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Realistic Old English expectations. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Williy Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 5950 days ago 30 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, French | Message 1 of 14 09 May 2009 at 10:38pm | IP Logged |
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Here is my dilemma. I chose to do a mini-dissertation on Beowulf for my high-school's IB extended essay (I'm in grade 11.) In order to do this, I have resolved to teach myself Old English this summer. If I invest perhaps 2-4 hours a day for 2-3 months, do you guys think it is reasonable that I could be functionally literate in reading Old English classics - such as Beowulf with the aid of occasional dictionary use? I have already begun to collect the necessary material needed for serious self study.
The total time I would spend learning is somewhere near 300-400 hours. And I am at a low-intermediate level in German (if that helps at all.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5906 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes  Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 2 of 14 10 May 2009 at 12:24am | IP Logged |
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Wow!!! I'd like veyr much to read it as well. You better ask Iversen about this: he doesn't speak Anglo-Saxon or
those old dialects but he's danish and know all those languages connected at it. I think that it would be very difficult. Can you read somethings of more recent things, for example the centuries after? German would help, I agree, but maybe icelandic , Norse more, but I'm not sure. --> ask Iversen. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JBI Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5699 days ago 46 posts - 67 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew, English* Studies: Italian, Mandarin, French | Message 3 of 14 10 May 2009 at 3:09am | IP Logged |
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It is supposedly tricky if you aren't good with Grammar, but it is possible - Beowulf though, is a very difficult text, which at my university isn't really looked at until higher level Old English courses, in contrast to things like the Seafarer, which would be looked at in a first year course. Of course, I'm not you, so I don't know how quickly you learn, but it is a very tough text - so I would say you'd probably need to put in more effort than that - but in the event that you do, or you make progress at any rate, it most certainly will be worth it.
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| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5964 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 4 of 14 10 May 2009 at 6:06pm | IP Logged |
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Hey Williy,
I studied Old English at university for perhaps only two or three weeks as part of a broader history of English language course, and did not read any of Beowulf in the original text, so some of this may be of limited assistance, but my guess (even with your German language background) is that most of your time would be taken up learning enough Old English to be able to read the text, and it would still be a reasonably slow process even at the end of the intensive process you describe. My expectation is that you could be positioned, within a three month period, to write a mini-dissertion along the lines of "How I learned some Old English by using the Beowulf text" (and that might be interesting itself), but not really in a position to write anything of a meaningful nature about Beowulf itself. I hope I do not sound like a wet blanket, but given your time frame it sounds like a bit of an over-reach. If you are going ahead, best wishes. You are likely aware already, but I believe you should be able to get your hands both on sound recordings directly in Old English and a parallel original/modern interlinear text of Beowulf. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6711 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 14 10 May 2009 at 10:16pm | IP Logged |
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You can roughly compare the complexity of the grammar with that of Icelandic, so the problem is what you have got now that can help you. Let's face it, Modern English will only be of limited use. I'm not a native speaker, but can probably read the various variants of English as well as almost any native Anglophone, I know some Icelandic and German AND I have periodically read something in my Old English textbooks and collections, which I bought in the 70s.
So my background should be ideal, but Anglosaxon is right now balancing on the border of what I can understand. With a good background in English and some knowledge of German it is my guess that you could learn to spell your way through Beowulf, but not more. However I know from Old Norse that prose generally is much easier than poetry, so maybe you should aim for that first. I hope you like to study grammar and vocabulary, because you will need that. And then I would suggest that you look for bilingual texts, or if necessary make some yourself. When you don't have living speakers around you, bilingual texts are the next best thing. Good luck, - and go for it if you really want to do it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| scott_c Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5685 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 6 of 14 11 May 2009 at 3:21am | IP Logged |
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Will,
I wouldn't try this. All kinds of reasons. What you might try is a close reading. Pick a selection you like from Beowulf and work it over yourself line by line (e.g. from Heaney's dual-language edition), see how it works within the narrative using the literary capacities you have, and from there latch on to the few words which carry the scene - verbs, adjectives, images, what are they?, etc. Now you scour the Old English, uncouple the translator's English cadence from the emotive aesthetics and scavenge the Old English lines for an authentic experience - the unexpected cross-meaning, an aural rhythm, a finesse the original has but Heaney has not, a line rendered blithely or too-acutely in translation, etc. This is not the best way to spend your time, honestly. Any university library owns shelves of similar stuff. But you can do this. You can start by reading up on Old English lit (literature about literature), seeking an 'in' somewhere that helps you case a niche for yourself. So: You might discover that Old English is particularly good at evoking certain states of mind via cadence, vocabulary, etc., that English cannot equal, so you wedge yourself in and critique the translation. Avoid a comparative translation essay; it'll sound precious. So will a bubbly preamble about the Old English minutia that interests you more than your reader and adds only graspingly to your argument (e.g. the portion that exists mainly because of your zeal for languages, to the extent of its irrelevance). I really wish you well in any case. Your enthusiasm astounds. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6711 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 14 11 May 2009 at 10:29am | IP Logged |
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I had not not considered the essay you have do deliver at the end of your crash course in Old English, but Scott C is probably right: an text about the mindset of the Anglosaxons is more appealing even to people who deal professionally with that culture and its language than a stone dry account of minute differences in spelling between two sources or something like that. And it will be more interesting to write.
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| Snesgamer Groupie Afghanistan Joined 6619 days ago 81 posts - 90 votes Studies: English*, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Scottish Gaelic | Message 8 of 14 15 May 2009 at 9:46am | IP Logged |
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I'd definitely try learning some Old English (it might help you understand some of the nuances at least, not to mention OE is a damn cool language!), but I don't really think you have enough time for it to be much use to you for your dissertation. But you should definitely still learn it - how cool would it be to be able to tell people you read Beowulf in the original language?
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