hym wel."
Egges (or eggys) was the Old Norse word for eggs, but eyren was the Old English! Both came from Germanic roots, but eyren was of West Germanic (Saxon) origin, whereas egges came over with the Vikings (North Germanic origin).
Caxton realised there was a real problem: as a businessman he had to ensure that the language he used was acceptable to potential readers and buyers all over the country:
"Loo what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte egges or eyren? Certaynly it is harde to playse euery man by cause of dyuersite and change of langage..."
Interesting that Viking egges emerged the winner!
SST.
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Message 23
Posted by Dai Digital (U13628545) on Wednesday, 24th November 2010
In reply to Stoggler:
"Until the first bible in English, they would have been almost incomprehensible to each other" Ìý
What are you basing that on Dai? Ìý
The fact that there were hundreds of different words for all kinds of everyday things and actions, for a start. And the fact that many people even now do not understand the accent of other parts of the country.
Cockneys don't understand Govan.
Correspondence between monasteries is not relevant. Ordinary vernacular speech varied wildly, as it still does. And most people would only have known their local variety. -
Message 24
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Wednesday, 24th November 2010
Glaswegians often don't understand Govan!
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Message 25
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 24th November 2010
Wouldn't most of the work in the scriptoria have been in (or if necessary passed through) Latin anyway? I know that I and a Flemish Catholic priest conversed using that medium in the mid 1960s - even though he used "old" and I used "new" pronunciation.
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Message 26
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Wednesday, 24th November 2010
Interesting that Viking egges emerged the winner!Ìý
You are confusing Danelaw Norse with Northumbria Old English.
Æthelberht, Rædwald and Edwin could understand each other perfectly well. -
Message 27
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
The fact that there were hundreds of different words for all kinds of everyday things and actions, for a start.Ìý
Are you talking about modern English or Old English?
And the fact that many people even now do not understand the accent of other parts of the country.
Cockneys don't understand Govan.Ìý
You cannot use the linguistic situation today as a basis of how people spoke 15 centuries ago - totally different worlds.
Yes, there was linguistic variation - there is in all linguistic communities. But the variations between the Old English dialects was not to the extent where you said in previously "they would have been almost incomprehensible to each other".
Correspondence between monasteries is not relevant. Ordinary vernacular speech varied wildly, as it still does. And most people would only have known their local variety.Ìý
Of course correspondence between monasteries is relavant. AS IS ALL OTHER WRITTEN MATERIALS FROM THAT TIME - it's one part of evidence that linguists have used. Correspondence is just one small area of the Old English canon in existence. Not that I mentioned correspondence before, I mentioned someone from a different part of England WORKING in Kent.
Although the West Saxon variety became the written standard, we have writings from all over England in clearly different local varieties from West Saxon (and from different times too, so we can see diachronic changes). There are differences in phonology and morphology and lexicon over time and place (as one would expect to find), but what is evident is that the different varieties around England were closely-enough related, and good communication would have been possible, and in fact WAS possible. "Almost incomprehensible" is taking things rather too far.
Cockneys don't understand Govan.Ìý
Aside from the fact that you're using the current linguistic situation as a basis of Old English linguistics (rather flawed!), the British accents and dialects we have today are the result of many centuries' worth of linguistic changes, starting off from a point where all the West Germanic varieties were fairly similar. Linguistic change needs time to take effect, and when you factor in those 15 centuries of linguistic change in different parts of the country, you get the situation we had in the 19th century where there were a large number of local dialects and accents. Note Australia today that is linguistically unified, simply because two centuries are not long enough for significant linguistic changes to happen in different localities. Give them another millenium and perhaps the situation will be rather more varied!
Hi Urnungal
Wouldn't most of the work in the scriptoria have been in (or if necessary passed through) Latin anyway? Ìý
Old English, or the West Saxon variety of it, was the written medium of the Wessex and fledgling-state of England, and much was written in the English of the time. Latin too was used, but not as much for official purposes as it would be used in Norman England.
Temperance
I'm not so sure - I think Dai Digital has a point.
There's that lovely story from Caxton about the "egges". In the preface to "Eneydos" Caxton related how some merchants (obviously from just north of the Watford Gap) headed south down the Thames. There was no wind so they landed on the Kent side of the river and tried to buy some food.Ìý
That story relates to Caxton's time - at the end of the MIDDLE English period (i.e. 15th century); the OP and what I and others have been talking about is OLD English - the language of at least 400 years earlier. Between those two dates, the language went through a huge amount of change, such as the loss of most of the inflectional system that Old English had (such as nominal declensions, the grammatical gender system), as well as rapid changes in the lexicon. -
Message 28
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
The oldest surviving manuscript of the ASC, Winchester A, (Wessex) does not conform to the later West Saxon Standard.
Inflected language can't have much regional dialect without becoming incomprehensible to some, or morphing into the analytical middle/modern English.
The misunderstanding that could arise in two very similar inflected languages, Norse/Old English drove the change to 'word order', although it had started with the West Saxon Standard OE.
Middle English (circa 11th century on) was much more varied, the farther north, the heavier the Norse influence. The Chancery Standard introduced by Henry V used East Midland dialect, Wycliffe is closer to modern English than Chaucer.
Btw, 'egg' is 'æg' in OE, plural (þæm) 'æum' , 'those eggs', 'eyren' would appear to be a corruption of the OE inflected plural.
The use of 'es' to form a plural ( 'egges') was common in northern OE as much as Norse I believe. -
Message 29
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
That story relates to Caxton's time - at the end of the MIDDLE English period (i.e. 15th century); the OP and what I and others have been talking about is OLD English - the language of at least 400 years earlier. Between those two dates, the language went through a huge amount of change, such as the loss of most of the inflectional system that Old English had (such as nominal declensions, the grammatical gender system), as well as rapid changes in the lexicon.Ìý
Just to add to that. By Caxton's time, the country was diverse linguistically. The old Danelaw areas had undergone the most linguistic changes with the loss of the inflectional and gender systems more advanced here than in the south. In fact, some modern English features originate in the north and east of the country and spread further into the more "conservative" south - for example:
-- the third person singular verb forms ending in -s rather than -eth are from the north, the use of -eth (at least in writing) survived longer in the south much longer (interestingly, by the 16th century, some were still writing "-th" but pronouncing it as "-s");
-- the plural form of the verb "to be" (namely the word "are") replaced the Old English "sind", "sindon" or other alternatives (cf German "Sie Sind"). Anyone familiar with the Scandinavian languages will be familiar with the present form of "to be" - "er" in Norwegian, "är" in Swedish, thus showing its Norse origins;
-- the plural form ending in -s which is the standard in modern English became more common in the north first, replacing the alternative plural ending -en, which hung on longer in the south (and which still exists in a smattering of words, like "children" and "oxen"). That story about Caxton illustrates this well;
-- 1st Person singular subject pronoun (namely "I") was originally "ic" in Old English (pronounced like ITCH) which eventually lost the consonant sounds leaving just a vowel sound (and later on a diphthong after the Great Vowel Shift). Originally the consonant sound was retained where the next word started with a vowel sound, but was lost completely eventually. This process started in the north and slowly spread south. By Shakespeare's time, only the very south retained the pronunciation of the consonant sound - he has a character in one play who uses the ITCH or IK pronunciation to show that character as a country bumpkin. -
Message 30
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
Btw, 'egg' is 'æg' in OE, plural (þæm) 'æum' Ìý
Just to add to that, the letter G in the Old English word æg was pronounced like a Y (hence the later word "eyren").
The two words "egg" (which came from Old Norse) and "æg" ulitimately come from the same Proto-Germanic word:
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Message 31
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
plural (þæm) 'æum' Ìý
That's the Dative plural - nominative was "þa æg" (with a macron on the letter a in þa) -
Message 32
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
In middle English, n endings for plural are common in southern examples, the s ending is common in northern examples.
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Message 33
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
In middle English, n endings for plural are common in southern examples, the s ending is common in northern examples.
Ìý
As I said in message 29 -
Message 34
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
Hi Stoggler and Haesten,
This is all fascinating and you must forgive my ignorance - my knowledge of history before Chaucer's times is very sketchy indeed and, although I "did" Beowulf thirty-five or so years ago, my understanding of Old English - let alone the pure *language* aspects of its many dialects - is weak to say the least. I do understand the difference between Old English and Middle English, Stoggler - but yes, my Caxton story was irrelevant and I wish I had kept quiet now!
That said I should like if I may to ask what I hope is not a really foolish question. Haesten comments:
Aethelberht, Raedwald and Edwin could understand each other perfectly well. Ìý
Dreadful admission first of all - I hadn't a clue who these three were, but after a bit of googling have discovered that they were three kings. That, and Stoggler's comments about monasteries, made me wonder whether *class* - even before the Conquest - could possibly be an issue here? Wasn't communication between *literate* members of the elite - clerical and aristocratic - bound to be easier, simply because communication was so important; it actually went on all the time and it wasn't just *oral*?
And this North Germanic (Old Norse) and West Germanic (Old English) business - I accept the languages were very similar, but surely they were sufficiently different to cause confusion between an illiterate inhabitant of say South Northumbria ( wasn't Viking influence *very* strong there?) and his counterpart from among the *lower* orders (I don't know the correct word - peasant? serf?) living on the south coast? Egges aside, their respective dialects may have stemmed from the same Germanic roots, but surely the common people using them had been living in* isolation* from each other for long enough for their words to morph just enough - if not to be mutually *unrecognizable* - at least to cause real problems (had they ever met which was of course extremely unlikely)? Or am I talking completely through my hat? I think you mentioned something about Australia relevant to this, Stoggler and I can't check it without losing what I've typed - drat.
I'm not trying to argue - just very interested! In haste - lunch break nearly over!
SST. -
Message 35
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
Hi Temperance
Differences in language along class lines (or sociolects) was less marked in pre-industrial Western societies, as the societies did not have the structures or "infrastructures" to allow such sociolects to persist.
I imagine that there were some differences in lexicon between the learned and illiterate, possibly with more Latin words, and the individual vocabularies of the learned would have been larger. But essentially differences were minimal - the educated spoke the same language as their countrymen, regardless of rank.
And this North Germanic (Old Norse) and West Germanic (Old English) business - I accept the languages were very similar, but surely they were sufficiently different to cause confusion between an illiterate inhabitant of say South Northumbria ( wasn't Viking influence *very* strong there?) and his counterpart from among the *lower* orders (I don't know the correct word - peasant? serf?) living on the south coast? Ìý
The different morphologies of West and North Germanic are one theory for why English lost its declension system earlier than other Germanic languages. It's thought that the Norse settlers, when speaking to their English neighbours, couldn't quite understand each other completely due to the different declensions, and so the speakers started to just drop the endings to make communication easier.
That's very possible, although people have pointed out other examples of intemixing of linguistic communities where full declension systems have persisted (e.g. some of the Slavic languages have undergone similar mixing but have retained full complicated noun declension systems, or other Germanic languages), so why should Anglo-Norse English being any different?
There is evidence that the noun declension system breaking down had started in the north before the Norsemen started to settle in England, so perhaps their arrival aided a process already in progress.
To be frank though, we don't know why the breakdown happened - because of the Norse invasions and settlements (and due to there being a written standard), there is very little evidence of the linguistic situation in the north and east, so we do not know what's happening to the language for a few centuries until Middle English starts showing its head. Theories of what's happened help and don't at the same time - they might fit the individual circumstances, but they can never be tested and we can never know!
Trying to remember what David Crystal said in his Stories of English, but from what I can recall, he said that we simply do not know how mutually intelligible Norse and Old English were, and how easy people managed to converse. And ultimately, the same does apply to the different Old English dialects. -
Message 36
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
If I recall (and don't get too depressed watching the cricket), I'll dig out my Stories of English and see what David Crystal has to say about Old English dialects
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Message 37
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
Temperance:
Inflected language relies on a clear hearing and understanding of word endings to give meaning, or you could get the wrong end of the stick, like a Norse speaker.
"Se cyning geaf blancan his gumum."
The king gave horses to his men.
This heard as blancum / guman would be, "the king gave men to his horses".
It's very unlikely that I would misunderstand Rab in the same way.
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Message 38
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
"Se cyning geaf blancan his gumum."
The king gave horses to his men.
This heard as blancum / guman would be, "the king gave men to his horses".
Ìý
Such examples are amusing, but ignore an aspect of everyday spoken language that would make the listener understand exactly what the speaker is saying - namely context. Unless they had a king with mental deficiencies (), the listerner(s) of such a sentence would easily be understood that men are being given horses. Humans use context far more than is given credit for in the real world, amongst a number of other aspects in a language - such as redundancy. In the spoken language, the speaker of that sentence may have wanted to add a level of redundancy by adding demonstrative pronouns or articles, thus he may have said:
"Se cyning geaf þas blancan his gumum." - the king gave the horses to his men
(as opposed to the odd "se cyning geaf þissum blancan his gumum" - the king gave his men to the horses) -
Message 39
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Thursday, 25th November 2010
I "did" Beowulf thirty-five or so years ago,Ìý
Temperance:
The Beowulf manuscript was first translated by an Icelandic scholar in 1786.
Icelandic speakers can still understand the original Norse of the sagas.
The manuscript was damaged in the earlier Cotton Library fire and the edges had been protected masking some of the text, it's been gone over with x ray cameras now. -
Message 40
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Saturday, 27th November 2010
Hi Haesten,
Thank you for the link. I was amazed that Thorkelin has been described by some as "essentially a fraud as a scholar"! Is there any justification for such a harsh judgement? This "fraud" translated the whole of "Beowulf" into *Latin*, didn't he?!
I had the chance to learn Old English *properly* all those years ago, but I was lazy and opted to "do" only a general survey of the period and to read "Beowulf" in translation. I think (can't remember) I read a version by William Alfred. How I regret my laziness now. I think the Seamus Heaney version is wonderful - I just wish I could read the original which is printed along with Heaney's translation. Advice to young people: never go for the easy option. Seems such a sensible idea at the time, but it rarely is!
Wonder what folk living in these islands back then would make of a Benjamin Bagby delivery of the epic? Would they all, Northerners and Southerners, be able to follow it easily?? It's actually a very complicated mix of dialectal forms, isn't it??
SST. -
Message 41
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Saturday, 27th November 2010
Temperance:
A very poetic language.
I had never heard of Bagby, I think he would probably have been fed to Grendel. -
Message 42
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Sunday, 28th November 2010
This is better. The delivery of that opening word "Hwaet!" is amazing - I think Bagby is brilliant!
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Message 43
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Sunday, 28th November 2010
Oh drat - link says clip isn't available. If you google Benjamin Bagby and click on Videos for Benjamin Bagby - Beowulf "Opening Lines" it should come up. -
Message 44
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Sunday, 28th November 2010
Here you go Temperance:
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Message 45
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Sunday, 28th November 2010
Ic saecge eow pancas! (That doesn't look right at all, but will have to do - I can't do that thorn/p thingy on my keyboard!) -
Message 46
Posted by beethovenspiano (U5093596) on Sunday, 28th November 2010
I wonder if the accents we hear around the UK today have origins in slightly different dialects. Or maybe they have more modern origins.
The VERY distinctive (and lovely in my opinion) North Eastern England accent. I wonder if someone from the NE speaking in Old English would sound more familiar to someone in the 8th C as opposed to someone from Southern England reciting the same piece?? -
Message 47
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Sunday, 28th November 2010
I can't add any scholarship to this interesting discussion, but will just say that when I first studied Chaucer I found that apart from some words no longer in use, I could understand it quite easily, I just imagined the characters speaking with a Raunds accent as all the people around me did in my childhood. Raunds is in East Northants, a stone's throw from the borders of Hunts (now Cambs) and Bedfordshire.
The most fascinating discovery was the word 'starve', meaning 'die'. Around here if someone said 'I were starved' they meant 'I was cold' If they were hungry they said 'I were starvin'.* It was the relationship between cold, hunger and death that caught my imagination
*They would be more likely to have said 'I were 'ungry', or even 'b 'ungry' -
Message 48
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Sunday, 28th November 2010
"Beowulf"'s on Channel 5 tonight at 9pm. It's the "animated fantasy"
version with Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie. It gets quite a good write-up (and four stars) in the Radio Times. Perhaps worth a look. -
Message 49
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Sunday, 28th November 2010
It's not a cartoon animation and certainly worth a watch.
Beowulf contains the Fight at Finnesburg.
Hengest is one of the warriors at Finnesburg
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Message 50
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Monday, 29th November 2010
Ic saecge eow pancas!Ìý
Do you mean Ic saecge eow þancas...?
Or Ic saecge eow ðancas (the ð and þ used interchangeably by Old English scribes). Failing that, you can just use TH.
Anyway, you could also say "ic þe þancie"
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