Se Englisca þrǽd

[Celtichugs]

 

[HUtH]

Spoiler

guess how not native Enlish speaker feels, lol. Chineeeese

 

[hrotha]

Bah, Old English is actually pretty easy for a medieval Germanic language.

 

[Jan Arie]

How about Old-Frisian or "Aldfrysk" as it was pronounced. 

Hal monnik!
Min nona is Finn Folcwalding. (nu is hit Skaldnir)
Sia mi "ingame" alsa "Skaldnir Hirdmadr Jomsborg" 

TRANSLATION:
Hail everybody!
My name is Finn Folcwalding (Now i'm called Skaldnir)
See me ingame as "Skaldnir Hirdmadr Jomsborg"

 

[hrotha]

Old Frisian was fairly similar to Old English (and if you have a good command of Old Frisian, I bet you're able to read the conversations we're having and at least get the gist of it, although we're using lots of technical terms and ad hoc translations out of necessity, since Old English didn't have a very large vocabulary to deal with historical linguistics and etymology), so I reckon the main thing making it harder is that there's much fewer resources to learn it.

Well, that, and the fact that Old English had a well-established literary standard, while in the case of Old Frisian you have two major dialectal groups to deal with.

 

[FrisianDude]

'Aldfrysk' isn't really the pronounciation, it's the name. That's like saying "I'm Jan Arie, that's pronounced Jan Arie". Doesn't help anyone who doesn't already know how to pronounce it.

But how did you learn OLD Frisian? I mean, I am passingly familiar (I know, a great shame that I'm not an expert) with modern Frisian, but I really would like to know how you learned old Frisian.

 

[Éadric]

Léodulf, find mé on Stéame and ic þé helpe Eald-Frésisc tó leornianne.

 

[FrisianDude]

Ic errr etc, something here.

Translation:

I don't have Steam. :O Should I make an account, I wonder

 

[Éadric]

Ic hæbbe éac Scýpe.

 

[Ragnarr Jarl Jomsborg]

Ic hæbbe éac Scýpe tóò.

 

[Hospes fori]

Éac already means too, Ragnarr.

Excuse me for not writing in Old English.

 

[Orchid]

Listen! Beowulf opening line misinterpreted for 200 years
The opening line 'Listen!' is not a proclamation and should not have an exclamation mark, according to new research



It is perhaps the most important word in one of the greatest and most famous sentences in the history of the English language. Yet for more than two centuries “hwæt” has been misrepresented as an attention-grabbing latter-day “yo!” designed to capture the interest of its intended Anglo-Saxon audience urging them to sit down and listen up to the exploits of the heroic monster-slayer Beowulf.

According to an academic at the University of Manchester, however, the accepted definition of the opening line of the epic poem – including the most recent translation by the late Seamus Heaney - has been subtly wide of the mark. In a new paper, Dr George Walkden argues that the use of the interrogative pronoun  “hwæt” (rhymes with cat) means the first line is not a standalone command but informs the wider exclamatory nature of the sentence which was written by an unknown poet between 1,200 and 1,300 years ago. According to the historical linguist, rather than reading: “Listen! We have heard of the might of the kings” the Old English of “Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga,  þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas  ellen fremedon!” should instead be understood as: “How we have heard of the might of the kings.”

[...]

The confusion is believed to date back to Jakob Grimm, one of the Grimm Brothers, who wrote in 1837 that “hwæt” was a “pure interjection”. Since then it has variously been translated as “What ho!”  “Hear me!” “Attend!” “Indeed!” and more recently “So!” by Seamus Heaney in 2000. This is despite the research suggesting that the Anglo Saxons made little use of the exclamation mark or indeed much other punctuation beyond the full stop or the occasional semi colon. (...)

(Source)

 

[hrotha]

But that use of hwæt as "lo, listen, indeed, etc" doesn't just appear in the opening line of Beowulf - it is in fact fairly common, and it even appears next to Latin equivalents, like hwæt we witan~novimus namque, "indeed, we know", and in compound interjections like hwæt la hwæt.

I'd like to read his paper because maybe it's just The Independent doing a terrible job at reporting it. For example, this is just silly:

“It shows that perhaps the Anglo-Saxon audiences were better behaved than we thought because it doesn’t say `Oi you, listen to this!’” Perhaps they were more appreciative,” he added.

But he may have said it as a joke.

edit: stuff like this doesn't help:

Since then it has variously been translated as “What ho!”  “Hear me!” “Attend!” “Indeed!” and more recently “So!” by Seamus Heaney in 2000.

This is despite the research suggesting that the Anglo Saxons made little use of the exclamation mark or indeed much other punctuation beyond the full stop or the occasional semi colon.

All the experts are well aware of Anglo-Saxon spelling practices, and editing Old English texts is largely about making calls regarding the modern punctuation.

 

[Orchid]

Have you got access to JSTOR? Just checked and it's available.

Walkden, George. "The status of hwæt in Old English." In: English Language and Linguistics, 17 (2013), 3, pp. 465-488. (Cambridge UP)

 

[hrotha]

I don't, but I found it here.

I'll be back when I've read it.
edit: after reading just the abstract, I can say that yes, The Independent did an absolutely terrible job here.

 

[FrisianDude]

Thought you guys might be interested in this survey on mutual inteligibility by the university of Groningen as well: http://www.micrela.nl/app/ In modern languages, though.

 

[Orchid]

Harumph, my browser (Firefox) won't load the app even though all my plug-ins are up-to-date.

 

[FrisianDude]

Oh. Mine would. Even though I popped up with a new version this morning (which I diligitently ignored.)

 

[Éadric]

Hwæt gé þisses þrǽdes rǽdenne oferhíerdon, hú gé tord firene fremedon!

 

[Jan Arie]

Léodulf, find mé on Stéame and ic þé helpe Eald-Frésisc tó leornianne.

Cunne þú helpa tó betera mín Angelsaxisk and Eald-Frésisc?