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Realistic Old English expectations. | ||
Tags: Dead Languages | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5651 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 9 of 14 20 June 2009 at 3:22am | IP Logged | ||
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hwæt in geardagum we gardena....
I don't think there is any reason why you couldn't learn Old English up to the required level in that time. However, reading, understanding and analysing a poem the length of Beowulf might be pushing it a bit far. If you want to teach yourself Old English, by all means do so. I think it is a really great language to learn. If, at the end of your summer, you have learned old English, but decide to write an essay on something else, your effort will not be wasted. I would, however, endorse suggestions that you consider shorter and/or easier poems for the essay. You don't mention the required length, but given that something like The Battle of Maldon or the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 755 (which is prose and very short) entry are suitable topics for undergraduate university essays (and have sparked many academic articles in the learned journals), I think that Beowulf is probably a bit too big. So I would concentrate on learning the language, and see what you want to write about closer to the time. Another alternative might be to read a good translation (there are many translations around, but I am not sure how good any of them are), and concentrate on one passage for close textual study (à la scott c) in the original language. You will probably end up deciding that the translator got it all wrong. Don't start me on ealuscerwen (I think they pissed themselves...). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| legasp Newbie Ireland Joined 5681 days ago 23 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Greek, Ancient Greek | Message 10 of 14 20 June 2009 at 11:26am | IP Logged | ||
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If you can find Joseph Wright's Old English Grammar it is immensely helpful. I learned basic Old English for my degree. No easy task, but if you are young it ought to be easier. It 'sounds' more German than modern English. You'll recognize many German words. If you did Michel Thomas German you'll finally get what he means by all those vowel shifts.
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| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5651 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 11 of 14 22 June 2009 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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In general, I think there is a huge synergy between learning German and learning Old English, especially if modern English is your native language. And if you are interested in philology at all, it gives you huge insights into the way languages evolve and the relationship between German and English in particular.
I was particularly struck by the "causative" verbs. These survive in both English and German. Basically, there are a lot of pairs of verbs consisting of a strong intransitive verb and a weak transitive verb based on its past tense, where the transitive verb has the sense of "cause to ...". Examples: lie/lay (liegen/legen), sit/set (sitzen/setsen), fall/fell (fallen/fällen), etc. Less obviously, drink/drench (A vet may still "drench" an animal, i.e. administer liquid medication orally.) In German, there are pairs like schwimmen/schwemmen (Wir wurden ausgechwemmt="We were flooded out", but etymologically schwemmen is to "cause to swim...".) If you are sufficiently interested in languages for their own sake to want to learn Old English, you will probably also be fascinated by the connections between Old English, Modern English and German, as I was. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6873 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 12 of 14 24 June 2009 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | ||
Have you looked into "Teach Yourself old English" to help you? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbh2ppa Diglot Groupie Costa Rica Joined 5696 days ago 44 posts - 74 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, Japanese, Sign Language | Message 13 of 14 04 July 2009 at 12:55am | IP Logged | ||
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couldn't a i+1 approach be used for this kind of problem?
since you already speak modern English, look for something from, say, 100 years ago? read it, make sure you understand it completely. once you understand it, go back 100 years more. rinse and repeat. (that is, unless there are gaps too big in the literary tradition to go through without much efford.) i'm not sure if this would work with your timeframe, but it would be a fun (if you like literature) and easy way to go about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5964 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 14 of 14 04 July 2009 at 4:48am | IP Logged | ||
Hi dbh2ppa, From my understanding of the historical development of the English language, this approach would definitely be interesting but would not be efficient as a learning method. It is not an issue of gaps in the literary tradition but rather a non-linear development of the language between the Old and Middle English periods. Edited by Spanky on 04 July 2009 at 4:49am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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