# Reading Old English

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 18, 2003, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765 "2003-02-18T00:54:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/21 "2003-02-19T13:41:09Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by monica \*  
> \*\*Looking at [this](http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/oe/texts/a4.1.html) version of beowolf, I noticed big gaps, almost but not quite forming two columns. How should one read this? Reading one column down, then the next, or ignoring the gaps? 😕 \*\*

OE poetry is written in “half-lines.” It’s a highly stylized form. I’ve found a page that explains the “half-lines” and some of the other structural rules: [http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~mwh95001/oepoetry.htm](http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~mwh95001/oepoetry.htm)

I studied medieval languages and literature in grad school. I got my degree more than 10 years ago, and didn’t go into it professionally, so I can’t call myself an expert in this area; however, one thing I remember from my studies is that _Beowulf_ can not be considered as a general example of OE. This one poem contains hundreds of words that do not appear in any other surviving text (I’ll see if I can find a cite for this), and is more stylistically complex than the usual poetry of the era.

I had to translate quite a bit of OE for my degree–you can see some examples at the Georgetown site:  
[http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/oe/alpha.html](http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/oe/alpha.html)

OE is closer to the Germanic languages than modern English, but once you have the basic vocabulary and grammar, most of the poems are fairly easy to read. _Beowulf_ is much more difficult, and I never managed it without resorting to the glossary and previously translated versions.

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/22 "2003-02-19T17:58:01Z")

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Mapp:

Interesting post. I’m definitely an amature when it comes to linguistics, but I thought there were very few surviving OE texts. Are there really enough OE texts of the length of Beowulf that we can make generalizations about it being “representative” or not?

Do we have much of an idea of how much OE changed over the 500 odd years it was spoken? Or are most of the texts from the latter part?

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**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/23 "2003-02-19T19:47:48Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Interesting post. I’m definitely an amature when it comes to linguistics, but I thought there were very few surviving OE texts. Are there really enough OE texts of the length of Beowulf that we can make generalizations about it being “representative” or not?

_Beowulf_ is certainly a one-of-a-kind text – the only extant long narrative poem in Old English about a nonreligious subject. However, there’s certainly enough OE poetry to make comparisons between _Beowulf_ and other texts.  
[Here](http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/oe/alpha.html) is an index of surviving Anglo-Saxon poems. (Bear in mind that there are also a _lot_ of prose texts surviving from this period; it’s the poetry that is really scarce.)

> [@](#):
>
> Do we have much of an idea of how much OE changed over the 500 odd years it was spoken? Or are most of the texts from the latter part?

This is a hard question to answer because we don’t know exactly when many of the texts were written, especially the poetry. However, there were definitely some identifiable linguistic changes toward the end of the period, such as the case endings on nouns changing or being dropped entirely. (I’m also a linguistic amateur, so I hope others will be able to fill in some more information.)

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**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/24 "2003-02-19T19:59:04Z")

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In general, language changes at about the same rate during any time period. Since Old English is generally considered to last from 450 A.D. to 1100 A.D., that’s a period of 650 years. It’s been 400 years since Shakespeare’s time, and the differences are quite noticeable. The changes from the beginning of the period of Old English to the end of that period are probably slightly more than the changes in Modern English since Shakespeare’s time.

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/25 "2003-02-19T21:06:11Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Subite li pla?dis en akvon! Brr! La akvo estis tiel akre malvarma, ke li tuj haltis kaj konsterni?is. Li ne sciis ?u temis pri flako, a? subtera rivero kiu transiris la tunelon, a? pri bordo de granda submonta lago.

I’m guessing this is about cold water (Brr! :D) from a subterranian river that turns into a tunnel to flow into a big lake under a mountain. Is this a _Hobbit_ reference?

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**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/26 "2003-02-19T21:24:09Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sunspace \*  
> \*\*Here is a chunk of Esperanto (in Unicode). Can you get the gist? \*\*
> 
> Subite li pla?dis en akvon! Brr! La akvo estis tiel akre malvarma, ke li tuj haltis kaj konsterni?is. Li ne sciis ?u temis pri flako, a? subtera rivero kiu transiris la tunelon, a? pri bordo de granda submonta lago.

I’ll take a stab…

“Submit your place? In Akron? Never! In Akron the marmasets are particularly halting, and this is disconcerting? It is. Do you eat corn-flakes when you play tennis? Underneath the earth Geraldo Rivera translates a tunafish sandwich, aaahhh. Prime Boredom on a grand scale built entirely of legos.”

How close did I get?  
I think it’s from “Dante’s Inferno”  
amuza?

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**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/27 "2003-02-19T21:51:03Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> ## quote:
> 
> ## Originally posted by monica Looking at this version of beowolf, I noticed big gaps, almost but not quite forming two columns. How should one read this? Reading one column down, then the next, or ignoring the gaps?
> 
> OE poetry is written in “half-lines.” It’s a highly stylized form. I’ve found a page that explains the “half-lines” and some of the other structural rules: [http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~mwh95001/oepoetry.htm](http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~mwh95001/oepoetry.htm)

Huh. I had always thought they were responsive readings, like in the Finnish Kalevala–you would have two chanters reciting (or making up) the poem, and they would trade lines.

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**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/28 "2003-02-19T23:50:49Z")

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When reading older forms of English, don’t assume that because you recognize a word that it means the same thing the word means now. A lot of Shakespeare is routinely misinterpreted because words very familiar to us today had very different meanings and associations back then.

Being able to recognize a passage from the Bible, sure. Getting the gist of even a tiny passage you haven’t encountered before, free of context, is much less easy. I remember those exams! : )

-fh

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**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/29 "2003-02-20T00:05:01Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by monica \*  
> \*\*I want to take a guess at this…  
> “And he said go and he went. And he said come then he came. And he said do this and he did it.”  
> I can’t figure out what “thissum” means, however, so I left that part out. I got some of the rest of it by trying to read it outloud and seeing what it sounded like, then the rest by context. \*\*

“thissum” probably means “this one”, or in this case, “this person”.

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**Author:** ![Jabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Jabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jabba)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/30 "2003-02-20T00:39:41Z")

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Thus spake **John Mace** :

> [@](#):
>
> Anyway, I do want to correct myself about Chaucer, though. I went to one of the sites with the Canterbury Tales (text and audio), and I’ve got to say that the text was pretty much (~95%) understandable with almost no effort.

By contrast, the roughly contemporaneous _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ is extremely hard going for the modern reader, being written in a dialect belonging to Cheshire, Lancashire or Staffordshire:

After Crystenmasse com þe crabbed lentoun,  
Þat fraystez flesch wyth þe fysche and fode more symple;  
Bot þenne þe weder of þe worlde wyth wynter hit þrepez,  
Colde clengez adoun, cloudez vplyften,  
Schyre schedez þe rayn in schowrez ful warme,  
Fallez vpon fayre flat, flowrez þere schewen,  
Boþe groundez and þe greuez grene ar her wedez,  
Bryddez busken to bylde, and bremlych syngen  
For solace of þe softe somer þat sues þerafter  
bi bonk;

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**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/31 "2003-02-20T02:11:29Z")

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**Derleth** , [BMalion\*\*, it’s an excerpt from chapter five of _The Hobbit_:

> [@](#):
>
> Suddenly without any warning he trotted splash into water! Ugh! it was icy cold. That pulled him up short. He did not know whether it was a pool in the path, or the edge of an underground stream that crossed the passage, or the brink of a deep dark subterranean lake.

A literal translation from the Esperanto would be:

> [@](#):
>
> Suddenly he splashed into water. Brr! The water was in-that-way sharply cold, that he immediately halted and became confused. He did not know whether [it] was a question of a puddle, or a subterranean river that went across the tunnel, or the shore of a great under-mountain lake.

Notice that the translation misses a number of the nuances in the original.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/32 "2003-02-20T02:40:29Z")

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Hazel:

Agreed. The famous “wherefor art thou Romeo” is probably misinterpreted 99% of the time. Anyone familiar with a Scandinavia language though, would know wherefor = why, not where. [I probably mispelled wherefor, so correct me at your whim.]

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/33 "2003-02-20T03:00:29Z")

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No. _Þissum_ is the dative case of _þis_, meaning ‘to this (one)’. Notice how it ends in _-m_ the same as our surviving dative pronoun, _him_. In Old English, the third person masculine singular pronoun was _him_ only in the dative; the accusative was _hine_. But now, both object forms are _him_. All masculine and neuter datives (and feminine plurals) in Old English ended in _-m_.

_Ic_ is the first person singular, not third. Ever seen any German?

_And ic secge þissum ga and he gaþ. And ic secge þissum cum þanna cymþ he. And ic secge þissum do þis and he daeþ._

So the translation of the above passage goes:

And I say to this [bloke] “Go,” and he goes. And I say to this [bloke] “Come,” then he comes. And I say to this [bloke] “Do this,” and he does.

This is about as simple and easy a sample of OE as thou canst expect to find. Note that the neuter demonstrative pronoun _this_ is the same in the accusative as in the nominative.

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**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/34 "2003-02-20T12:23:24Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by John Mace \*  
> Agreed. The famous “wherefor art thou Romeo” is probably misinterpreted 99% of the time. Anyone familiar with a Scandinavia language though, would know wherefor = why, not where.

Very true indeed. However, once upon a time there was, at least in Swedish, a word **vi** , meaning why.

> [@](#):
>
> [I probably mispelled wherefor, so correct me at your whim.]

Feel corrected: it’s wherefore.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/35 "2003-02-20T14:24:13Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by John Mace \*  
> \*\* Are there really enough OE texts of the length of Beowulf that we can make generalizations about it being “representative” or not? \*\*

I obviously can’t refer to all OE writings that ever existed and say how _Beowulf_ represented the language as it was spoken at that time. All I meant is that you can’t use _Beowulf_ as a general guide to determine how difficult it would be to read any other extant OE text. Pretty much everything else that survives, prose or poem, is easier to read. It’s rather like basing an assessment of your skills in modern English on how well you do reading Joyce.

It’s interesting that Tolkien’s come into this discussion. When I was studying, we read some of his scholarly works on medieval lit, as well as his translation of the Middle-English poem,  
_Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_. It was during that period that I really began to get into LOTR; understanding some of Tolkien’s background in OE and other languages opens up the novel on a whole, new level.

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**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/36 "2003-02-20T14:30:49Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sunspace \*  
> \*\*Notice that the translation misses a number of the nuances in the original. \*\*

Seems missing the nuance is about all esperanto is good for, but don’t take my word for it, Listen to what a wickedly funny, unemployed linguist has to say in this, the mother of all [espe **RANT** os](http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/) . quite a fun read.

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/37 "2003-02-20T14:49:39Z")

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Mapp:

Good point about Tolkien and his linguistics background. He uses lots of archaic English words in LOTR that, for me, gave the reading experience a somewhat dream-like quality. For quite a few words, it was like you sort of knew what they meant, esp in context, but you probably couldn’t define them if someone asked you to. It’s like he led you to an understanding thru emotional or subconscious pathways. His mastery of language was truely on the genius level.

Anyway, I wasn’t implying that you might have an encyclopedic understanding of OE texts, I just didn’t think there were that many around. And of course most great liturature does not reflect the language of everyday use.

One more question. Having at least a working knowledge of OE, can you get anywhere picking up Icelandic sagas? (Or modern Icelandic, for that matter.) Are they similar enough to at least get a reasonabele understanding of what is being said?

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**Author:** ![Lodrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@Lodrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lodrain)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/38 "2003-02-21T02:17:07Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by Floater_  
> \*\*Very true indeed. However, once upon a time there was, at least in Swedish, a word **vi** , meaning why.  
> \*\*

Hey, isn’t that also the word for ‘we’?

[dons dork hat]

Anyways, the word ‘why’ is pretty interesting, in that it is the last remaining remnant of the instrumental case in English that I’m aware of, from the Old English _hwy_. I don’t know why; I just find this incredibly cool.

[doffs dork hat]

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/39 "2003-02-21T03:26:48Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by Monty [regarding Esperanto]_  
> I didn’t say it wasn’t very European. Look closely and you will see that I said its vocabulary was drawn from European languages. Its grammar is a different issue altogether.

Although I have not studied Esperanto extensively, I am familiar with the grammar in its basic form, and I can say that it is quite Indo-European, as will be obvious to any speaker of an Indo-European language who also has a passing familiarity with Arabic, Turkish, Japanese, Georgian, or any other non-Indo-European language. Things like marking case and number in nouns by changing the ending, adjective / adverb distinction, conjugated verb endings, etc. are all very Indo-European features.

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**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-old-english/155765/40 "2003-02-21T03:37:02Z")

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So, yBeayf: Are you trying to tell me that Japanese is an Indo-European language?

Oh, Japanese does mark plurals (when used). There’s a morpheme used to change the ending of, you guessed it, nouns. Japanese also changes the verb ending for conjugation.

Not even a nice try.

Back to the main thread now.

Old English is what’s known as a parent or predecessor language to Modern English.

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