Five guys walk into a literature class. One speaks only English, one speaks only German, one speaks only Dutch, one speaks only Danish, and one speaks only Icelandic.
Inspired by the upcoming movie, and this thread, I’m wondering which of the 5 guys could get the most out of reading the earliest extant Beowulf text. Written down in the 11th century, it would be after the time when Old Norse and Old English were mutually intelligible, but not by all that long compared to where we sit int he 21st century.
I’m going to say, in this order:
Icelandic guy
Dutch guy
German guy
Danish guy
English guy
I base that on the fact that English has changed so radically since that time by the infusion of French words and the loss of many case endings for nouns. But it’s still closer to Dutch and German than it is Danish.
I’m not sure this has a 100% factual answer (except for may the Icelandic guy), but it’s close enough, I think, for this forum.
It looks more English than Norwegian (which is closer to norse than danish). My vote is that the Icelandic would understand it quite well (they can supposedly read Old Norse easily enough, and according to the other thread, Old English, too), but all of the others would be pretty far off. I don’t see the dutch link at all. So Icelandic - English - Danish - German - Dutch.
You don’t see the Dutch or German connection? I have to admit that I cheated a bit in that quiz I took in the other thread-- some of those words I recognized because I speak some German. How do you say “day” and “king” in German?
Plus, there are lots of Germanic words that have fallen out of use in English, but remain in German, Dutch and Scandinavian languages.
You mean geardagum and þeodcyninga? I’d say they’re rather well camouflaged, and I don’t think too many germans would have recognized either of them if it weren’t for the translation.
æfter - could be norwegian etter (efter), english after, which actually could be the “of” in the translation (in norwegian, you can ask after, like in english “to ask for”)
ond - english and is easy enough to spot, at least in way it’s used throughout the text, but norwegian “og” would be far-fetched.
grimhelmas - uhm, grim helmets/ grimme hjelmer? could be a connection (translated as masked helms)
Ic eom - I am, ok. Not too similar to norwegian “Jeg er”, though
Ne seah ic - I have never seen… seems a bit far fetched to spot it, but ok. The litteral norwegian would be “Jeg har aldri sett”, but Ne could look like a negation (No is Nei), seah looks like se (see), ic isn’t too far from jeg (I)
manige men modiglicran - One of the few bits easier to spot for a norwegian. The translation reads Many men, of braver bearing, which is about the same as norwegian “Mange modige menn”
sohton. - sought/søkt. It looks a bit far fetched (or søkt, as we would say)
Him - him/ham
andswarode - looks quite like answered, but in norwegian it easily mistranslates as ansvar (responsibility)
word æfter spræc -word after spoke (in translation: these words thereafter spoke). The relevant norwegian words are ord, etter, sa, but the syntax here is a bit confusing, in both english and norwegian.
heard under helme: “Hard under helm”, I don’t really know what it’s supposed to mean. It easily mistranslates as the same in norwegian and english, heard under helm/ hørt under hjelm. Now, what that is supposed to mean, I’ve no clue.
Beowulf is min nama. - Beowulf is my name / Beowulf er mitt (also min, though that would be grammatically wrong) navn. Sounds more english, but intelligible in norwegian.
Wille - Wish/ Vill. Minor point to the norwegian.
min ærende - My mission / mitt ærende. Not a clue as an englishman, simple as a norwegian.
þæt (thæt) wæs - that was / det var. Mostly english.
wisdom - wisdom/visdom
wine - friend/ venn. But it still looks more like wine/vin.
As you may have noticed, I didn’t really look for german or dutch words, but I don’t think I would have found any (I don’t speak either of the languages, but I think it’s fair to say that I’m well aquainted with both)
Keep in mind that this is all relative. Who would understand more words, not who would understand all the words. And you might find that the German and Dutch words you don’t see are close cognates of Norwegian/Danish/Swedish.
I believe I have listed most of the scandinavian cognates in the excerpt, and I can’t see that many of them look german or dutch.
A quick babelfish translation of “after. and. grim. helmets. never. seen. i. am. many. brave. men. sought. him. answered. word. after. spoke. hard. under. helm. is. my. name. will. mission. that. was. wisdom. friend.” gives german
“nachher und grimmige Sturzhelme nie gesehen. i. Am. suchten viele tapfere Männer ihn beantworteten Wort nach Speichezwangsarbeit unter Helm. ist. meine Name Willensmission, die Klugheitfreund war-.”
and dutch
“nooit gezien na en onverbiddelijke helmen. i. am. vele moedige mensen naar hem streefden beantwoordde woord na spoke. hard onder roer. is. mijn opdracht van de naamwil die wijsheidsvriend was.”
I see that some of the words haven’t been translated, and there might be more similar translations for some of the words, but overall both languages looks quite different.
min ærende of course translates to my errand in english, which is the same as the norwegian “ærende”. We wouldn’t really use it to mean mission, but we’d rather use, for example, “oppdrag” (which is cognate with dutch opdracht, as babelfish suggested)
andswarode isn’t really too far from the norwegian, either. but it still looks more like “ansvar” (responsibility) than “svar/svarte” (answer/answered)
by the way, what are these five guys doing in the same litterature class?
From a German perspective the text is full of recognizable cognates. Unfortunately some are not so obvious and many don’t work as direct translations. Some of the differences from (modern) German are relatively regular. E.g. it helps a lot if I mentally replace every þ with a d, ht or ght with cht and c at the end of a word with ch. It’s hard to tell exactly how difficult it is. You can understand quite a bit but it requires real effort (and of course knowing some modern English helps.)
That’s probably true. At least those Germans who know the etymology of deutsch can make an educated guess what kind of König that is.
It’s an old Monty Python routine. The guy would insist on pronouncing the two “Fs”:
Banf-f. It was pretty funny IRL. I was wondering if he was Beowulf-f.
yelimS: BTW, even with my limited German, I can pick out quite a few words. And some phrase make more sense in German than English (OE grammar is closer to German than it is to English). Also, Babelfish is notoriously bad for this type of analysis.
John Mace: Of course, just a quick translation while we were waiting for the germans to come along. I’d thought the punctuation would prevent the fish from screwing up too much, but alas.
Yes, I’m eager to hear from a native German speaker. Keep in mind that even the English translation is a bit archaic (probably on purpose), and some of those words would not be commonly used today.
Also, the phrase “min ærende” is probably literally translated as “my errand”, but that word has a less powerful meaning than “mission” does today. Errand is usually meant to be a small task you are sent on, like picking up a bottle of milk at the grocery store, but I’m guessing it must derive from “ærende”. The phrase “hard of helm” is awkward in Modern English, to say the least. I’m not sure exactly what that is supposed to mean unless it’s: “They had hard helmets.” Not sure why that would be particularly remarkable, since helmets are supposed to be hard.
