101–110 of 143 posts
I absolutely love post-Roman, pre-Norman British writing because it's so rare it gives the era a sense of mystery. This is of course the time when King Arthur is supposed to have lived. In the absence of contemporary records, the impulse to fill it with wizards and dragons is understandable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, what are the other two realms? (I assume it’s two)
There's actually nine: - Vanaheim, home of the Vanir, a group of gods associated with fertility. - Asgård, home of the Aesir, the big-name gods (Thor, Odin, Freya, etc.). - Jötunheim, home of the Giants. - Alfheim, home of the elves. - Helheim, the underworld ("Hell"). - Svartalfheim / Nidavellir, home of the dwarves. - Midgård, home of the humans. - Muspelheim, home of fire elementals. - Niflheim, world of mists. (T…
Freyja, along with her brother Freyr and their father, Njörðr, is one of the Vanir.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My father in law is a Persian speaker. I was very surprised to learn that thank you (mersi) is the same as in French, and OK/indeed (baleh) is the same as in Spanish.
Arigato in Japanese is said to be a borrowing from Portuguese Obrigado (might want to verify that!).
1,3k years ago is such a weird way to write it. Makes sense if we are talking millions of years, but why not write "in 700" or just "1300 years ago"
This is the text in Old English for anyone looking: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47296/caedmons-hymn-5... Actually, here is the full text with the modern English inserted: Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard Now let us praise Heaven-Kingdom's guardian, metudæs mehti and his modgithanc the Maker's might and his mind's thoughts, uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuæs the work of the glory-father—of every wonder, e…
Knowing both Norwegian and Dutch, most words here is surprisingly similar to modern words: hefenricæs = himmelrikes (no) uerc = werk (nl) eci = evig (no) / eeuwig (nl) ærist = eerst (nl) barnum = barn (no) sceppend = schepper (nl) EDIT: Hearing the poem read also gives dutch / germanic vibes: https://gutenberg.org/files/19677/ogg/19677.ogg
uuldurfadur = alfader (all-father)
uundra = under (wonder)
halig = hellig (holy)
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Oh that's interesting! In my mind we are now on the cusp of being able to scan all these archives and have them be read by LLMs (in a first pass). Do you agree with that assessment, or am I being naive here?
I'm not in this field but I know someone who used to be and we've talked about it a fair bit. A quick overview of what's needed from what I understand: Old books aren't that neat, you tend to have a lot of notes and other documents, translations, scribal annotations from different eras interleaved or in the margins. You need to make decisions about that stuff as you go, which requires being informed about the context…
As for imaging, there is Irish Scripts on Screen (https://www.isos.dias.ie/) which covers many different places and time periods.
Answering the grandparent comment, LLMs are not good at Old Irish. Seriously, they are awful at it. There is just too little data for it to work. I wrote a very little bit about text clustering in Old/Middle Irish (see https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110680744-005). I think the better place to start is transcription and there are some tools out there which help, like Transcribus (https://www.transkribus.org/), which I haven't used but it looks useful.
edit:typos
This was in a modern library that was built recently (1975), by historical standards. This book would have been, at minimum, catalogued, packed, and unpacked to verify it made the trip. It was't missing. It wasn't unearthed. It was just never read.
https://www.cenl.org/library/the-central-national-library-of...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's actually nine: - Vanaheim, home of the Vanir, a group of gods associated with fertility. - Asgård, home of the Aesir, the big-name gods (Thor, Odin, Freya, etc.). - Jötunheim, home of the Giants. - Alfheim, home of the elves. - Helheim, the underworld ("Hell"). - Svartalfheim / Nidavellir, home of the dwarves. - Midgård, home of the humans. - Muspelheim, home of fire elementals. - Niflheim, world of mists. (T…
> - Asgård, home of the Aesir, the big-name gods (Thor, Odin, Freya, etc.). Freyja, along with her brother Freyr and their father, Njörðr, is one of the Vanir.
This is the text in Old English for anyone looking: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47296/caedmons-hymn-5... Actually, here is the full text with the modern English inserted: Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard Now let us praise Heaven-Kingdom's guardian, metudæs mehti and his modgithanc the Maker's might and his mind's thoughts, uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuæs the work of the glory-father—of every wonder, e…
Knowing both Norwegian and Dutch, most words here is surprisingly similar to modern words: hefenricæs = himmelrikes (no) uerc = werk (nl) eci = evig (no) / eeuwig (nl) ærist = eerst (nl) barnum = barn (no) sceppend = schepper (nl) EDIT: Hearing the poem read also gives dutch / germanic vibes: https://gutenberg.org/files/19677/ogg/19677.ogg