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New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

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Re: New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

#71

Post by ButlerianJihad »

conartist6 wrote: post #42

Here's the old English poem! https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47296/caedmons-hymn-5... Should be in the public domain by now eh? Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard metudæs mehti and his modgithanc uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuæs eci dryctin or astelidæ. he ærist scop ældu barnum hefen to hrofæ halig sceppend tha middingard moncynnæs uard eci dryctin æfter tiadæ firum foldu frea allmehtig I couldn't make hide…

Despite what The Poetry Foundation claims, and despite the Modern English translation by one of their own, the Early West Saxon text is Public Domain.

Although The Poetry Foundation still promises to track all your content

The OP article, published by Trinity College Dublin, and the original, and the photograph, are expressly CC-BY-ND 4.0. This is not a "free license", but it is a Creative Commons License.

https://theconversation.com/we-found-a-lost-copy-of-the-earl...

Re: New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

#72

Post by lproven »

bregma wrote: post #33
satisfice wrote: post #28

I bet it starts "Roses are red, violets are blue..."

"Thaer whunce waes e mann fromm Nantucket...."

My favourite is perfectly clean and SFW.

There was a Bohemian monk

Who went to bed in a bunk

He dreamt that Venus

Was sucking his elbow

And woke up all covered in perspiration.

Re: New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

#73

Post by gilleain »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #60
simonask wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, came to the comments for this! Reading Old English as a Scandinavian is always interesting, because if you squint hard enough, you can easily see how the languages are so deeply related. So many modern Scandinavian words have what seem to be lost cognates in Old English, and I suppose vice versa. That said, I wish translations into contemporary English went further to preserve the etymology of certain words a…

There was a UK TV show years ago that I've always remembered where the presenter tried to buy a cow using Old English with a Frisian speaking farmer in Holland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeC1yAaWG34

'The presenter' here being Eddie Izzard :)

Re: New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

#74

Post by cindyllm »

alex-moon wrote: post #65

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.

[dead]

Re: New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

#75

Post by IAmBroom »

zeegroen wrote: post #48
cyocum wrote: post #8

My degree is in Celtic Studies. This kind of discovery may be surprising to those not versed in it but not those who have studied these languages. Some of the best preserved Old Irish, for instance, is in St. Gallen in what is now Austria and Milan. There is still an entire Medieval European world out there in the archives still waiting to be discovered. Sadly, there are not many of us who have the skills to do this…

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?

Even digitizing sources this old entails quite a lot of manual labor.

Re: New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

#76

Post by conartist6 »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #71
conartist6 wrote: post #42

Here's the old English poem! https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47296/caedmons-hymn-5... Should be in the public domain by now eh? Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard metudæs mehti and his modgithanc uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuæs eci dryctin or astelidæ. he ærist scop ældu barnum hefen to hrofæ halig sceppend tha middingard moncynnæs uard eci dryctin æfter tiadæ firum foldu frea allmehtig I couldn't make hide…

Despite what The Poetry Foundation claims, and despite the Modern English translation by one of their own, the Early West Saxon text is Public Domain. Although The Poetry Foundation still promises to track all your content The OP article, published by Trinity College Dublin, and the original, and the photograph, are expressly CC-BY-ND 4.0. This is not a "free license", but it is a Creative Commons License. https://th…

It looks to me like Poetry Foundation did it right. The modern translation has a copyright notice, the Early West Saxon version has none. I was being a little coy as anything older than Mickey Mouse is fair game. It's not a particularly marginal call, if you know what I mean

Re: New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

#78

Post by tralarpa »

walthamstow wrote: post #31
shelled wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with native command over Hindi and, unless it's spoken by folks from certain UK countries, English, who also spoke and read Sanskrit quite well during school, I had a period of a few months when I went down the rabbit-hole of wonderful general linguistic history and the interrelation among them. I was shocked beyond imagination to see how we might actually have been more the same than different, if we go b…

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.

Spanish vale and English value have the same Latin origin. Persian bale is an Arabic loanword.

Re: New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

#79

Post by card_zero »

lproven wrote: post #43
nephihaha wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arigato in Japanese is said to be a borrowing from Portuguese Obrigado (might want to verify that!).

No, it's documented, as is tempura . It's like pancakes: you make them before the time of fasting. "The Time of X" in Spanish is "tempora X" and I would bet Portuguese is similar. There are loads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_words_of_Port...

It's listed there under False cognates.

> evidence indicates arigatō has a purely Japanese origin

I remain suspicious, though. Maybe what happened was the popularization of an existing Japanese term under the influence of Portuguese Jesuits, since it sounded similar to obrigado?

Re: New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

#80

Post by rsolva »

rubzah wrote: post #20

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

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