Subject: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:16 AM I'm reading a book called 'Inventing English, a Portable History of the Language' by Seth Lerer. Why is it that authors of books like this, which are aimed at the general reader, throw in letters never seen before without a word of explanation? Is it the neurotic need to convey "Ha ha! I've had graduate courses and you haven't! Nya nya nya nya na na!' Because that's the only motivation I can figure. This time it's a letter that looks like a 7. It seems to occur only in the middle of the Old English era. Here's an example: Eula, hu leas 7 hu unwrest is thysses middaneardes wela! Eww! how transitory [loose?] and how insecure is this middle-earth's wealth! The 7 is obviously 'and'. But what letter is it? How is it pronounced? Why does it occur for a while and then disappear? Another one is a letter that looks like a 3. I have been seeing this for decades without an explanation. (It also occurs in the Irish names in O'Neill's music of Ireland.) By the way, the letter at the beginning of 'thysses' (this) is actually the letter called 'thorn,' which represents one of the 'th' sounds. For some reason, the scholars seem to feel that it is okay to explain those letters (thorn and edth) to the proles, so I know about them. It was fun to go to Iceland and see thorn and edth on the highway signs. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Peace Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:20 AM A bit from a one-year class 24 years ago in university. The following link will be of more use to you than my memory. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm PS I will return later to give the sounds of the letters in question. Gotta go. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Bryn Pugh Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:24 AM As far as I can remember, the letter which looks like a 3 is, I think, yogh, which is still to be found in modern Scots - see 'Menzies' pron Mingis. It was, I think, superseded by 'gh' soundless in modern English. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Peace Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:49 AM How to say the letters is in the link. FYI. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,Nerd Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:56 AM The thing that looks like a seven is not a letter per se, but a mark that means and, like a modern ampersand. It was pronounced "ond." The yogh, as Bryn says, looks like a big 3 or lower case zed. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Peace Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:57 AM HI, NERD. How have you been? Great to see you. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: peregrina Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:59 AM This seven-like character means and ('ond'), frequent in Old English manuscripts, also used in manuscripts from Ireland, may ultimately descend from roman shorthand |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Effsee Date: 15 Oct 07 - 12:09 PM Is it just co-incidence that the & is upper case 7 on the keyboard then? |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: peregrina Date: 15 Oct 07 - 12:19 PM I think so, though it's a nice one. The '&' sign is also an ancient sign found in medieval manuscripts; it was formed from an e and a t joined together (part of etcetera). |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,coverdinshitsoobviouslynotaking Date: 15 Oct 07 - 12:37 PM Gadzooks. I knoweth note ye 7 but i be humble pyesat! |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: peregrina Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:00 PM woops. I left the 'don't' out of my post above-meant to say I don't think that the & and 7 use the same key for that reason, just serendipity -- but maybe someone here knows the full low-down on the qwerty-keyboard? |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Nerd Date: 15 Oct 07 - 02:59 PM Peregrina is right, but it's not from etcetera, exactly. "et" is simply Latin for "and." The Ampersand is derived from a ligature for "et." Etcetera is slightly involved in the history of the ampersand, however: in older styles, it is often written &c. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 15 Oct 07 - 09:09 PM How gratifying. The erudition of the Mudcat amazes me sometimes. Thanks for the link, Peace. As for the letter that looks like a 3, are they trying to say that it merely represents hard g as in 'get'? I thought it would sound like 'ch' as in 'loch,' or some other archaic sound. Bryn, you wrote'yogh, which is still to be found in modern Scots - see 'Menzies' pron Mingis.' So, if the z in Menzies actually a 3? Are you referring to the John Menzies shops which are often in railroad stations? (it's a good thing I never said their name aloud.) ======== Sidenote: Peace's site mentions 'The alternate forms of g and w (yogh and wynn/wen respectively)' There is another thread here which discusses a song called 'If I had a Ribbon Bow'. The guy who collected the song confused the issue by spelling 'If' as 'Ef.' Since then I have been thinking of words where short e and short i change places and make trouble in general. Wynn/wen is an excellent example, and an ancient one. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Rapparee Date: 15 Oct 07 - 09:41 PM And then we have the hard and soft "th" sounds.... |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,Darowyn Date: 16 Oct 07 - 08:06 AM I have no trouble with the unvoiced and voiced "th". My surname has an unvoiced "th" in the South and a voiced one in the North- so I've grown up with it. After struggling with all this when I was working out how to sing an extract from Beowulf, one thing remained really unresolved. How do you pronounce a double "eth". There is a word s,i.,double "eth",a,n. I decided to pronounce it like the Yorkshire dialect word "sithen", (meaning suchlike) but would "se-ethian" be closer? I take comfort from the idea that there were three basic dialects, and that there must have been a wide variety of local pronunciations, so I can claim that it was pronounced that way where my ancesters came from. It scans well my way too. Dos anyone actually know? Cheers Dave |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Bob the Postman Date: 16 Oct 07 - 08:18 AM Well, I don't actually know, but according to my post-graduate studies in Footnotes and Introductions to Old Icelandic, double consonants in that language were pronounced as double consonants. The example usually given is that it's like the English word bookkeeping, where both "k"s are distinctly sounded. So si(dh)(dh)en would be pronounced sith-then. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Nerd Date: 16 Oct 07 - 08:51 AM Nobody can actually know how OE was pronounced, as there are no recordings. What passes for knowledge comes from close observation of internal and external evidence. Internal evidence includes: what rhymes with what? What alliterates with what? etc. External evidence is exactly what Dave looks at: words like "sithen" which are derived from the Old English word we wish to pronounce. As for Siththan (with the double eth instead of th), I think the double letter is the result of the word having been compounded from two words in older Saxon forms. Siththan actually means "in the time since then" and I think it comes from sith (time, occasion) and thon or thonne (then). (This is a theory of course.) It is sometimes written with thorn-eth, sometimes as Dave remembers it, eth-eth. But the double letter may not have been pronounced any differently than a single one. If there was a difference, I'd say a brief pause between syllables, with the th sound repeated at the beginning of the new syllable, and equal emphasis on both syllables, like "sith-thon" would be most likely. "se-ethian" I don't see any justification for--was there another etymology you had in mind that would suggest that? The word IS sometimes written seoththan, so if you wanted to put a little diphthong in there as "seoth-thon," no one would argue. By the way, by Middle English, the double letter in this word had vanished. The same word, as "Sithen" with a single thorn, is the first word of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight": ("Sithen the sege and the assaut watz sesed at Troye; In the time since the siege and the assault on Troy ended...") |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Nerd Date: 16 Oct 07 - 08:54 AM I cross-posted, but basically agree with "Bob the (cross-) Postman"! |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 16 Oct 07 - 12:01 PM I like the analogy to book-keeping. I'd say it sith-then. Resembles modern 'since then', doesn't it? |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Darowyn Date: 16 Oct 07 - 12:35 PM Thanks for your support for going for the scansion fitting option. It all started when I read an academic article in (I think) the Oxford Book of English Ballads, which stated that Beowulf could never have been sung, because there were lines with a different number of stresses in them. I'm stubborn, and I thought, that different length lines do not seem to bother singers of psalms, or Paul Simon for that matter. In any case it seemed to me that narrative sections often ended with a triple assonance followed by a "punch line" Example from Ch 11 (written as I pronounced it and spaced to indicate phrasing.) Rathe ayfter thon on fagne flor, feond treddode Yode yrremod Him of eagum stod Ligge Gelicost Leoht Unfager That seems like such a songwriter's technique, that I was sure I could set it to a tune. The tune was based on a wild surmise about the possible intuitive tuning of a nine-string lyre in three adjacent open chords,because that would be very easy to accompany singing with. Chords IV, V, VI. It's on my website - with a painting of Grendel too. Here (I'm almost the only Darowyn in the world so I'm easy to find.) Cheers Dave |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Desert Dancer Date: 16 Oct 07 - 01:06 PM That would be here. (You have to include the http:// in the address when you type it in.) |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Willin Date: 16 Oct 07 - 01:19 PM Well, the last thing I thought when i joined the Mudcat today, was that it would get me rooting out my copy of "An Introduction to Old English" by Barabara Raw, and spending a happy hour revisiting it. Thanks Guys; I think I'm going to find the company in the Mudcat stimulating. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 16 Oct 07 - 04:03 PM Welcome, Willin. I'm glad you like our thread. Darowyn, I listened to your Beowulf song. Most interesting. I agree with you that Beowulf was likely to have been sung. Picture a hall full of noisy thanes quaffing mead and arguing about football. The bard in the corner couldn't hope to compete if he simply declaimed poetry. He would have to sing in self-defense. Re 'Beowulf could never have been sung, because there were lines with a different number of stresses in them.' Where has that person been? I'm a Lutheran, and we sing songs with varying numbers of stresses in the lines all the time. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Peace Date: 16 Oct 07 - 04:04 PM hell, my LIFE is stress. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: MMario Date: 16 Oct 07 - 04:06 PM or quite possibly chanted; the psalms as chanted can vary widely in number of stresses per line. (at least in the anglican/Episcopal tradtion) |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Peace Date: 16 Oct 07 - 11:01 PM "Someone chanted evening" |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Nerd Date: 16 Oct 07 - 11:20 PM One correction, Leeneia: it would almost definitely be "sith-thon," not "sith-then." |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Stephen Date: 17 Oct 07 - 12:45 AM A conjecture about the double eth: OE had no letters v, z, or eth as distinguished from thorn. The sounds existed, but not as phonemes; rather, they were allophones of f, s, and thorn. *Sithan with a single thorn would voice the thorn (eth sensu strictu); it seems to me that siththan with double thorn would be pronounced with unvoiced thorn (thorn sensu strictu). Stephen |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie Date: 17 Oct 07 - 01:02 AM I don't know old english but being from Yorkshire I'd take issue with Darowyns meaning of the word 'sithee' or 'sether' not 'sithen' meaning 'suchlike'?, total bollocks! I remember many old relatives of mine using the word (this is people born at the latter end of the 19th century when Yorkshire dialect was still widely spoken) and it was always used in the context of an exclamation as in, 'Now you see here!' ('Nah then sithee!') or "Ow sether!" ...I still use the word myself and it has never, ever been used as a substitute for the word 'suchlike'. I always took it to be a shortened form of "Now you see here!" or "Now see here thee!" ...Just thought I'd chuck in my two pennorth! |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Nerd Date: 17 Oct 07 - 01:15 AM The problems with this claim, if limited to the word in question, are: 1) In Beowulf, the word is spelled indiscriminately with thorn-eth, eth-thorn, or eth-eth. 2) The word did not, in fact, exist with a single thorn until later. So there is no "Sithan with a single thorn," at the time of Beowulf. If you're saying the double letter (whether eth-thorn, thorn-eth, thorn-thorn, or eth-eth) was always unvoiced and the single (eth or thorn) always unvoiced, one would have to do a lot of digging and comparing and, well, work, to make a claim this new and radical stick. Good luck! By the way, in general the distinction between "voiced eth" and "unvoiced thorn" is a misconception based on an analogy with modern Icelandic, which has standardized the letters in just this way. In Old English, the same word will be spelled with eth, then with thorn, on the same page by the same writer. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Nerd Date: 17 Oct 07 - 01:17 AM Oops, I meant Stephen's claim, of course, not Bruce M B's |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Jeanie Date: 17 Oct 07 - 04:57 AM I like Darowyn's idea of calling it a "punch line" at the end of some narrative sections. I went to a fascinating day of Old English Music and Verse at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk earlier this year, led by Graeme Lawson of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge. He reconstructs and plays musical archaeological finds, including many versions of the Anglo-Saxon "hearpe". I'm taking this from the scribbled notes I made on the day: He is of the opinion that there was no one set way for the singing/chanting and musical accompaniment to be done. There would be great flexibility in the way in which the music related to the words, and depending on the location. He likened it to Free Kirk or Psalm singing, and the "cascading" effect of football chants. We had a go at this during the day, experimenting with different ways: sometimes in a kind of "call and response", and with the hearpe being strummed throughout, or with no accompaniment until after the end of a line, when the hearpe would come in as a kind of musical "punch line". He played us a recording of people from the Faroes, singing in Faroese the ballad "Regin Smidr" (d=th), which he felt was probably close to the way in which the Anglo-Saxon pieces were performed. A "cue singer" led the verses, then everyone joined in, but the memory of the verses was not all vested in any one person - it was very much a social memory and a social activity, learned by repeated exposure. The alliteration would help very much as a mnemonic - especially with all 3000+ lines of Beowulf ! He is certainly doing some fascinating work - also on much earlier musical instruments which have been found (20,000 years old). There's an entry on "Music, Chant & Musical Instruments" by G.Lawson & S.Rankin in The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M.Lapidge (Oxford 2000) which makes interesting reading. - jeanie |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 17 Oct 07 - 10:16 AM Thanks, Jeanie, I wish I could have been there. Thanks, too, Bruce, for the observation about 'sithee.' Reminds me of the 'look you' that I sometimes see in older literature. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Bryn Pugh Date: 17 Oct 07 - 11:30 AM Hi Leeneia - I have 'heard' in my mind's ear that yogh, whether in Old English or modern Scots and Irish, is pronounced like 'g' in Dutch, so that it is a very soft 'g', almost a 'y'. This comes from the first line of an ancient ballad Wold 3e heer an wundross thynge Abooun a mayde an foule fyend Hope this helps. Waes pu hal, Bryn |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Jeanie Date: 17 Oct 07 - 11:32 AM Leeneia: Anglo-Saxon study days are held every month at Sutton Hoo. I'm lucky to live within striking distance of the place. I have a feeling you live in America, so a bit far for you to travel, but the UK enthusiasts here might be interested: Wuffing Education at Sutton Hoo,/a> I've been to a few of them now, and they are very good events. They are held in Tranmer House (which was the home of Edith Pretty who owned the land where the ship burial was found) and there is always time allocated for visiting the site and the exhibition. The music sessions seem to be held every year, around about May. - jeanie |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: tutti flutti Date: 17 Oct 07 - 11:49 AM Jeanie: Thank you so much for posting the link to Wuffing Education at Sutton Hoo. I have been reading this thread but am not knowledgeable to contribute although very interested. Will certainly book to go on one of the study days. |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 17 Oct 07 - 11:09 PM 'pronounced like 'g' in Dutch, so that it is a very soft 'g', almost a 'y'' ===== Yes, we were astounded to learn in Amsterdam that Van Gogh is pronounced "fuh huh.' The last sound is gutteral. It's obvious from odd spellings such as cough, though, and thought that English has had a hard time deciding just what a g sound should be, especially at the end of a word. Also, I know that hard g's and y's have been trading places and shading into one another for a long time. For example, in the Scots song Are Ye Sleeping Maggie, the gate is called a yette. And in medieval poetry I've seen 'foryeve' for 'forgive.' |
Subject: RE: Anybody know Old English? From: Ruler Date: 18 Oct 07 - 09:50 AM IN relation to medial double consonants I believe that this is because the general rule of pronunciation (in West Saxon) was to voice a voiceless consonant in a medial position where not doubled or combined with other consonants. So wif = woman, but wifas = women - this is largely preserved in modern English see knife/knives, belief/believe etc. We inherited the "v" from the Normans the Old English orthography preferring to use "f" in both cases. Likewise, s in a medial position would be pronounced "z" which again is preserved in Modern English in sound and spelling e.g. choice/choose (not the best example for a couple of reasons, but illustrative enough). Plenty of other examples would include rise (from OE risan - pronounced reezan) Finally th (the symbols thorn and eth are interchangeable and no guide to pronunciation) whence bath/bathe and bother etc. The doubled consonants in a medial position largely mean that the soft sound should prevail over the voiced sound, for example moththu, moth should be pronounced mothoo (with soft th as in thin - fight the natural tendency to voice the "th") and th in siththan would be pronounced seethan (with a soft th as thin)etc. Hope this helps! |
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