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Reading English from 1000 AD

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Re: Reading English from 1000 AD

#21

Post by nkurz »

throwawayk7h wrote: post #15

I would rather like to see a fully modern rendition of this text. Even as English-first-language, I still find this hard to understand.

I used Claude to come up with this translation for the submission a couple days ago:

And what she said was all true (And that she said was all true). I married her (I wifed on her), and she was a very beautiful woman (and she was full beautiful wife), wise and steadfast in battle. I had never before met such a woman (Not met I never before such a woman). She was in battle as bold as any man, and yet her face was lovely and fair (and though however her countenance was winsome and fair).

But we are not at all free (But we nothing free not are), because we could never depart from Wulfsfleet (because we never not might from Wulfsfleet depart), unless we find the Lord and slay him (unless we the Lord find and him slay). The Lord has bound this place with cunning arts (The Lord has this place with cunning-crafts bound), so that no man may leave it (that no man not may it leave). We are here like birds in a net, like fish in a weir. And we seek him still (And we him seek yet), both together, husband and wife, through the dark streets of this grim place. May God help us nonetheless (However God us help)!

Re: Reading English from 1000 AD

#23

Post by madcaptenor »

chistev wrote: post #19
madcaptenor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this recommended a few times here, and I've listened since the beginning. I'd recommend it. But it would be hard to catch up after nearly 14 years and 187 episodes (probably averaging an hour?) - I wonder if there's a shorter history of English somewhere.

Is it still in production? I mean are new episodes still being released? Because I haven't finished the first episode yet, but if all episodes are as interesting as the first, I'll finish all those 187 episodes in no time. Hahaha.

Still in production. The most recent episode was released 2025-12-31, and it looks like he's lately been putting them out every two months. (I subscribe to the Patreon; there are bonus episodes interspersed between the regular episodes.)

Re: Reading English from 1000 AD

#24

Post by madcaptenor »

madcaptenor wrote: post #23
chistev wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it still in production? I mean are new episodes still being released? Because I haven't finished the first episode yet, but if all episodes are as interesting as the first, I'll finish all those 187 episodes in no time. Hahaha.

Still in production. The most recent episode was released 2025-12-31, and it looks like he's lately been putting them out every two months. (I subscribe to the Patreon; there are bonus episodes interspersed between the regular episodes.)

Update: episode 188 just dropped.

Re: Reading English from 1000 AD

#25

Post by dddgghhbbfblk »

chromehearts wrote: post #17

Old english using "ne" as a negative concord is definitely borrowed from the french right?

No, Old English is pre-Norman invasion. I think you have (understandably) misunderstood what a "negative concord" means--it's when a double negative is still a negative, ie multiple negative elements agree with each other rather than cancel out. Like "I didn't hear no bell". A lot of languages are like this (eg Spanish).

In the OP article the sentence has both this "ne" and also a "never"

Re: Reading English from 1000 AD

#26

Post by schoen »

Sharlin wrote: post #7
rob74 wrote: post #3

As a native German speaker, I can at least say that knowing both German and English doesn't really help in understanding the text. Not even the most "dumbed down" version - ok, he's apparently saying something about his wife, but no idea what exactly. And when I read " shyne (Modern English "sheen" but German cognate is closer) ", I was even more confused. "Sheen" is the property of an object that is shiny, which in…

Another Modern English cognate even closer to shyne than "sheen" is "shine" (and obviously the German "schein"). The words for "beautiful", "fair", "bright", "shining", "well-reputed", "righteous" have a long history of being related: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schinen#Middle_English (to shine, to appear) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skyr#Middle_English (clear-coloured, pale, light, luminous, radiant) https://e…

I resemble that remark!

For a modern semantic parallel, we might point to the phrase "she's quite a looker".

It's also interesting to see the words related to hearing and reputation; I'm thinking of Greek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleos and Slavic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs#Ethnonym where there's a whole thing about having people talk about you loudly (or, alternatively, being able to produce intelligible speech at all).

Re: Reading English from 1000 AD

#29

Post by canjobear »

rob74 wrote: post #3

As a native German speaker, I can at least say that knowing both German and English doesn't really help in understanding the text. Not even the most "dumbed down" version - ok, he's apparently saying something about his wife, but no idea what exactly. And when I read " shyne (Modern English "sheen" but German cognate is closer) ", I was even more confused. "Sheen" is the property of an object that is shiny, which in…

Knowing German would mostly be helpful for understanding the grammar of Old English. The three genders and four cases, participles prefixed with ge-, verbs like sindon (=sind). There are tons of cognates with German (like þurh = durch) but they're hard to recognize immediately unless you know the kinds of sound changes that are common.

Re: Reading English from 1000 AD

#30

Post by FarmerPotato »

rob74 wrote: post #3

As a native German speaker, I can at least say that knowing both German and English doesn't really help in understanding the text. Not even the most "dumbed down" version - ok, he's apparently saying something about his wife, but no idea what exactly. And when I read " shyne (Modern English "sheen" but German cognate is closer) ", I was even more confused. "Sheen" is the property of an object that is shiny, which in…

I, too, find it confusing. The "German cognate is closer" is not helpful!

I think the ö is significant. It could correspond to English ē, but not ei, -ine.

Under sʜᴇᴇɴ, Partridge [1] states that OE scēne, scȳne are related to G schön, from PIE *skauniz "Ultimately, to E sʜᴏᴡ."

I think we have two compartments here:

1. ö/ē words - schön, E shown, shewn. Under Partridge [1] sʜᴇᴇɴ

2. ei words - G schein and E shine. OE scīnan, under Partridge [1] sᴄᴇɴᴇ

[1] My favorite reference: Eric Partridge: _Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of English_. More concise than the OED, and you can carry it.

As an English speaker, I'm delighted by the borrowing "ser schön". It is the highest grade in English catalogs of ancient coins. "Shiny" is not a good quality in ancient coins!

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