languages-msg - 7/21/07 Sources for learning old languages. Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Gaelic. NOTE: See also the files: Latin-msg, literacy-msg, universities-msg, Latin-online-art, Ital-Phrases-art. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From Fuzzy Sapiens by H. Beam Piper (1964) "English is the result of Norman soldiers attempting to pick up Anglo-Saxon barmaids, and is no more legitimate than any of the other results." TO: Simon The Speaker Of N FROM: Lord Beelzebub SUBJECT: Re: More Gaelic Stuff Would that be Scots Gaelic or Irish Gaelic? There are two books that do a decent job of teaching you Gaelic if you are phonetically inclined. 'Teach Yourself Gaelic' by Roderick Mackinnon, M.A.. It is Scots Gaelic. There is also another book, same title but different author, that teaches Irish Gaelic. They can be found in a public library in about the 491.xx area. I hope that that helps a little. * Origin: The Dragons Doom / Dumfries, VA / (703) 221-3258 (RBBS 1:265/109) From: jaymin at maths.tcd.ie (Jo Jaquinta) Date: 6 Nov 91 14:22:32 GMT Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. PAMCCOY at GALLUA.BITNET ("Pat McCoy a.k.a. Bones") writes: >Is there more than one type of Gaelic? >What's the difference between Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic? Aaaaaaaarrrrrrgh! [Pat, you should know better :-] I have answered this so many times I will have to create a file I can automatically upload. There is no such language officially known as Gaelic. More property Gaelic refers to a related group of Celtic languages. Actually there are two sub-groups known as P-Celtic and Q-Celtic. These can be broken up regionally as follows: Ireland. The first language of this country is *Irish*. There are different regional dialects of which the two most prevelant are Donegal Irish and Muster Irish. I think the legal standard is Donegal Irish. Scotland. The language spoken there is *Scots Gaelic* (pron Ghal-lick). As Celtic Scotland is a colony of Ireland Scots Gaelic is an offshoot of old Irish (archaicly known as Erse). It has been influenced a lot by the previous inhabitants (Picts?). Isle of Man. The language spoken here is *Manx*. It is a relatively recent offshoot of Irish (1300s I think). It has some rather obscure words in it (like verb: "To strike with a beetle"). Wales: The language spoken here is *Welsh*. There is no legal requirement is Wales to have important documents bilingual. Consequently many Welsh are rather sensitive about their language and tear down English roadsigns. Brittany: The language spoken here is *Breton*. As in Wales the French would rather they didn't speak it and adopt their culture but they have their their own ideas (quite rightly). Cornwall: The language that used to be spoken here is *Cornish*. The language died out but there has been some recent revival. I think Irish, Manx, and Scots Gaelic are P-Celtic and Welsh, Breton and Cornish are Q-Celtic (but I may have my P's and Q's mixed). As you can see though there is quite a variety of flavour of Celtic languages. They are all quite different and mutually unintelligible (I can barely understand the Scots when they are speaking English :-). One sad thing is that not one of them is one of the "official" languages of the Europen Community. Without Community funds I fear that these languages, and that variance of the culture, will be lost. There is an Irish saying "Ti'r gan teanga i's ti'r gan anam" -- "A country without a language is a country without a soul". Seamus % Seamus Donn, Seneschal Sorcha Ui' Flahairteaigh %|% Jo Jaquinta Lesley Grant, Chronicler /\\ | //\ jaymin at lanczos.maths.tcd.ie lgrant at lanczos.maths.tcd.ie ===== 49 Russell Avenue, Clonliffe Road, Dublin 3, Ireland. /|\ for the Shire of Lough Devnaree (Lough Damh na Ri'gh) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: nostrand at HP-UX.yorku.ca ( Barbara Nostrand) Subject: Re: Source needed... Organization: York University Mathematics Department Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 01:12:57 GMT Noble Cousins! Master Arval mentions the spread of litteracy as a force promoting linguistic stability. I believe that there are other stronger forces involved. 1) This one relates directly to what Master Arval posted. The printing press as it makes thousands of exact copies does promote linguistic stability in a way which copyists did not, regardless of the spread of litteracy. 2) Linguistic stability is also promoted by demographic stability. Linguists have found that neologisms and other linguistic inventions are most common among immigrant populations. There are other intersting factors involving the formation of trade Jargon and Pigin forms of extant languages. The first involves a lingua franca which is generally an amalgam of several extant languages. Pigin tends to develop when a large linguistic community only partially learn some other language. Thus, a classic example is the viking incursion into England which left traceable linguistic footprints. Later, the normans conquored England and for a while Norman French was the offical language in England. Thus, much "upper class" and "governmental" vocabulary in English can be traced directly to Norman French. Further, the Normans influenced both poetic form and grammar such as pluralization. Currently, English is undergoing a number of linguistic changes (in this case the culprit appears to be grammar teachers with a faulty understanding of English syntax, semantics and linguistic history.) There is also a special tendency to try to maintain the number of loanwords such as "data" taken from Latin. Try counting 1 datum, 2 data, 3 data 4, 5 data, 6 data, 7 data, more sometime. It really does not make sense in English. The problem is that "data" like many other things which are collections is uncountable and is instead measurable. Thus, engineers (despite the protestations of their cousins in English departments) were actually correct when they wrote things like "... the data is ..." as they were talking about a collective entity. However, this linguistic development appears to be spreading and we hear about "waters" in senses other than "glasses of water" (old usage), "soups", "soaps", "fruits" (old signs read "fruit and vegetables" new signs read "fruits and vegetables" indicating a linguistic shift). Actually, drift due to poor education on the part of the "educated" is one of the major vectors for linguistic drift in modern society. Examples are "inflamible" (originally meaning something which can NOT burn) drifting into the meaning of something rather explosive and the word "irregardless" often used by educated people when the historical word is "regardless". Another example of linguistic drift created by English teachers is the spurious rule against the split infinitive which was derived from Latin. In Latin, verbs conjugate into the infinitive without taking an auxiliary word. Thus, it is impossible to split inifinitives in Latin, but quite it is easy and even poetic to write things such as "to boldly go" in English. One final note. When did standardized spelling become significant in English? I believe that it occured in the 19th century with the publication of Webster's Dictionary in the United States. This dictionary (as the name indicates) was intended as an eloquition guide and NOT as a spelling guide. Ironcially, it failed as an eloquition guide and diverse dialects remain in America. What it has become is a reference for correct spelling and meaning. This is probably the result of its adoption by one room schoolhouses. Finally, why are English spelling and American (U.S.) spelling different? I suspect that one of the principal factors causing this is an attempt on the part of U.S. dictionary makers to spell words in a rather German fashion while the U.K. dictionary makers tend to spell words in a French fasion (especially for French loanwords.) Your Humble Servant Solveig Throndardottir Totally Ignorant From: SADV153 at larry.HUc.uab.EDU (Jo Grove) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Old English language textbook Date: 22 Mar 1994 16:39:02 -0500 Organization: The Internet THL Maredudd asked if anyone could point him towards a good Anglo- Saxon English language textbook (or words to that effect; I don't have the original post in front of me at the moment). I took Old English for a quarter a few years ago, and the text we used was quite excellent (although not for the faint of heart--OE is NOT an easy language to pick up on one's own, unless one already has some familiarity with language study). Unfortunately I can't remember the title and editor of the textbook off the top of my head (it was something EXTREMELY simple like _Introduction_to_Old_English_ or something like that), but I'll look it up for you when I get home and post the information tomorrow. One of the most helpful things about this text, besides the lessons in each chapter and the Anglo-Saxon prose and poetry selections it contains, is the indispensible glossary. I'd suggest reading Anglo-Saxon prose first, then when you feel confident with that move on to poetry. A-S poetry can be VERY confusing for someone struggling with the language. Several good translations of A-S works into Modern English are available, and it's helpful to have one on hand in case you get stuck while trying to translate a difficult concept or turn of phrase (which happens LOTS when you're dealing with A-S!, at least if you're a rank beginner in the language). The closer to a literal translation you can find, the better. Hope this helps. I'll look on my bookshelves to see what the textbook was called, and what other books might be of interest to you, and get back to you. :-) Jamelyn From: charlesn at sunrise.srl.rmit.EDU.AU (charles nevile) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Old English language textbook Date: 29 Mar 1994 07:23:24 GMT Organization: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Jo Grove (SADV153 at larry.HUc.uab.EDU) wrote: : THL Maredudd asked if anyone could point him towards a good Anglo- : Saxon English language textbook (or words to that effect; I don't : have the original post in front of me at the moment). I took Old : English for a quarter a few years ago, and the text we used was quite : excellent (although not for the faint of heart--OE is NOT an easy : language to pick up on one's own, unless one already has some : familiarity with language study). Unfortunately I can't remember the : title and editor of the textbook off the top of my head (it was : something EXTREMELY simple like _Introduction_to_Old_English_ or : something like that), but I'll look it up for you when I get home and : post the information tomorrow. One of the most helpful things about I think the title is A Guide To Old English - I used a book that sounded like the deleted description, and thought it was good. Unfortunately I lent it to someone who still has it, but has moved. good luck Ragnar (Vlachernai NVG) charlesn at sunrise.srl.rmit.EDU.AU From: SADV153 at larry.HUc.uab.EDU (Jo Grove) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Old English language texts Date: 24 Mar 1994 10:52:49 -0500 Organization: The Internet [OOPS!!! Sorry this didn't go out the first time. It looks like my e- mailer must have eaten most of the original message--either that, or something in the ether snagged it. Let me try again....] Unto THL Maredudd (and other interested persons), greetings once again! Here are two texts that might be of some use to you in learning Old English. The first is a textbook that I used in an Intro to Old English class, and the second is a more up-to-date text that was recommended by my professor. _Bright's_Old_English_Grammar_and_Reader_, edited by Frederic G. Cassidy and Richard N. Ringler. ISBN 0-03-084713-3. c 1971 and published by Hold, Rhinehart, and Wingler (I *think*...my prof was reading this info to me over the phone, and I may have misheard the publisher's name). _A_Guide_to_Old_English_, edited by Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson. ISBN 0-631-13625-8. 4th Ed., c 1986 Hope this helps! Jamelyn (who actually CAN talk about something besides sheep...and in another language, too!) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Old English language From: scott.fridenberg at thehub.com (Scott Fridenberg) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 94 03:51:00 -0600 Organization: The Hub! BBS - Tulsa, OK - 918-627-0923 Someone was asking about an Anglo-Saxon textbook. I don't know much about that but I did find an Anglo-Saxon dictionary, in a Thrift Store of all places. The information is as follows: The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon Sweet, Henery, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D. Oxford University Press Ely House, London W. I (1967) (BTW, What is an LL.D.?) Robert Fitzmorgan Northkeep, Ansteorra From: goldschm at hal.COM (Steve Goldschmidt) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Old English Language Textbook Date: 30 Mar 1994 01:00:50 GMT Organization: HAL Computer Systems, Inc. The best text I've seen is Mitchell and Robinson, _A Guide to Old English_ ISBN 0-631-13625-8. It's available in paperback, covers everything, and has hints for folks who are teaching themselves. Iulstan Sigewealding (Stephen Goldschmidt) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: ar070 at FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Carole Fraser) Subject: Re: Old English Language Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 01:54:31 GMT To whoever was asking about an Old English textbook, it would really depend on what you were looking for. If you want a good grammer and introduction text, the Mitchell and Robinson previously mentioned is a very good start. It was what my professor began me with. The introductory grammer is easy to understand and well laid out. The texts given are both in prose and poetry and range from biblical passages, part of The Battle of Maldon to Beowulf. If you are looking for Beowulf, F. Klaeber's text, probably 3rd edition is really good. It has the full text, an excellent glossay and a good set of notes. It also has some other textual fragments. However, probably my best suggestion for translation material is BEOWULF, a translation by Burton Raffel. It is a modern English poetic translation that I have found quite satisfactory in aiding my translation work. It doesn't allow me to copy directly but gives me enough of an idea such that I am not pulling my hair out in frustration at the convoluted sentence structure. The other good thing about Raffel is that on page xx of his Introduction is a listing of all the sources he used: dictionaries, supplements, grammars, sources and general introductions to the period. Wes thu hale! -- CAROLE FRASER ar070 at freenet.carleton.ca From: aj at wg.icl.co.uk (Tony Jebson) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Anglo-Saxon Borrowings Date: 22 Sep 1994 05:22:32 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway Dani (dani at telerama.lm.com) writes: > For that matter, do any of the sources have anything to say about Celtic > influences upon the English language? I knew that historical linguistics book would come in useful one day... Borrowings in Old English come from a number of different places, at different times: 1. Borrowings from non-Germanic Indo-European (IE) into the proto-WestGermanic stock which evolved via Anglo-Frisian to become Old English. It is known that these words had already been borrowed before Old English (OE) appeared as a separate language because they appear, fully integrated, in the entire West Germanic family of languages. These fully integrated loans are mainly from Celtic and Latin, with Latin loans being the more important. There are very few (2-3) well attested loans: proto-Celtic */ri:k-/ "king" appears in Old English as rice "kingdom" ^ the * means the word is a reconstruction Gaulish ambactos "servant" appears in Old English as ambeht "servant" The Latin component is much larger. Typical words borrowings are: "wine" (Latin winum, OE win); "trade, traffic" (L caupo, OE ceapian). [Aside: an interesting point is that wine and vine in English both have the same root--Latin winum--but were borrowed at different times. What has happened is that between the two borrowings the pronunciation of the Latin changed and this is mirrored in two borrowings] 2. Latin Latin influence on OE is divided into two periods: early settlement (450-600), and post-Christian (650+). Among early loans are: stopp "stop" < stroppus (< means derived from) forca "fork" < furca maegester "master" < magister. etc, etc Lots more loans came in during the later period, largely through the Church. So many of these, like culpe "guilt" < culpa, are connected with Christianity and its institutions. Yet more words were borrowed in the tenth century as a result of the Benedictine reformation. Approx 3% of OE is borrowed from Latin (in modern English roughly 70% of words are borrowed!). 3. Scandinavian. Loads of loans here, Viking invasions and all that. The identification of these is quite difficult (they are from NorthGermanic languages which are closely related). There are about 900 attested North Germanic loans into English, only 150 of which appear in OE sources, the rest only manifest themselves in the 12th and 13th centuries in Middle English even though they must have been around earlier. [before anyone suggests it, I don't believe that the 750 or so missing words came into the language via Norman French, they follow OE phonology and morphology too well]. 3. Celtic. There are about 12 secure Celtic loans in OE; most of these are from Brythonic (p) Celtic - the dialect group spoken by the larger number of British inhabitants. They are: binn "bin", bannoc "bit", dunn "dun, grey", broc "badger", bratt "cloak", carr "rock", luh "lake", torr "rock", cumb "deep valley". A very small number came from Goidelic (q) Celtic, and are associated with the church (apparently borrowed from Irish missionaries): dry "magician" < Old Irish drui ancor "hermit" < anchara staer "story" < stoir also cros(s) which only appears in place names. The usual OE is rod. Tony --- Tony Jebson --- International Computers Limited (ICL) --- +44 625 617193 --- +44 61 223 1301 ext 3099 (work) --- aj at wg.icl.co.uk --- All opinions expressed here (however stupid) are my own, ----------------------- and nothing stated here is an official statement by ICL. From: bettina.helms at 7thwave.com (Bettina Helms) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Anglo-Saxon Borrowings Date: 23 Sep 94 01:09:00 GMT Organization: TSUNAMI - Catch the Wave! * Ponte Vedra, FL * 904-273-9738 TJ>Borrowings in Old English come from a number of different places, at differe TJ>times: TJ>1. Borrowings from non-Germanic Indo-European (IE) into the proto-WestGerma TJ> stock which evolved via Anglo-Frisian to become Old English. It is known TJ> that these words had already been borrowed before Old English (OE) appea TJ> as a separate language because they appear, fully integrated, in the TJ> entire West Germanic family of languages. TJ>These fully integrated loans are mainly from Celtic and Latin, with TJ>Latin loans being the more important. There are very few (2-3) well TJ>attested loans TJ>proto-Celtic */ri:k-/ "king" appears in Old English as rice "kingdom" TJ> ^ the * means the word is a reconstruction This element, with exactly the same meaning, also occurs in Latin "rex" and Gothic (*East* Germanic) "-ric"...and Sanskrit "rajah". Who borrowed from whom, and in which direction(s)? From: aj at wg.icl.co.uk (Tony Jebson) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Anglo-Saxon Borrowings Date: 23 Sep 1994 11:40:55 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway bettina.helms at 7thwave.com (Bettina Helms) writes: > This element, with exactly the same meaning, also occurs in Latin "rex" > and Gothic (*East* Germanic) "-ric"...and Sanskrit "rajah". Who borrowed > from whom, and in which direction(s)? To be perfectly honest, I haven't got a clue... [thumbs through book] Aaah! So thats how it works... [dim light dawns] More fully, the borrowing goes like this: the Celtic root is */ri:k-/ "king". This was borrowed into proto-Germanic before this differentiated into separate dialects, and appears in Gothic as "reiks", Old Saxon as "-rik", and Old Icelandic as "-rik" (the last 2 only as name-elements). It also appears as the word "kingdom" in Gothic as "reiki", Old High German as "rihhi", and Old English as "rice". The Proto-Indo-European root of */ri:k-/ is apparently */re:g-/ via a well known sound change from PIE to Celtic of */e:/ to */i:/. If the Germanic forms were direct PIE inheritances, we would expect Gothic "reks", Old English "rece", etc. Thus the Latin form "rex" is a direct inheritance from PIE */re:g-s/, and I've no idea on Sanskrit... the books I have are all aimed at OE, and I don't really understand this sound-change malarky very well. [Idea for new heraldic device: the FERRET -- a small mink-like creature with its tail on fire... no offence intended, Ferret, but you do get into a lot of Flame-wars!] [I going to go and get quietly (noisily?) drunk now... and then tomorrow I get to HIT people... yes, I know, I'm a stick-jock but it *is* FUN!] Tony --- Tony Jebson --- International Computers Limited (ICL) /dev/brain: Permission denied --- aj at wg.icl.co.uk --- All opinions expressed here (however stupid) are my own, ----------------------- and nothing stated here is an official statement by ICL. From: nostrand at mathstat.yorku.ca (Solveig Throndardottir) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Learning Latin Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 00:19:13 -0500 Organization: DeMoivre Institute of Mathematical Sciences Noble Cousins! The Latin language changed over time. For those interested in learning the classical language, I believe that the Cambridge Latin Course Cambridge University Press (4 Vol.) may be of some help. There are also accompanying cassette tapes (although I have not seen those stocked by bookstores). ISBN 0 521 34379 8 Vol 1 ISBN 0 521 34381 X Vol 2 ISBN 0 521 34382 8 Vol 3 ISBN 0 521 34380 1 Vol 4 These should be volumes of the North American Thrid Edition. I hope that this proves useful to someone. Your Humble Servant Solvieg Throndardottir Amateur Scholar From: dnb105 at psu.edu (Ferret) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Learning Latin Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 19:28:47 GMT Organization: Penn State University There is also "Calis", a computer aided teaching program for Latin from Duke University. Ferret From: noramunro at aol.com (Noramunro) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Learning Latin Date: 1 Jul 1995 10:16:33 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) There's a very nice Latin drill program (runs out of Windows, don't know if there are other versions) called Lingua Latina. It's almost freeware, and I'm quite impressed with it. Anyone's who's interested can email me for specifics. As for textbooks, I'd recommend getting Allen and Greenough's _New Latin Grammar_. Most of the classics students I know use the Collins Gem dictionary as a pocket reference, but I've had more success with the New College Latin-English Dictionary published by Bantam. For medieval Latin, Lewis and Short's dictionary is the old standby, but costs about $110 US; if there's a university nearby, you may want to check out their library and see if they have it. The Oxford Latin Dictionary is also nice, but doesn't included examples from Christian authors, so it's of limited use in medieval Latin. --Lady Alianora Munro Barony of Bright Hills, Atlantia From: hrjones at uclink.berkeley.edu (Heather Rose Jones) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Basque Names Date: 24 Nov 1996 05:04:31 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lorilynn Iversen (miaminix at westworld.com) wrote: : f339j at unb.CA (Daniel Flemming) wrote: : > (The Basque language actually : >predates Latin...) : I'll say. According to Dr. L.L. Cavalli-Sforza's new book, genetic : evidence suggests that the Basque language might just be the only : surviving remnant of the language of the Neolithic inhabitants of the : region, popularly known as the Cro-Magnons! Would that qualify as : OOP? :) If I may put on my historical-linguist hat for a moment .... To say that a language "predates" another language or that a language is "older" than another language is often extremely misleading. The version of Basque that existed prior to the arbitrarily-defined beginning date of what we call Latin is, no doubt, as wildly different from modern Basque as Latin is from Modern Italian. Both of the above claims imply -- whether intended or not -- that the modern Basque language has existed in completely unchanging form since a very early period, either pre-Latin or Neolithic times. This simply isn't the case. Of _course_ the Basque language has changed. And Latin didn't spring full-blown into existence from Zeus's forehead (oh, 'scuse me, Jupiter's forehead). "Latin" in _some_ sense also existed prior to Latin, and _some_ direct ancestor to Latin existed in Neolithic times, just as _some_ ancestor of Basque existed then. The relevant point of the "Basque as Neolithic European language" observation is not that modern Basque speakers are speaking some fossilized antique language, but rather that the speakers of that long-distant ancestor of the modern Basque language appear to have been living in modern Europe, while the contemporary speakers of the long-distant ancestors of every other modern European language were doing it somewhere other than Europe. It is generally not a useful statement to say that a language is "older" than a contemporary language. The names of languages are somewhat arbitrary, technical labels. For example, it is not valid to say "Irish Gaelic is older than Scots Gaelic" simply because the ancestor to both of them is called "Old Irish" rather than "Old Scottish" or "Old Gaelic". These are arbitrary labels, based on divisions of the language designed for the convenience of modern linguists. The fact that we have unrelated names for major stages in the evolution of Latin (e.g., Umbrian > Latin > Italian -- although I should note that Umbrian is only one of several languages that contributed to the development of Latin) misleads us into thinking that they are more separate in character than language stages with more similar names (e.g., Old German, Middle German, Modern German). If those who study the historical development of Basque had found it convenient and logical to -- just for the sake of example -- call the period of the language from AD 1600 to the present "Basque", that from AD 1000 - 1600 "Gorblx", that from AD 300 - 1000 "Mifner", that from 500 BC - AD 300 "Orilan" and so on (!I made these up off the top of my head, ok?!!) then we would not be misled into making statements like "Basque is much older than Latin". A speaker of the ancestor of modern Basque that was current in 500 BC would no more be understood by a modern Basque speaker than a speaker of the earliest language-form to which we give the name "Latin" (ca. 500 BC) would be understood by a modern Italian. That we have no distinct name in common use for different developmental stages of the Basque language is simply a testimony to the lack of attention it is given in the Western linguistics community (and, quite probably, to the scarcity of surviving evidence for those early stages). (There, there Sappy -- or may I call you Xaboitsu? -- I know that was a bit weighty. Here's some extra soap chips. Run along now.) Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn From: djheydt at uclink.berkeley.edu (Dorothy J Heydt) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: SCA Survey Please help Me! Date: 23 Apr 1997 16:30:49 GMT Organization: University of California at Berkeley Michael Lindberg <lindberg at sun2.ruf.uni-freiburg.de> wrote: >This brings up a question I've been wondering about. Does anyone know >exactly when English lost its Dative case? (being now no different than >the accusative, often merely with an added 'to') Was it about the same >time it lost its articles when French was the 'official' language of >England or was it later? English still has a definite and an indefinite article ("the" and "a/an" respectively). We don't have grammatical gender any more-- "the" can translate as "der, die, das," which speakers of English find terribly confusing when they learn German--which may be what you meant. As to the dative case, English lost most of its inflectional endings during a period on which we have little documentation, after the Conquest, when almost all written records were either in Anglo-Norman French or in Latin. But the process had begun before the Conquest, during the period when speakers of Danish and speakers of English in eastern England (the Danelaw) discovered that the vocabulary of their two languages was really very similar, it was the different inflectional endings that caused confusion-- and got into the habit of dropping them. (T.A. Shippey describes this process in Robert MacNeil's _The Story of English._) (I was reading a novel recently in which the inhabitants of an Italian village, responding to an influx of tourists who think they speak a little Italian, start speaking slowly and carefully and entirely in infinitives.) The tendency in the development of English over the last thousand years has been to drop inflection and carry the grammatical meaning, sometimes by prepositions, but more often by word order. Thus, "he gave the book to me" is perfectly intelligible, but so is "he gave me the book." The dative (but we would say simply "indirect object") function of "me" is made plain by context. Note however that "he threw him the book" is not the same as the idiomatic "he threw the book at him," which means "the judge gave the prisoner the maximum penalty permitted under the law." And that if two pronouns are used, then American and British usage differs. Turn everything in "the author gave the book to your humble servant" into pronouns and the American will say "he gave me it," the Britisher "he gave it me." Then *all* you've got to go on is context, and your computer-translation software breaks down. Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin Dorothy J. Heydt Mists/Mists/West Albany, California PRO DEO ET REGE djheydt at uclink Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 14:51:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Maradin at aol.com To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: old languages (was: Sealing Wax Query) I've used three texts in learning Old English: 1) Moore, Samuel, Thomas A. Knott, and James R. Hulbert. _The Elements of Old English._ Ann Arbor: The George Wahr Publishing Co., 1977. 2) Father Klaeber. _Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg._ Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Company, 1950. 3) Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson. _A Guide to Old English._ 4th ed. New York: Basil Blackwell Inc., 1986. Each of these I've had assigned on different occasions to take coursework in Old English for my own M.A. The last is neat, because of the variety of OE poetry and riddle verse which are included. The first is interesting, because early exercises are created by the authors, and so make a good model for those who'd actually like to attempt Anglo-Saxon style literature for SCA (i.e., how does one as a speaker of Modern English translate back to Old English). I don't have the reference information handy, but there are also several texts in working with Middle English (including a dictionary), for those Chaucerian buffs. Gwydion Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 19:29:43 -0700 From: Robert Schweitzer <robs at ionline.net> To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: old languages >So where does one who wants to learn Old Norse, Old French, Old German, >or even Old English go for study materials? Latin is easier, there are >regular textbooks for learning Latin available in a lot of book stores, >but how could I get materials to learn other old languages? If you are interested in learning Norse, there is a software company in my area (southern Ontario), which sells software to learn old Norse (as well as Old English and several others I don't recall) There are also a number of people in my canton learning Norse from a lady in a neighbouring canton. I understand that until the 1930's, Icelandic and old Norse remained virtually identical. If you are interested in the computer programs, Contact Ragnar at nnpeters at ionline.net He should be able to provide more details. Rufus A Saxon surrounded by the Norse Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 19:45:17 -0400 From: Barbara Nostrand <bnostran at lynx.dac.neu.edu> To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: old languages Noble Cousins! There is Gordon's book on Old Norse which I believe is back in print. There is a cross-lingual book on Germanic languages which I have somewhere. I have also seen texts on Old English. However, the best thing to do is to enroll in a language program at a university which teaches the language which you are interested in. Your Humble Servant Solveig Throndardottir Amateur Scholar +-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Barbara Nostrand, Ph.D. | Solveig Throndardottir, CoM | | de Moivre Institute | Carolingia Statis Mentis Est | | 676 Pullman Road 135 | 23 East Collings Avenue | | Moscow, Idaho 83843 | Collingswood, New Jersey 08108-8203 | | mailto:bnostran at lynx.neu.edu | (609) 854-8203 | +-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 22:57:45 -0500 (CDT) From: "J. Michael Shew" <jshewkc at pei.edu> To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: old languages As to Old Norse, my constant companion these days appears to be An Introduction to Old Norse by E. V. Gordon, Second edition revised by A. R. Taylor, printed by the Oxford at Clarendon press, 1990, ISBN 0-19-811184-3. It is the best way to teach yourself a language, in my opinion, to get several good works in that language and a decent dictionary of the tounge to bring you into it full tilt. That is what this book is. I am also in one of those Norse challenged areas where a good class on the language is not an option. Mikal ____________________________________________________________________________ Mikal the Ram; an annoying Bard of no redeeming qualities Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 18:46:39 -0500 From: theodelinda at webtv.net (linda webb) To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: old languages (was: Sealing Wax Query) Having majored in Latin, and then gone on to learn medieval Latin, I think it's easier to start with classical Latin, and then look into medieval texts, with the help of a medieval Latin dictionary, or else just a very complete general Latin dictionary. This is because medieval Latin comes in a wide range--there are some writers whose grammar and vocabulary would have warmed the cockles of Cicero's heart, and others whose grasp of basic Latin grammar was a bit on the shaky side, to be kind about it. To read medieval Latin, you would need to know the language right to begin with--and it's easier to get the textbooks for Classical Latin. There are numerous books out on the market for theose interested, including some that are good for the independent student--Frederick Wheelock wrote a very good one, which is intended for self-directed study by adults, rather than trapped high school students. I would also start studying Old French and the older forms of German by learning the rudiments of the modern languages--it's sometimes easier to pick up the variants on a familiar language than to start from scratch. However, if you'd rather go for broke, try checking out the languages section of a university library--they usually have copies of the most commonly used texts, as well as dictionaries, etc. You might also want to keep in mind that when you study Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit etc. that you are also going to have to learn a new alphabet. Learing a new alphabet is easy. Learning to think in it, well enough to read easily, is much harder. Well worth it, if you ask me, but harder. --Theo Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 09:44:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Maradin at aol.com To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Sanskrit << I'm straining here at the limits of my linguistics knowledge, but isn't Sanskrit a "root" language for practically all European languages, like Latin is for the Romance languages? And is some form of Old German a root language for the Nordics? If you were really interested in picking up a lot of languages, starting with the roots might be a good strategy. On the other hand, how close is Sanskrit to anything medieval European? - Juan >> With gentle correction, milord, it isn't. Sanskrit is a child of Indic, which in turn is a branch of Indo-Iranian, which then derives from Proto-Indo-European. It is PIE which is the root of all these languages. The descendant of PIE in the Germanic languages is simply that---Germanic. Linguists haven't labeled any root language as "Old" Germanic. From Germanic then branches into West, East, and North Germanic. The East Germanic branch then becomes the now extinct language of Gothic. West Germanic breaks down into Anglo-Frisian (which in turn becomes English and Frisian, the language of Vrieseland), and Netherlandic-German. This last then breaks off into Low and High branches, the High consisting of Modern Standard German ("Hochdeutsch") and Yiddish. The Low then descends into two extinct languages, Old Low Franconian (from which we get Dutch, Afrikaans, and Flemish), and Old Saxon (from which we get Modern Low German, or Plattdeutsch). North Germanic is broken into East and West: East yielding Danish and Swedish, and West giving us Icelandic, Faeroese, and Norwegian. Faeroese, btw, is "highly similar to Icelandic and spoken in the Faeroe Islands, located in the North Atlantic about midway between Iceland and Great Britain" (Pyles and Algeo 75). For convenience sake, PIE is divided into two sections, satem and centum languages. These two words each mean one hundred, the first in Avestan (an ancient Iranic language) and the second in Latin. Basically, the distinction is due to a phonological development in PIE which I won't go into just now. As for going to the root languages, one could, if one wishes to take the trouble. Understand, however, you're going back to around the time of the Egyptian pharoahs in order to do this, and we have no extant records of these languages---they're all reconstructions. The reconstruction technique has been tested to be around 95% accurate, so you could feel comfortable with the results; but any language you attempt will be written in International Phonetic Alphabet, each character of which represents a *specific* sound. That, and any texts on, for example, Balto-Slavic are going to be chocked full of linguistic notes and explanations in our peculiar formulae. It's not impossible; just more difficult than you might think. :-) Gwydion From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 14:19:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SC - Spanish sources > How different is Catalan from Spanish? (I can read Portuguese fairly > well because of my understanding of Spanish) I studied Spanish in high school, then translated some medieval recipes from Spanish to English, but hadn't formally studied Catalan until I started looking at _Sent Sovi_. I checked out a "teach yourself Catalan" book from the library. I must have lucked out: the one I found had a bunch of sample readings in the back, not only in modern Catalan but in medieval and Renaissance Catalan too. (The readings were historical, not culinary, but how much can I ask for?) It's not trivial to read Catalan with a Spanish background, but it's a lot easier than without a Spanish background. Some background in French or Occitan would help too, since France (more specifically, Provence) is just across the mountains from Catalunya. Here's an example. The modern Spanish word "ambos", or "both", has as cognate the word "amb", which in modern Catalan means "with". In medieval Catalan, however, the "m" was often dropped, and the most common spelling is therefore "ab", still meaning "with". Catalan also has some funky grammatical rules. The most intrusive one is that pronouns for direct and indirect objects are often reduced to one or two letters, and attached to either the front or the back of the relevant verb; this can make it tricky looking up the verb in a dictionary. mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/ Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 10:23:03 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Modern English - OT Celtic languages are properly divided into two families: The Goidelic [celtic languages], being Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic or Erse, and, IIRC, Manx. The Brythonic [celtic language] family includes Welsh, Breton, and Cornish, and weren't there some Celts in Spain who spoke a Brythonic language? Gallicians? Or were they Galateans? Can't recall. Brain too old. Meep zorp flug. Adamantius troy at asan.com Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 10:15:21 +1100 (EST) From: Charles McCathieNevile <charlesn at sunrise.srl.rmit.edu.au> Subject: SC - Modern English - OT This seems to be a bit of an over-simplification. So here is another, but more complex, simplified version of the story. When the Anglo-Saxons invaded (They were a bunch of folks, from around Northern Germany and Denmark and the Netherlands, mostly) they brought their languages with them. These languages were germanic, and the british language of the celts they pushed into wales and the north (welsh is an anglo-saxon word meaning foreigner!) were displaced. Those celtic british languages, along with Irish, go under the catch-all name Gaelic. In the 8th - 11th centuries, the Anglo-Saxon languages became closer, as England was slowly united under the west-saxon and a few other kings. In addition, a great deal of danish came into the language from the areas where vikings settled. At one time, danish was a second language, and the first lagauge of much of the north (Old Danish, this is). in 1016 King Cnut of Denmark and Norway became king of England, following his father Svein Forkbeards campaigns. In this situation Danish would have been doing well, but it should be noted that old danish and anglo-saxon languages were pretty closely related, and more or less mutually comprehensible. Following the conquest in 1066, the language at court became Norman French - and there followed a number of kings who could not speak english. By the time english became a status language again it had included lots of french words. It had also collected, from the time of Alfred or so onwards, a grammar that was not native to the language, but was required to translate Latin philosophical and religious works. From this point (see for example Chaucer in, in London, or Piers Plowman in the North) to modern English there were a whole lot of new words added - usually derived from Latin or greek, or coined from those languages (eg televison, depopulation) with a mixture from a fw other places (the raj, the New World, Arabic, etc) So it usually is possible to work out where a word comes from. Most of our 'small words) me, him, the, and etc are Anglo-Saxon. 'It' is Norse (so is take - the anglo-saxon 'nim' died out in the early modern period, but most people will have seen it in cookbooks of the period) as are a number of other words for common things, especially geography, family, etc. Things that look like french are likely to have been brouoght into the language in the middle-english period (~1100 - 1500), and if in doubt about a modern word the answer is probably shakespeare (the linguistic equivalent of heat and light in physics exams). But note that this will not get you through more than a dinner-party exam... Charles Ragnar Subject: Re: ANST - Re: Thee/Thine Date: Sun, 25 Jan 98 02:11:48 MST From: Jodi McMaster <jmcmaste at accd.edu> To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace wrote, in gracious response to my comment about "thee" as an Anglo/Saxon's performance error: > Sounds reasonable to me, but I'd pick up a copy of Sweet's _Anglo-Saxon > Primer_ or Bright's _Old English Grammar and Reader_ for guidance on > pronunciation. The Anglo-Saxon pronouns of which you speak are not > pronounced like their modern English equivalents. Know offhand where I can get one? I haven't been able to find it in any of the local bookstores, so I've been relying on some online resources (which appear to be quite good, for example, http://www.kami.demon.co.uk/gesithas/OEsteps/pronounc.html) My take is that <{th}a>, the second person pronoun, is prounounced "thuh," like the Modern English definite article. Anyway, thank you very much for your time and response. AElfwyn Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 12:56:08 -0800 (PST) From: Vicki Strassburg <taltos at primenet.com> Subject: Re: SC - reference help On Mon, 30 Nov 1998, LYN M PARKINSON wrote: > Are there any English majors out there who could privately post me > Grimm's Consonant Shift? I can't find my notes (shucks--only been a few http://www.lengua.com/languages/translations/German/germanlanguage.htm from this site, I gleaned: The development of German was affected by several systematic shifts of certain consonants. The so-called Germanic consonant shift distinguished the ancient Proto-Germanic tongue from other Indo-European speech. In this shift, which is described by Grimm's law, an Indo-European p, t, k changed to a Germanic f, th, h, respectively; Indo-European b, d, g to Germanic p, t, k; and similarly Indo-European bh, dh, gh, to Germanic b, d, g. After the western Germanic dialects had developed their own distinctive traits, the High German sound shift occurred. Datable to AD500-700, it set the High German dialects off from other West Germanic speech. During that period the Germanic p, when used initially, or after consonants, or when doubled, became pf (High German Pflanze, Low German Plante,"plant"); when used medially or finally after vowels it became ff or f (High German hoffen, Low German hopen,"to hope"). Under the same conditions the Germanic t became z (pronounced ts, as in Pflanze) or ss (High German essen, Low German eten,"to eat"). After vowels, k became ch (High German machen, Low German maken,"to make"); in all other cases k remained unchanged except in the extreme south of Germany, where it first became kch, and later ch. A later change, found also in Low German, is that of the Germanic th to d (High German das, Low German dat,"that"). Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 21:01:42 -0400 From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net> Subject: SC - Dictionaries... wow! Someone provided this URL a while ago, for a site with links to MANY online dictionaries. http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html I dutifully bookmarked the section with the Spanish dictionaries, but somehow never went back to look at it more closely. Tonight, I was puzzling over two different words that both mean "cabbage", and decided to see if something online could help. I surfed on over, and was floored by what I found. The Spanish section contains the 1992 edition of the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, and a searchable facsimile of an early 18th century Spanish dictionary. Okay, both of these are more recent than the materials I'm trying to translate, but they give me a *heck* of a lot more detail and context than the Spanish/English desk dictionary I've been working with. Some of the other languages are exciting, too. There's a searchable version of the 1694 edition of the dictionary of the Academie Francaise (and two later editions). There are dictionaries for Catalan and medieval Latin and Gothic and Icelandic and Low German and... am I babbling? Anyway, whoever posted that wonderful URL to this this, THANK YOU, and may the diety of your choice shower blessings on you and yours... Brighid, babbling and bubbling Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Settmour Swamp, East (NJ) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 13:50:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com> Subject: SC - language dictionaries A catalog just came to me which has astounded me. I have never ordered anything from these people, but from what they are offering, I will. The company is: Schoenhof's Foreign Books 76A Mount Auburn St Cambridge MA 02138 Tel: (617) 547-8855 Fax: (617) 547-8551 e-mail: info at schoenhofs.com www.schoenhofs.com and their catalog is: The Language Catalog. This catalog has dictionaries and grammars for 400 languages and dialects. The catalog itself has more than 630 pages full of dictionaries of every language on earth and a few dead ones, too. You name a language, they seem to have a dictionary for it. Some of the language/dictionaries that have caught my attention: Aragonese Andalusi Arabic Aramaic/Biblical Aramaic Catalan Old English Middle English Old French Medieval French [including a history of the french language of the 14th and 15th centuries] Gaulish Low German Middle Low German Old High German Middle High German Old Prussian Gothic Ancient Greek Classical Greek Medieval Greek Hebrew/Biblical Hebrew Icelandic Classical Latin Medieval Latin Old Norse Occitan and lots more ... Brighid, I don't know if you have these books, but the catalog lists a dictionary of obsolete and rarely used words, by Elvira Munoz. ISBN 84-283-1986-3 $32.95. and a dictionary of medieval spanish by Martin Alonso. ISBN 84-7299-169-5 $189.95 (2v. 1635p.) The Origins of Spanish : Language on the Iberian Peninsula through the 11th Century, by Ramon Menendez Pidal. ISBN 84-239-47521. $99.95. There are quite a few other dictionaries mentioned that deal with medieval Spanish. This place appears to be a source for anyone who wishes to buy dictionaries to help them with their translations. Huette Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 17:20:42 -0400 From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net> Subject: Re: SC - language dictionaries If you want most of these resources on line, go to: http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~yuand/dict.html Philippa Farrour Caer Frig Southeastern Ohio Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 21:27:25 -0800 From: "James F. Johnson" <seumas at mind.net> Subject: Re: SC - the length and breadth of Period - long and wide, of course ChannonM at aol.com wrote: > << Only the two main groups in > northern modern day Italy and in Aquitaine had a written language > (according to the Romans). >> > > Actually there was a written language of Oghams(line markings) that were used > by pre Roman Irish Celts. I don't know all there is to about it, but I know > that it was used. Use of Ogham script prior to the 4th century CE is a matter of traditional belief, but there is no evidence of it. Hence its use is not documentable until just before the Romans left the British Isles (406 CE), after having been there a little over four centuries. Also of note is most ogham inscriptions are given names with patronymics, and the Welsh inscriptions are bi-lingual, accompanied by a _Latin_ inscription. And the fact that two characters of ogham, the 'h' and 'z' are not in Erse (Irish Gaelic), suggesting that the ogham script/alphabet was imported. BTW, there is an /h/ in Classical Latin, often missing in Vulgar Latin; and some scholars think the /s/ was pronounced closer to a lispy /z/ and is retained in easter Romance languages. Seumas From: Wajdi <a14h at zebra.net> To: TY at reashelm.ce.utk.edu <TY at reashelm.ce.utk.edu> Date: Tuesday, November 16, 1999 10:40 PM Subject: [TY] found a language tutor site w/free download Just found a site with free downloads of their tutoring programs in Latin, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, Swedish, and ***Irish Gaelic***. The url is: http://www.tldownload.com for those of ya'll that are interested. wajdi Subject: Re: [SCA-U] dictionaries/grammars Date: Sun, 5 Dec 1999 19:02:57 -0500 From: Stephanie Budin <sbudin at SAS.UPENN.EDU> Reply-To: SCA Forum for Research in Medieval and Renaissance Re-enactment <SCA-UNIVERSITAS at LIST.UVM.EDU> To: SCA-UNIVERSITAS at LIST.UVM.EDU Two English-language text books are: W.W. Kibler. _An introduction to Old French_. Modern Language Association of America. New York. 1984. E. Einhorn. _Old French: A Concise Handbook_. Cambridge University Press. 1974. Tha latter is a bit difficult to use unless you already know either modern French or Latin or both. The former is more of a text book, but you still need to know quite a bit of French to get through it, insofar as he jumps right on into the readings (and you learn the grammar along the way, without any emphasis on vocabulary). These are the only two I've come across in English. The main Old French dictionary is: A.J. Greimas. _Ancien Francais_. Larousse. Paris. 1980. It goes from Old French to Modern French, and is quite easy to find on Bookfinder.com. Otherwise there's: C.W. Aspland. _A Medieval French Reader_. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. 1979. As it says, it's a reader, but it does have a glossery at the end which goes from Old French to English. Bonne Chance! Azalais From: "Melanie Wilson" <MelanieWilson at bigfoot.com> Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 18:48:00 -0000 Subject: [FTF] Gaelic OT The web page: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/ Mel Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 14:35:58 +0100 From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de> Subject: SC - 16th century knowledge of languages & German hedgehog recipes Diana d'Avignon said: << Italian, spanish and some french I can manage, but I was not able to study German in school. >> This is perfectly "period" (at least it would be for an English lady). Furnivall has the following quotation about "The Ladies & men of Queen Elizabeth's Court" from a 16th century chronicle (1577): "And to saie how many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that beside sound knowledge of the Greke and Latine toongs, are thereto no lesse skilfull in the Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some of them, ..." (Furnivall, Manners and Meals in Olden time, 1866, p. cxxiv). No mention of German here! Thomas Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:54:21 -0500 (EST) From: Morgan Cain morgancain at earthlink.net Subject: SC - Catalan Lady Brighid ni Chiarain noted that there are no Catalan-English dictionaries on the Web. True, according to the listing at http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction3.html#catalan (although they have a Greek-Catalan one, and another that appears to be only Catalan), but if you look under "Catalan Grammars" you can pick up quite a lot (website: http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/grammars1.html#catalan) Catalan looks like Spanish with Italian endings. When I studied in Spain I visited friends in Barcelona, who were enjoying the ability to speak their native language again after years of oppression under the Franco regime. Many street signs and billboards were in Catalan alone, or Catalan and Spanish. They also gave me a book that was, IIRC (it's not handy by), bilingual in Catalan and English. At least one of the grammar websites also contains bilingual texts. ---= Morgan Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 10:21:56 -0800 From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at efn.org> Subject: Re: SC - Mediaeval cookbooks to begin with Angie Malone wrote: > For me, I have a very basic knowledge of any sort of history, especially > medieval history, and as far as being able to tell old English writing from > middle english writing(is that the right term?) I am even more clueless. Just for an FYI then- Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) will be barely recognizable to the layman. The opening lines of _Beowulf_ "Hwaet! We gar-dena, in geardagum/ theod cyninga, thrym gefrunnom/hu tha aethelingas, ellen fremedon..." (minus the 'funny' letters of course) bear little resemblance to what we see in the Times on our doorstep. This is what was spoken/written a millenium ago. And honestly, I know of no (Zero, zippo, nada, zilch) cookbooks extant in Anglo-Saxon English. In the late 12th century was a shift (assisted by the Norman migrations, no doubt) toward what we call Middle English (frequently abbreviated ME). The form of ME that we are most familiar with is that used by Master Geoffery Chaucer. Many would agree that his _Canterbury Tales_ )"Whan Aprille with its shoures sweete/ the floures hath pierced to the roote") is much more accessible, if a bit unweildy, and an undergrad can usually plod their way through ME with the assistance of a patient professor and a good glossary/lexicon. Many of our primary texts are in ME- the _Cury on Inglysch_, _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_, the misc. pages in the Harleian, etc. The recipes included in Pleyn Delit are from the ME corpus of texts. In the late fifteenth/early sixteenth century is another shift, assisted by the Great Vowel Shift (ha!) and we then call it Early Modern English (or to the layman- Tudor or Elizabethan English). Shakespearean, if you will. And most of us can get through those texts readily, if given some flexibility for archaic spelling. Basic clues? Old English/Anglo-Saxon- looks like German or Norse. Weird letters. Only a few familiar-looking words. Middle English- a few weird letters, a handfull of German-looking words, quite a few French-based words. An extra 'e' on the end of words. You can read portions of it at sight. Early Modern English- fairly easily read, especially if you read OUT LOUD and think 'Shakespeare'. Few funky spellings, but pretty strightforward. Good translations of cookbooks are pretty easy to find (_Pleyn Delit_ is one collection with translated recipes), so don't sweat it. The really good ones will have the original, with the translation and the redaction. 'Lainie From: Valoise Armstrong <varmstro at zipcon.net> To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> Date: Friday, March 17, 2000 9:52 AM Subject: Re: SC - HELP!!!Online Translator from old German to New Ras, try this site: http://www.mediaevum.de/wb.htm It has a Mittlelhochdeutsch (old German) to German dictionary as well as a Latin to English that I have not tried yet. Valoise Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 14:24:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: SC - igrounden & middle english - --- Seton1355 at aol.com wrote: > It must have been wonderful! Has anyone ever seen > THE STORY OF ENGLISH? It > was on PBS years ago. Anyway, there is a segment > about middle english. They > have some people reading it and it *is* very musical > sounding. Yes, I have not only seen it, but I video taped it also. Have a copy of the book also. It is a very fascinating series that explains the unique history of our language and how it came to be so complex. One of my favorite segments is one that explains the influences of invaders to the language. I.e.: take the words "husband" and "wife". Husband comes from the ON hus bondi, meaning "householder"; wife comes from the OE wif, meaning "wife". This tends to show that the Norse men came without their families and took Anglo-Saxon wives, while in England. Then there is the interesting juxtiposition of who were the servants and who were the masters. Old English Old French Cow Beef Pig Pork Sheep Mutton Deer Venison Chicken, duck, goose Poultry So after the Norman Conquest, the English became the servants who took care of the livestock and the Normans became the lords who ate the livestock. Neat, huh? Huette Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 17:21:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: SC - question: linguistics and food <Guenevere_Nelson-Melby at needham.k12.ma.us> wrote: > I am looking for a book that would give me the > history of the English > language, along with examples of the > latin-french-anglo saxon (English) > words for similar items/ food. > guenevere The best book I could recommend is: McCrum, Robert The Story of English / Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil ... [et al.] New rev. edition. New York : Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0140154051 $19.95 (paperback) from Amazon.com Huette Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 21:59:19 EDT From: Morgana Abbey <morgana.abbey at juno.com> Subject: Re: SC - igrounden & middle english I like Heinlein's definition: English is the result of Norman soldiers trying to get dates with Anglo-Saxon barmaids. This is also why English nouns don't have gender. Anglo-Saxon and French frequently clashed over the gender of the words, so it was all dropped. Morgana Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 01:58:46 +1000 To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org From: Mark Calderwood <mark-c at acay.com.au> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] pronunciations Might I recommend for those interested a cracking book on this subject called "The Story of English" (McCrum, Cran & MacNeil, BBC 1992), which details the evolution of the English language and it's many variants, including the American "reform" in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by Noah Webster. Giles From: "Russell Husted" <husted at hotmail.com> To: ansteorra at ansteorra.org Subject: ANST - translations Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 01:31:46 GMT Scribes use online sources. One of our members in the scribal community has set up a site where scribes from the known world can find people who will translate scrolls into the 'appropriate language'. So, if you are interested in being on the list, here is his site: http://translate.thibault.org/login.php3 If you can speak and translate to another language, and are willing to do so, please register yourself on his site. All languages are needed! mahee From: lordxbrew at aol.comohwell (xaviar) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: learn SCOTTISH Gaelic, and Irish, and Manx Date: 18 Jul 2000 04:24:32 GMT What is Gaelic and who are the Gaels? Gaelic is an english word for any of three languages which form one half of the Celtic language family group. These three gaelic languages are [*]Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge) [*]Manx Gaelic (Gailck) [*]Scottish Gaelic (Gidhlig) These three languages are spoken in Ireland, Man and Scotland. The Gaels are the peoples