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Old English readings | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Thantophobia Groupie United States Joined 5162 days ago 49 posts - 66 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 1 of 6 13 April 2011 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=QE0MtENfOMU http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=zfaEGU45lKA I had no idea English used to be like that. That's awesome. Edited by Thantophobia on 13 April 2011 at 10:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5729 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 2 of 6 13 April 2011 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here's something from the BBC about the history of English:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/timelines/language_ timeline/index_embed.shtml 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 3 of 6 14 April 2011 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | ||
It's great, especially the audio documents :). My comprehension of the oldest texts is virtually nil (I wonder if it's the same for native speakers of nordic languages :). But 1066 is a huge step towards the modern language. Shakespearian English is moderately hard to decipher. The 1490 text is very readable (introduction of the printing press by William Caxton) and everything that follows is also easy. Edited by Sennin on 14 April 2011 at 12:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 4 of 6 14 April 2011 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can just about follow the Anglosaxon speech in some of those Youtube clips when the original text is on the screen, and I can barely understand Beowulf when I have either an English or the Icelandic translation beside it, that's all. Not too impressive, actually.
However the really interesting thing would be whether a native Icelandic OR a Frisian speaker with knowledge of Modern English could understand those clips or read the old manuscripts, - though my guess is that it would take some effort even for people with that background. Someday in the future I might want to learn Old English, Old High German and Gothic, but I don't believe that it is something you can do in a flash. It took courses of two hours for one semester each to learn Old French and Old Occitan, and then only as passive languages. Old English won't be easier. Edited by Iversen on 14 April 2011 at 12:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| christian Senior Member United States Joined 5250 days ago 111 posts - 135 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, German | Message 5 of 6 16 April 2011 at 3:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Even though I may not know exactly what it's saying, I get this unearthly feeling of connection and understanding. That's creepy.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 6 16 April 2011 at 5:49am | IP Logged | ||
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The first video is actually Middle English (hence the title). Middle English comes AFTER the Norman invasion,
which brought the French influence into the language. Notice how you can recognize a bunch of words in the first one, whereas in the second one it's nearly impossible. To give more perspective, Early Modern English (Shakespeare's language) comes AFTER Middle English. Old English came way before the Norman invasion of 1066 (i.e. the Romanticization of the English language), therefore making it vastly different from Middle English. It goes like this Old English (second video) > 1066, the Normans come, English becomes Romanticized (is that correct to say?)> Middle English (the first video) > Early Modern English (Shakespeare)> Modern English (our language today :) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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