Talk:Old English/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Old English. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Miscellaneous

I don't know how a linguist would want to handle this: have separate articles for the dative case for each language, or try to have one dative case article for all languages that have it? --LMS

These case entries need to be integrated into the article on OE and the stubs reserved for a consideration of the phenomenon of CASE in language.

they deleted it! Lir 12:44 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not specific to your character set, folks. Your þ (thorn) characters in the pronouns table showed up on my browser as the "fl" ligature. I've corrected them to the HTML reference þ. If you need an ð somewhere, use ð. --FOo

Apologies, FO: I have been busy enough trying to get the facts straight in the matter in the first place; I was going to do everything and then globally replace thorn & eth, but if it's causing grief I'll do it periodically e.g. every time I pack up for a while. Also there are a number of other ligatures in use (principally æ).user:sjc

FO, you're wrong. Wikipedia explicitly advertises itself as iso-8859-1, and if your browser doesn't understand that and if necessary convert appropriately, *it's behaving incorrectly*. --Brion 21:00 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Brion, if you're about, is there any way I can get Wikipedia to display the futhorc alphabet? (must get round to writing an article about futhorc, btw). I could put an image file up but it would be nicer to be able to work with the futhorc for illustrative purposes. user:sjc

If they're in Unicode, you can use numeric character references (see code chart for runic chars). ᚦ ~= þ; ᚪ ~= a, etc. But, that'll be very unreliable -- I expect the vast majority of users will not have a font that includes them. It would likely be more useful to use inline images such as I used for the Shavian alphabet. --Brion 01:15 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

Thx. I think the images would be OK if I just wanted to do the futhorc as an article. Unicode chars would be very unwieldy to deal with in volume. I think we will probably just skate around futhorc texts pro tem. user:sjc

Can somebody do something about the width of this table, which causes the page to spread into the right margin? I tried cutting it down to first 75% then 65%, but it's still too wide. -- Zoe

I've split it into three tables, which greatly helps legibility too I think. Better? --Brion

Much better. Thanks, Brion. -- Zoe

---

I've tweaked a bit of the linguistic terminology; and regretfully removed the claim that cnight 'would have been pronounced exactly as by the old woman in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "kernighet".' It would have been (whether spelt cnight or cniht) pronounced with ich-laut well into Middle English. - Gritchka

'cniht' was spelt 'cniht'. 'gh' didn't come in until after the Norman invasion - a French representation of a sound they didn't have. I think it was pronounced with [x], not ich-laut. Plus, it was the French guy who said it like that, not the old woman. - User:BovineBeast

I'm deeply suspicious about the accuracy in this bit:

"During the 700 years in which it was in use it assimilated some aspects of the indigenous pre-Celtic languages, some of the Celtic languages which it came into contact with,"

There are a few Celtic, specifically Brythonic loan words, but no other Celtic aspects were "assimilated," nor do we know a damn thing about the "indigenous pre-Celtic" languages of Britain.

I'm going to check a bit, but I think that bit should be excised. DigitalMedievalist 04:44, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, I very strongly agree. Old English being almost completely devoid of Celtic loan words, the suggestion that "Pre-Celtic" (???) loan words or even borrowed grammatical characteristics made it into the mix is pure science fiction and should by all means be excised from the article. --Yst 06:13, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The sentence "The four main dialect forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian (the latter two known collectively as Anglian), Kentish, and West Saxon." is a bit confusing. Say that there is a latter 2 means there was something preceding, but this comment was after the first two listed?

Old English and Anglo-Saxon

I somehow dont quite like the expression Old English, as used in the title of Old English. It feels very retrospective and anachronistic, as if perhaps English were the creation of middle-age spin doctors. English to my mind is an issue of forced marriage between Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French, and an Indo-European mutant. And as a mutant it so transcends normal Indo-European limitations that it is now, in global terms, the sole example of a whole new family of languages. In contrast Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French belong firmly within the Indo-European family. I must admit however that my mind is influenced somewhat heavily by Lincoln Barnett's The treasure of our tongue (Secker & Warburg 1966) which uses 'English Celts' as a reference to southern Britons under Roman rule! And Old English would need some reworking before flitting to Anglo-Saxon. Laurel Bush 17:46, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC).

Old English here refers to the first stage in the development of the English language, hence 'Old English language'. Almost every text calls this stage 'Old English' and in this way the title is very appropriate for this subject. – AxSkov 09:41, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Old habits dont make a practice appropriate but I guess I might be using a lot of Anglo Saxon in Wikipedia. Laurel Bush 13:06, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC).

The use of the prefix "Old" before the name of a language is typicly used to describe the ancient, earliest forms of that language, the point at which that language broke off from the branch of its sister languages. Similiarly, "Middle" is often prefixed to intermediary forms, if a clear point of distinction can be found, such as the Norman spelling reforms of Old English into Middle English or the Second High German Lautverschiebung from Old High German to Middle High German. For current versions of the language, there is some waffling between Modern and New, and occasionally even other inventions. The name sounds anachronistic and retrospective because it is. Old English is no longer spoken, and therefore anachronistic. And we can only know it in retrospect.

I would argue against Anglosaxon on the basis that its topical validity is questionable. What, exactly, is meant by Anglosaxon differs from writer to writer and the word itself carries many ambiguous implications. Lastly, the speakers of Old English called their language "Englisc" not "Anglic" or "Saxonic". Since we speak a language that has an immediate descendent of that word, we should use it instead of a silly, Latin contrivance.

Further, the infusions of Norman French and Old Norwegian lexemes into English do not make it in any wise unique. Such lexical borrowings are very common in the history of many languages, Indogermanic and otherwise. In Romanian, there is a heavy admixture of Italian and French words and particles. And while Italian and French are in the same ultimate family, they are very distantly related. And the case of Basque is even more extreme than English, as the majority of the Basque lexicon is Indogermanic, but the basic structure, syntax, and history of the language is not.

Borrowing words from another language does not make a new language family. In order for English to be unique as you say, it would have to have heavily infused more basic elements of itself with Norman morphemes, such as in verb inflexions, and to take on some Norman habit of pronunciation. This did not happen. The ultimate syntax and morphology of English is West Germanic, and almost all of the commonest words are West Germanic. The few exceptions tend to be Northern Germanic and not Romance.

Maybe think of this...

Invader languages only replace native languages when the natives are all killed (usually by disease and technical superior agression) like in the US and South America.

With Britain, the Britons never really spoke the languages of...

A The Romans (Latin/Italian) B Anglo Saxons (Anglo Saxon) C Danes/Vikings (Norse) D Normans (French)

I don't believe in "Old English" because that is merely Anglo Saxon, spoken by those Anglo Saxons who ran England for five hundred years and afterwards the ones that were not killed at Hastings.

It makes sense (when you look at European invasions and language replacements) that the majority of of Britain has always been speaking English fairly similar to todays. Venacular languages were not written down until fairly recently in history. Arabs were in charge of Spain for five hundred years in almost the same time period (shifting forward 200 years) so why don't the Spanish speak Arabic?

A better question is, why do the Spanish speak a Latin derivative? --Brion 01:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Um, I have a question - What are you talking about? The development of English is well tracked from the Anglo-Saxon tongue to the modern day, via Middle English. The remnants of the original British language are contained in Welsh, Breton, and Cornish. We don't speak that(well, apart from the Welsh and the Bretons. And some Cornishpeople).

How stupid! American Indians weren't all killed. The American precolumbian population was extremely sparse except in the big Andine and Centroamerican nations, the Incas, Aztechs and Mayas.

In fact in Brazil there are more now Indians than at the discovery... just because they are Romanists and have Portuguese surnames it doesn't mean they or their ancestors were killed! Oppressed probably, even if several tribes were allied to the Portuguese, but not killed.

Perhaps a direct translation of the except from Beowulf, as opposed to one that follows the poetic form, would serve as a better linguistic illustration. 4pq1injbok

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Is there a reason why we need the word language in the page name? Isn't just "Old English" clear enough?--Sonjaaa 13:26, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

I think it's just the Wikipedia convention that generally languages are named "[language name] language", but after reading talk:Inuktitut and talk:Latin language where it appears the primary motivation for "____ language" is disambiguation with ethnic groups of the same name, I agree, it could probably be moved to Old English. —Muke Tever 16:00, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Disagree, I think it should stay for consistency and clarity. Everyking 16:07, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A question about OE prepositions

In the Prepositions section, it says that prepositions may occur in postposition. As it is a notable feature of germanic languages, couldn't a preposition found in the postpositional location be the particle of a verb-particle construction, or am I mistaken?

Prepositions do indeed sometimes occur in postposition in Old English. Having said that though, the article's point about postposition seems an odd one to me, as while it does happen, it is not the typical order. Their occurrence in postposition, I would almost say, is the exception to the rule. You do get prominent examples, of course, however. You only have to go nineteen lines into Beowulf to find the lines,

Beowulf wæs breme blæd wide sprang

Beowulf was renowned; (his) fame spread wide

Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.

Shield's offspring in Scedeland.

In which we have a preposition ending the noun phrase "Scyldes(genitive) eafera Scedelandum(dative) in." But my inclination is to think that this word order was favoured here in order to best suit the metre of the line. Regardless, it is by no means the favoured order in Old English prepositional phrases, though it does happen. --Yst 11:33, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why is there an Old English section in Wikipedia? Is that a joke?

Spelling

The spelling of this page should use British Spelling due to the fact that this is about a subject that occurred in Britain. So I will correct the spelling according to where this subject comes from. -- 203.164.184.155 12:18, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please stop changing the spellings in the Old English language article. It is a violation of wikipedia policy to do so. Please read the Wikipedia:Manual of Style before you make any further changes. In particular: "If an article is predominantly written in one type of English, aim to conform to that type rather than provoking conflict by changing to another" and "If all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub) to the article who used a word with variant spellings in the article or the title".

Darrien 12:41, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)

You obviously have not read through this article properly, otherwise you would have realised that there is a mixture of British and American spelling styles. If you cared to look through the page history properly the first major contributor (that is not a stub) was done with British spelling. The first contributor who started this article is Scottish (according to page history), which is a country of Britain. So before reverting do your homework. I must admit that before doing the changes I didn't look through the page history, but I did the changes on the basis that Old English occurred in Britain and NOT in the US. -- 203.164.184.155 13:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If you are going to make controversial changes, then it is you who should point out your reasons for making the change. If you had left a note that the first major contributor used British English, or mentioned it after I had done my first revert, there would not have been any problems.

Darrien 00:58, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

I personally prefer American spelling, but Britsh spelling makes more sense for this article.Cameron Nedland 01:00, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Beowulf translation

Does anyone have a modern translation for the Beowulf quotation? The current one isn't in a form of Modern English that's spoken today. As it's only a small part that's being quoted (24 lines), there'd be no problem using the Heaney translation (though we should credit it). Does anyone have it to hand? jguk 23:20, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, the Beowulf passage's facing "translation" looks like a practical joke. Old English sentences which are already conveniently in a completely coherent modern SVO word order have been intentionally placed out of their original and modern order in the translation to make the phrase appear more abstruse in Modern English. Take for example Beowulf is min nama, which one needn't know a word of Old English to recognise as "Beowulf is my name." The phrase has been intentionally distorted as "I am Beowulf named" for no apparent reason. And how the similarly transparent "Ic eom Hroðgares ar ond ombiht" ("I am Hrothgar's herald and officer") ended up as "Messenger, I, Hrothgar's herald!" in translation is completely beyond my imagining. Given the atrociousness of the present translation, absolutely anything at all with which it might be replaced could hardly be worse. And seeing as this passage does not impose any problematic critical issues in interpretation, and no interventionist manuscript ammendations are required to reconstruct it, I will endeavour to write a proper translation for it when I've got a spare moment using conventional glosses (the critical editions I have in my possession do not conflict in their interpretation of any part of the passage or in their choice of individual glosses) --Yst 06:47, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Alright, indeed, I've replaced the original with a fairly conservative semi-literal translation of my own creation. The prior translation wasn't anything close to literal, and some glosses were simply incorrect. On the other hand, a word for word translation is of course impossible, as Old English sentence structure ranges anywhere from ungrammatical to completely incoherent in Modern English, but this translation attempts none of the ridiculous poetic flourishes of the original, nor does it use Elizabethan English, which should be an improvement. --Yst 12:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Even though Yst's translation into modern English is much easier to read, in the Old English version I have replaced the wynn (Ƿ ƿ) character with w for easier reading. If a novice tries to have a go at reading the Old English version, the ƿ character can unfortunately be mistaken for p (due to how some fonts render the character). Also most modern prints or translations (that I have come across) these days use 'w' instead of 'ƿ'. – AxSkov 02:08, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

For the Beowulf translation, could someone have a go (in the Old English version) at putting the macrons above the vowels and dots above the c and g where applicable. So us novices have some idea at how the Old English version might have been pronounced. Thanks. Mark 14:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I've added macrons over the vowels, but Heaney's edition doesn't place dots over the c's and g's. StradivariusTV 01:35, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Cool. Perhaps someone with a good knowledge of Old English phonology and orthography could have a go. Mark 08:04, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Phonetic transcriptions

I really have to question some of the phonetic transcriptons you've got up. Indeed I've changed a few, but I thought I'd ask before changing the diphthongs. For instance, and I think this is the most way-out one, you say the letter 'y' was used for 'o-e' type sounds, when everything I've read or heard up till now says short 'y' was [Y] and long was [y:] - why else would it become merged with the 'u' or 'i' phonemes later? ...and why would they use 'y' for an o-e sound when that's not done in any other language (as far as I know)? A few other points are:

- Wasn't 'z' said [ts] if it ever appeared? - For example 'betst' (best in modern English) was sometimes written 'bezt' - Wasn't long 'a-e' said [E:] either instead of or as well as [{:] - Weren't long 'i', 'u' and 'o' quantitively longer than the short versions as well as being of different quality? - Surely short 'o' was said [O] as well as [Q] in some places? - Wasn't short 'a' rounded before an [n]? - Was long 'a' really never [a:], and was short 'a' really never [A]? - Were the second part of the falling diphthongs really schwa? - I thought the only letter that was schwaed was 'e', and even that may not have been schwaed until the middle english period

Hope someone can clear this up. All the best.

User:Xipirho 19:12, 28 Dec 2004 (GMT)

Copyedit

Amongst other things I do on Wikipedia, I also copyedit. Being able to improve articles so they are more readable I think is a worthwhile thing to do, whilst also giving me a chance to learn something about subjects I know little about.

It is disappointing, however, when some editors reject improvements by just saying "it was all right as it was". Personally I would welcome copyeditors (especially those who know little about cricket to have a look at the cricket-related articles, or the article on United Kingdom corporation tax I have written and suggest how to improve them). Here we have a simple dispute. The years referred to in the article are currently presented in a highly confusing manner. They adopt a style that many do not understand, and which, although this is a British topic, is wholly non-standard in the UK (in that no British English usage guides I've ever seen even refer to the style). I am proposing to make the date references easier to follow; there should be no ambiguity here as long as the reader clearly understands that it is a year we are referring to. That is why I am making the adjustment. I am surprised that there are those who are against improving the readability of the article. Kind regards, jguk 20:24, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm not against making articles more legible, but by removing information that could give someone else a chance to learn something new about a subject – that they may not have come accross before – robs them of that chance to learn about it. You said yourself, that you like to learn something new about subjects of which you have little knowledge. You also said that people from the UK would not understand the date references in this article, that's a mighty big assumption, just because you don't understand something does not mean everyone else does. CE is a date system used by academics, historians and modern scientific publications. What's wrong in using it especially if there's a wikilink to an article explaining what it is? -- AxSkov 00:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Because there's no need for it in this instance. There is no ambiguity to resolve here. Also, it is confusing. Nor does it provide extra information that's in any way relevant to the article. What's wrong in making articles easier to read? jguk 08:16, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've just came across the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). After looking at the Eras section in the Manual, I understand why you made those changes, that CE/AD should only be used when dates span the start of the Common Era or from BCE/BC to CE/AD. So if you make those changes again I will not oppose them. -- AxSkov 11:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry about making those changes, I've just made them. -- AxSkov 09:20, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

First sentence (under Germanic Origins)

"The most important shaping force on Old English was, of course, its Germanic heritage in vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar, that it shared with its sister languages in continental Europe."

My problems here are that "of course" seems to be POV. Secondly, that sentence makes little sense to me. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this to make it less awkward? Also, if anyone would like to second or counter my statement, please feel free to do so. Thank you. - Thorns among our leaves 16:17, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Remove X-SAMPA

I am going to remove the X-SAMPA pronunciation codings, now that Internet Explorer can display IPA symbols using the IPA template. X-SAMPA is not really needed for this article anymore. – AxSkov 13:48, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Done. – AxSkov 14:34, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. I'd been thinking about it but never got round to it. Xipirho 22:31, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

's' Pronunciation

Are you sure final 's' was devoiced? I always thought it wasn't, just like in modern English. After all, OE didn't have auslautsverhärtung. Xipirho 17:54, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No one can be 100% sure that final 's' was voiceless, but (all of) the Old English language experts say that the final 's' was voiceless. From what I have read on the Internet and in encyclopaedias the final 's' didn't start becoming voiced until the later part of the Middle English period. See the External links on the Old English language page for links to more information about the 's' pronunciation. Hope this helps. – AxSkov 14:07, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK. Cool, I didn't know that was the general concensus - thanks for enlightening me. You don't know why it stayed unvoiced in most (all?) nouns do you BTW? E.g. 'ice', 'horse', 'goose' etc. Anyway, thanks for changing it. Oh, I wasn't sure which links to check - are there any specific ones I should have a look at? Cheers. Xipirho 22:28, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This article gives the end date for the language as 1200. Obviously any cut off date can't be precise, it being a gradual process, but I always thought 1100 was the accepted date, I guess the idea being that within one generation of the conquest enough changes could be seen that it's a useful dividing point. Any opinions about this? Everyking 10:59, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

At first I wasn't going to mess with it, but this persistence in changing the correct semicolon to the incorrect comma is getting on my nerves, so from here on out I'm just going to rollback those edits, in the absence of some sort of agreement that it should be a comma. Everyking 19:50, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Featured article

I am going to nominate this article for featured article status. If you object, please do so within this week. --Zantastik 08:46, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The English of our Ancestors

I know the language (and syntax, etc.) that, for instance, Shakespeare used isn't 'Old English'; what is the English from this period actually called? I'm trying to research similarities between modern Spanish and, say, the English of Shakespeare, but I don't know what to call it. (I'm trying to look up similarities like how people used to be much more flexible in their subject verb object placement, etc. I'm also looking at how "we" used to ask questions like, "Have you a pen?", just as the Spaniards do today.) Anyways, any help would be great. Thanks. --Djacobs 18:28, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Shakespeare's English is known as "Early Modern English" today. Everyking 00:58, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Added that to the article. Also replaced the bit about correctness of the term, mainly because Shakespeare, while not Old English, is certainly old English--with "English" meaning "Modern English" of course, not "all ages of English". —Muke Tever 14:12, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Used to? I still do sometimes. Have you a sharpener handy? It seems ultrapolite and a bit 1950s, but still modern.15:07, 22 December 2005 (UTC) (Skittle)

Semicolon/comma

The semicolon in the first sentence of the second paragraph has been changed to a comma about five times now. I think there are some misconceptions about when to use a semicolon and when to use a comma The phrase in question is:

Old English was not static; its usage covered a period of some 700 years or so.

Old English was not static, its usage covered a period of some 700 years or so.

As they are two indpendent clauses, if a period is not used, the semicolon should be instead (first example). A comma (second example) creates a comma splice and makes the phrase sound like a run-on sentence. If an and was added, then a comma could be used. But as it stands, this needs a semicolon.

Also, the second external link on the comma page (http://www.geocities.com/markboonejesusfreak/academic/commas) talks about the comma splice and the example is very similar to the one here.

I would actually opt for a colon there (it shows proof and [sometimes] causality); either is fine. It's basically a matter of preference. But you're right: the comma has no place in the middle of that sentence. --Djacobs 18:28, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Revert wars

An anonymous user 203.164.184.111 reverted a great deal of the fixes I made, claiming he "didn't agree with it". Whimemsz then undid the revert, at which point Mr. 203 then re-reverted.

Revert wars are clearly anti-social; I'd like to suggest a consensus in favor of the changes I made:

[a] the info on the pronunciation of c and g that i put in is directly out of Campbell 1959. the previous info was clearly wrong, and in the info i added, i gave demonstrations to show this.

[b] the alternative pronunciations i added for ie are from Lass 1994 and others.

[c] the stuff on 'wuldor' does not belong. it duplicates the example 'engel', and the sound change described along with it. the deletion of 'o' in 'or' is not specific to 'or' or even to the vowel 'o'.

if no one comments in another day, i will put back my changes.

Benwing 01:54, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Unless the anonymous user can provide some actual evidence that the information was incorrect, I would of course support placing it back on the page. I asked the user on their talk page whether they believed the info was factually inaccurate, but they haven't responded yet. --Whimemsz 14:43, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Keep it simple, do not add copious amounts of information that makes the section confusing to read. If you feel it necessary that more information is needed then add footnotes to the bottom of the section, such as a Note. Remember, no one actually know what these sounds were like and if someone says that they do then they are deluded, most of what is know about pronunciation is really educated guess work at best. Most of the pronunciation information came from E-Intro to Old English - 2. Pronunciation, The Pronunciation of Old English, etc. How can you say that information was wrong by consulting an out of date textbook.

The 'Wuldor' example was there first so delete the 'engel' example. Also do not add AD or CE to the year, that was sorted out earlier, just leave it as year. -- John 12:46, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

PS this page uses standard British spelling, don't use American spelling - this was also sorted out earlier. Also cite your references by: (1) if online add to the Also see section or (2) a footnote at the end of the article.

Well, obviously we don't KNOW how anything was pronounced for certain, but to call it "guess work at best" is completely misrepresenting the situation. There are a number of clues that historical linguists can use to have a fairly good idea of how things were pronounced. But that's not really the issue here, so never mind. My thinking is, the more information, the better, but I do see your point about cluttering the orthography list...thing...up too much. Maybe just put the deleted information below that list as a note, like you mentioned? (EDIT: Oh, wait. Benwing claims that "the previous info was clearly wrong." In which case, it should certainly be deleted. What exactly was wrong, Benwing?) --Whimemsz 18:10, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

The info was wrong because you cannot determine the pronunciation of c or g by looking at the surrounding vowels -- this was true in 400 AD, but not in 900 AD when OE was written down. In the info that John 12:46 keeps deleting, I explained exactly why what I said is true, with historical examples.

Could you please expand on your comments above. -- John 11:43, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I have posted a request to the Wikipedia:AMA_Requests_for_Assistance page, since i don't see how we can resolve this; John 12:46 will just keep reverting. -- Benwing 01:29, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

BTW his comments about British spelling, AD vs. CE, etc. are completely irrelevant and designed to distract from the issue at hand.

I just mentioned this, because when I read through your changes I noticed a few of those things, and thought you might find this information useful for future reference. -- John 11:43, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Just because something was there first does not make it right. i already explained why above.

Complaining that I am "deluded" and citing "out of date textbooks" [Campbell 1959, which is *the* classic reference on OE, and much more authoritative than the couple of random web pages that John 12:46 cites] is nothing more than slander. -- Benwing 01:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Don't be so sensitive. I didn't say that you were "deluded", I said "someone", not referring to you specifically, just anyone, who claims to know what those sounds were actually like. Campbell 1959 may be the "classic" reference on OE, but it is certainly not the only one. The websites I mentioned were not random at all, some are recommended by various institutions to visit for getting an idea of what the Old English language might have been like. -- John 11:43, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

As I said before, though, the implication in that claim is that we have no idea what a dead language was pronounced like. In fact, although we may have a few things wrong, with languages as well-documented and carefully researched as Old English, we're probably pretty damn close. I don't doubt that those are reliable websites, but I do think that the information from Campbell should NOT have been deleted. In my opinion, it should be restored in a note at the bottom of the section at the very least. Benwing has a point that the current descriptions are inadequate and basically incorrect as a result. --Whimemsz 21:24, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

Viking Influence

The whole Viking Influence section of the article, in my opinion should be rewritten; as it is, it's fairly confused and clumsy. What I'm most wary of, though, is the claim: "One theory holds that the presence of very similar words in both Old Norse and Old English helped accelerate the decline of case endings in Old English – that is, if your Nordic neighbour says "horsu" and you say "horsa", you split the difference and just say "horse", reducing the ending to no more than a silent vowel. Others point out that the silent 'e' of English was pronounced up until the beginning of the Renaissance, so this compromise would be impossible. A compromise between "horsa" and "horsu" being "horse" is possible, but it would have a pronounced 'e'." I'll admit I don't know much about Old English, but this seems like a very very very very unlikely possibility to me, and I'd like to know who's theory this is (The sentence at the end about final orthographic <e> being pronounced just adds to the overall clumsiness of the paragraph; although it's true, it just...doesn't fit). --Whimemsz 16:37, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thanks Benwing! --Whimemsz 23:18, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Acute accents vs macrons

Is there any good reason why this article uses acute accents rather than macrons to mark long vowels? All textbooks, dictionaries, and grammars of Old English I'm familiar with use macrons: A. Campbell, Old English Grammar; Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, A Guide to Old English; Roger Lass, Old English: A historical linguistic companion; J.R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Any objections to switching to macrons here? --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 10:25, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Old English Wikipedia uses acute accents rather than macrons, so if it is fine there, then it should be fine here. It is also mentioned in the text that some people use macrons, colons, or accute accents; it's all about personal preference, because all the diacritical mark does is mark vowel length for easier pronunciation. Another point is that the long æ <ǣ> is not available in the standard/default fonts. I object to any change to macrons. – AxSkov (T) 06:54, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is <ǽ> really that much more available? And why did the users of ang: decide on acute accents instead of macrons? Was it because the majority of them had learned OE from books that use acutes, and so they're accustomed to seeing acutes rather than macrons? Or was it because <á é í ó ú> are available in more fonts than <ā ē ī ō ū>? Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 11:47, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well surprisingly <ǽ> is more available than <ǣ>. I've tested this by using the standard Windows fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New, etc. on IE; all can display <ǽ> properly, but <ǣ> only comes up as a box. Now this problem is due to IE's inability to use font substitutions like Firefox (What I use!), etc. can. This problem also occurs with <ȳ>, as its not only unavaliable in those fonts above, but also in other ones that can display <ǣ> properly. – AxSkov (T) 1 July 2005 18:53 (UTC)

<ȳ> is available in Doulos SIL, Gentium, and Microsoft Sans Serif, but mirabile dictu not in Arial Unicode MS or Lucida Sans Unicode, which otherwise have virtually everything. <ǣ> is in Arial Unicode MS, Doulos SIL, Gentium, Lucida Sans Unicode, Microsoft Sans Serif and MS Reference Sans Serif (l.c. only). --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 1 July 2005 22:31 (UTC)

Well, not everyone uses these fonts or even know about them. I still feel we should conform with Old English Wikipedia and stick with accutes, but I also find macrons ugly and prefer acutes. – AxSkov (T) 2 July 2005 01:32 (UTC)

The relative unavailability of <ǣ> and especially <ȳ> has convinced me to stick with acutes, even though I find them ugly. But as far as I'm concerned, conformity with ang: is not an argument (see below). --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 2 July 2005 05:38 (UTC)

As a final note: This is probably the reason why Old English Wikipedia uses acutes too. BTW I've found an online Old English - English Dictionary, which also uses acutes rather than macrons. This dictionary is linked to Old English Wikipedia for those who need help in creating Wikipedia pages for Old English. – AxSkov (T) 2 July 2005 09:02 (UTC)

It's probably the reason why the online dictionary you mentioned uses acutes. The fact remains, the majority of printed dictionaries and grammars use macrons. But I now concede the preferability of using acutes online. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 2 July 2005 09:18 (UTC)

Thanks for the plug for my site! :) The dictionary there gets refreshed about every 2-4 weeks as I work through Bosworth and Toller, so it's a good source for OE-English; the only thing I'd like to add, but don't have the programming knowledge to do, it to make it cross-language searchable (volunteers?) --JamesR1701E 07:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

There is actually a third diacritic that was used, the apex, which you can see in the scans from Bosworth & Toller. It looks like a lopsided circumflex, or an acute accent with a downstroke. (I have read that this was the original length mark used by the Romans for Latin—whether it used in original Old English texts I don't know.) I have also at the moment a book on the history of English phonemes that uses acute and macron contrastively for Old English... using macrons for original long vowels, and acutes for vowels that became long during the Old English period (such as before consonant clusters like -nd). —Muke Tever talk (la.wiktionary) 15:00, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Old English Wikipedia is switching over to macrons from accents. So if it's an argument of what the OE wiki does, it's macrons now. --JamesR1701E 01:18, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Phonology section

I've got some real problems with a lot of the assertions made in the phonology section, but I don't want to change anything until I get some input from other people.

c: between or before front vowels: [tʃ]; otherwise [k] in all other positions except after an 's' (see sc) or before a 'g'. The 'soft-c' ([tʃ]) is sometimes written with a diacritic by modern speakers for the sake of pronunciation, like so: 'ċ' or 'č' or 'ç'.

It wasn't always [tʃ] before front vowels; the palatalization doesn't apply before vowels that were fronted by umlaut: cēne, cēpan, and cyning, for example, all had [k]. Also, who uses č or ç? I've only ever seen ċ.

I agree somewhat with your statement concerning [tʃ], but the rules concerning c are a bit more complex than that. I've only ever seen ç used when ċ was not available for use.

My point is that it really isn't always predictable when <c> will be pronounced /tʃ/ and when it will be pronounced /k/. There are environments that are unambiguously one or the other, but there are also ambiguous environments. I think we should consistently use <ċ> on this page for the pronunciation /tʃ/.

I have seen č used. Actually the same History of English Phonemes ISBN 90-6021-113-8 that I mentioned in the previous section uses č, e.g. čēosan, though it does use g-dot for the palatal ġ. —Muke Tever talk (la.wiktionary) 15:13, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

cg: [dʒ]

In docga at least it was probably [gg].

There are always exceptions, so I you can find some concrete proof then mention it, but cg (also rarely written <ċġ> in modern orthography) was most likely always pronounced [dʒ].

ð/þ: initially, finally or between a vowel and a voiceless consonant: [θ]; between two vowels or between a vowel and a voiced consonant: [ð]. In the modern orthography, all voiceless 'ð'/'þ's use the þ (thorn), while all voiced ones use the ð (eth).

What modern orthography? OE isn't written anymore. If citing a specific ms., editors use the letter found in the ms. The reference grammars seem to prefer thorn in initial position and eth in final position (both voiceless positions!) and are inconsistent about which to use in the middles of words.

If this is true, then remove it.

g: between or before front vowels: [j]; after a front vowel and before a consonant: [ɣ]; otherwise [g] in all other positions. The 'soft-g' ([j]) is sometimes written with a diacritic by modern speakers for the sake of pronunciation, represented as 'ġ' or the number three ('3') – representing yogh (Ȝ ȝ), which is not to be confused with ezh (Ʒ ʒ), a similar looking letter.

g was [j] adjacent to front vowels (again except the ones fronted by umlaut: gēs and gyrdan have [g]; [ɣ] after back vowels; [dʒ] after n in palatalizing environments (e.g. sengan < *sangjan was [sendʒan]), and [g] elsewhere.

Like c above, I agree somewhat with this statement.

Again, I'd like us to consistently use <ġ> on this page for the /j/ and /dʒ/ pronunciations.

h: initial or following a consonant: [h]; following a back vowel or a diphthong beginning with a back vowel: [x]; following a front vowel or a diphthong beginning with a front vowel: [ç].
hl: [ɬ] – a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative, like the Welsh letter 'll'.
hƿ: [ʍ], replaced in modern print by hw – a voiceless labial-velar fricative, like the Scots letter 'wh'.

h was [h] in syllable onset position and [x] in syllable coda position (maybe [ç] after front vowels, like in Modern German, but it's probably impossible to know for sure). The consonant clusters hl, hn, hr, hw were just that, clusters, from the phonological point of view, but were probably pronounced as voiceless sonorants [l̥], [n̥], [r̥], [w̥]. It's really unlikely hl was a lateral fricative like the Welsh sound. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 11:11, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the current h information. Some modern English speakers (ie Scottish, etc.) used [ʍ] for <wh>, so why couldn't hw also be pronounced as [ʍ], where the modern English pronunciation of <wh> probably came from? The same goes for hl, why couldn't [ɬ] have been borrowed from Welsh and absorbed into the language of the Anglo-Saxons and written as <hl>? – AxSkov (T) 08:53, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OE <hl> comes from Germanic *hl from PIE *kl, so it was in the language long before it came into contact with Welsh. And even after contact with Welsh, there's no evidence <hl> was pronounced /ɬ/, and it seems unlikely in view of the fact that <hl> became simple <l> in early Middle English. As for <hw>, you're right there's no reason not to use the symbol ʍ for it, since according to Pullum and Ladusaw's Phonetic Symbol Guide that symbol stands for a "voiceless rounded labial-velar approximant or fricative (i.e. devoiced [w])" which means it's equivalent to [w̥]. But if we're intending to use a broad phonemic transcription on this page (which IMO is desirable since the fine phonetic details of OE are unknowable), I still think /hw/ (as well as /hl/, /hn/, and /hr/) is preferable because the sounds pattern as clusters, not single segments, in their distribution. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 11:40, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I'm glad to see some interest in this section. I made a bunch of changes awhile back, but some anon user kept trying to revert them. Consensus was in favor of keeping my changes but the anon user one that battle through persistence. I've put back those changes, which address some of your complaints, esp. regarding c and g. I also made mods based on your comments on h and thorn/eth. Benwing 1 July 2005 11:10 (UTC)

It looks a lot better now; thanks! I'm wondering if we should just remove the part about using modern cognates as a guide to the pronunciation of <c> and <g> since there are so many exceptions and it's not predictable whether something will be an exception or not. I also think we should implement the use of <ċ> and <ġ> on this page; what do you think? --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 1 July 2005 12:19 (UTC)

I don't think we should, because it seems the Old English Wikipedia doesn't use them. I think this page should conform to the style used on Old English Wikipedia. I've also noticed that not all authors used these characters (<ċ> and <ġ>). BTW how do you type in characters rather than entities (because the Alt+#### for Windows doesn't work for the editor)? (personally I'd rather use entities than characters and will probably continue doing so) – AxSkov (T) 1 July 2005 17:17 (UTC)

Old English Wikipedia is for people who know Old English really well and therefore presumably already know how words are to be pronounced. But in this article, we can't assume that people know Old English well, so it would make things a lot easier for people reading it if we gave them some indication of when <c> and <g> are to be pronounced "hard" and "soft". And even if <ċ> and <ġ> aren't the only characters authors use, they're certainly the most commonly used ones in Old English textbooks and grammars. As for inserting special characters, some of them, including <ċ> and <ġ>, can be inserted into the edit box by clicking on them in the "Insert" box that appears beneath the edit box when you're writing. IPA characters aren't there though, so I usually type my text in MS Word and then copy-and-paste it into the WP edit box. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 1 July 2005 17:55 (UTC)

about <hl>

Why couldn't the Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative be the voiceless version of <l>? It is in Proto-Semitic. At least mention the hypothesis in the article.--ikiroid | (talk) 19:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. Generally the initial h in front of a consonant was the retention of PIE k. If that's what you meant. Do you have a source? --Chroniclev 21:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative says that it may have existed in Old English. If it really had no chance of being in the language, then I'll remove from that article. Both articles should have synchronized information.--ikiroid | (talk) 22:52, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

No it did. I was just saying that it was distinct from <l>. Spelling would have followed pronunciation, at least in early old english. --Chroniclev 23:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

No it did....you mean <ɬ> did exist in Old English?--ikiroid | (talk) 00:15, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

No, it didn't. <hl> phonologically represents just that, a sequence of two phonemes /hl/, phonetically probably realized as a voiceless lateral approximant [l̥], which is distinct from the fricative [ɬ]. I'm removing the reference from Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative. Angr/talk 00:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

OK. Gotcha. Thanks.--ikiroid | (talk) 02:18, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Question on William's influence on Old English

When William invaded England, did he outlaw the speaking of Old English? I wrote a small piece about the linguistic effect of William's conquest. I wasn't sure though if he did or did not outlaw it. I vaguely remember my Latin Teacher, who also knows Old English, saying something about it being outlawed. I just wanted to confirm if it was or wasn't. Thanks guys.

This is what I wrote:

It should also be noted that William's invasion had an immense linguistic impact on the Old English language, which received a large influx of Norman, or Old French vocabulary; in fact, William outlawed the speaking of Old English altogether. The Anglo-Saxons and Normans eventually intermarried and merged, combining languages, traditions, and cultures. This event explains why today such a vast amount of Modern English’s vocabulary can trade its origins to Norman and Latin.

On a side note, I think the page should be broken up into an Old English info section and an Old English grammar section like the Latin page.

Thanks again everyone,

Christopher 05:32, July 10, 2005 (UTC)Christopher.

I don't know if it's true or not, but I'd certainly prefer to see a published source for the claim rather than relying on a vague memory of something your Latin teacher said! ;-) --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 07:56, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Medieval kings expostulated a great deal to no great effect, so I would not be surprised if some such thing was talked about, but there certainly was no ENFORCED ban on the speaking of English - how could there be? The English peasantry didn't know French, and the Normans didn't send them to school. --Doric Loon 11:33, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

revert wars on entitues vs. chars

there was some revert-warring about whether to use entities or chars. which is more correct? i typed them as entities simply because i don't know how to do otherwise. [Angr, how do you type IPA in word? do you have an IPA keyboard layout, or just insert them the hard way, with Insert/Symbol?]

Benwing 22:12, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think either can be called "more correct"; they're both fine, but using characters sure makes reading the raw data easier when you're editing! Word allows you to define your own keystrokes to insert characters, so I type characters into Word using keystrokes: Most IPA characters I've defined as Control-Shift-% + a letter (Control-Shift-% + a = ɑ, Control-Shift-% + b = ɓ, Control-Shift-% + c = ɕ, Control-Shift-% + Shift-A = ɒ, and so on. The IPA template I have to type in by hand here, of course.) --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 06:43, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Celtic

If it is true that there are only 12 securely attested Celtic loanwords, would it be possible to list them? BTW, the place names of Celtic origin are presumably not included in that figure? This is confusing as the text is phrased at present. --Doric Loon 11:55, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

From http://lonestar.texas.net/~jebbo/learn-as/origins.htm - binn "bin", bannoc "bit", dunn "dun, grey", broc "badger", bratt "cloak", carr "rock", luh "lake", torr "rock", cumb "deep valley". StradivariusTV 04:32, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation for only two articles?

Isn't this more inconvenient for everyone? Wouldn't it be much easier to pick one article or the other (Old English language, I'd think, since that's how it works for most languages - more people go to French interested in the French language than in French people!), and simply put a link to the other one at the top of the page? I thought that was standard... -Silence 05:01, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Old English should be a redirect to Old English language, where there should be a note at the top saying where to go if what you're interested in is the "Old English" settlers of Ireland. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 06:03, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Old English should definitely be redirected to Old English language, and perhaps an Old English (disambiguation) page be created to cater for "Old English language", "Old English people" and whatever else "Old English" refers to. The dab note for "Old English" settlers of Ireland used to be at the top, but disappeared at some point. This note should instead be for the "Old English (disambiguation)" page. – AxSkov (☏) 07:17, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Even Old English (disambiguation) should only exist if there are more than two things to disambiguate among. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 08:00, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've found a number of things spelled "Old(e) English(e)" to put onto the new disambiguation page. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 08:07, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Rockin' Vast improvement. -Silence 10:36, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Sound of <a> in Old English

Why is <a> in Old English a low back vowel [ɑ] and not a low central vowel [ä], like in many of todays modern European languages, such as German, Dutch or Icelandic? Mark 03:44, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Of course we can't know the exact phonetics of it when there are no native speakers. But it's likely to have been a fully back [ɑ] because it was sufficiently different from [æ] that speakers felt the need to have two different letters for them. The long vowels were certainly different phonemes (I'm not sure about the short vowels though; for the most part their distribution seems to be predictable), and phonemes tend to gravitate away from each other to maximize their differences. (This is the real meaning of phonemic differentiation, not that you'd get that from reading the article going under that name.) Modern German, Dutch, and Icelandic have just one /a/-like sound (per duration, i.e. one short one and one long one, though in Icelandic vowel length is predictable), so it can hover around the middle. There's also the fact that Old English /ɑː/ developed into Middle English /ɔː/ and thence to Early Modern English /oː/ (e.g. stān > stone), which makes more sense if it were a back vowel than a central one. It may have been further front in Northern dialects, though, considering Scots staen with /eː/. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 06:51, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Dutch has only one a-like sound? I think we've two: compare dar (male bee) with daar (there). The sound in daar is not only longer, but also differs in other ways, although I thought that wasn't yet the case in Middle Dutch. Or did I misunderstand you? Ucucha (talk) 18:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I was just taking Mark's word for it. If the two Dutch a-sounds are different in quality as well as quantity, then the above doesn't apply. (There are differences in quality in German between short /a/ and long /a:/ too, but they're so slight people almost never bother transcribing them.) --Angr (t·c) 06:29, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I think there are differences in quality (although I don't know fonology very well). The a of "dar" can be pronounced longer as the aa of "daar". Ucucha (talk) 08:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Word order

I've read that the underlying word order of Old English was subject-object-verb. Is this true? - FrancisTyers 16:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

From what I've learned (gotta admit...it's not THAT much), OE was primarily SOV or OSV in the beginning but could break this rule when needed (especially in poetry) because it was an inflected language which used suffixes to show syntactical relations. As it started to lose much of its inflecton it had to rely more on word order and it became more rigidly SVO as Modern English primarily is today.--Hraefen 16:48, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm writing an essay on this and both the books I've read state that old english was SOV, but had transformation rules for style purposes similar to modern english, e.g. you could do topicalisation. Also, i've heard there was a rule where sentences could be subject-verb-object when the object of the sentence was another sentence. I won't write anything about it yet, but may if people don't contradict me here :) - FrancisTyers 17:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Vocabulary loss

So I've read that 85% of Old English words were lost by the end ofthe ME period. Does anyone know where to find a citation for this. I would like to include a section on this page (or on a sub-page if enough info can be found) about this vocablary loss because I think it's significant. Can anyone can suggest any source that addresses this topic? (hopefully in detail)--Hraefen

Dude, that's a lot.Cameron Nedland 00:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Compare to?

Comment by User:Angr after edit by me '(Dutch does not have the complex morphology of German and Old English; translations of Old English into Dutch prove nothing)'

Old Dutch and English were and are often confused with eachother.Also phonetically Old Dutch and Old English were close. Dutch speakers can read/recognise EO words easier than English or german speakers. Sandertje Fri 16 dec. 16:19

Then it should have said "Old Dutch" and examples of Old Dutch sentences provided. It said "modern Dutch" and gave a translation of Beowulf into modern Dutch. --Angr (t·c) 17:05, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Modern Dutch is closer than Modern German.Which was the original text. Sandertje Fri 16 dec. 2005 22:10

Maybe the message I left as an summary in the 'edit history' page came on a bit harsh.I didn't mean it that way.So I'm sorry if you felt offended in some way.Nevertheless I'd like to discuss the subject.--Sandertje Sat 17 dec. 2005 16:39.

The original text was "In terms of morphology modern German is more similar to Old English than modern English itself is, because it still has complex gender, case, and verb conjugation systems similar to those of Old English" (emphasis added). This has nothing to do with the sound changes that make High German different from the Low German languages. This is about morphology. Modern German has three genders, just like Old English. Modern Dutch has only two (distinguished morphologically). Modern German has four cases, just like Old English. Modern Dutch has only one. Modern German has extensive declension of the definite article and adjectives, just like Old English. Modern Dutch doesn't. Saying "In terms of morphology modern Dutch is more similar to Old English than modern English itself is, because it still has complex gender, case, and verb conjugation systems similar to those of Old English" simply isn't true. And even if it were true, translating a couple lines of Beowulf into Modern Dutch doesn't prove anything. --Angr (t·c) 20:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Dutch preserves parts of the old Germanic noun case system is a low germanic language thus closer to an anglo-frisian language and does not have one case nor 2 genders (3).But apart from that.How can you say german verbs are conjugated similar to OE?

Anyway, I will see if I can make another edit in which I'll show the Old or middle Dutch variants of the OE lines and 'squeeze' in German as well so 'stay tuned'.

--Sandertje 20:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

You'll notice I didn't say German verbs were conjugated similarly to OE. I said the nouns, definite article, and adjectives of German are more similar to OE than those of Dutch are. And while Dutch still has three genders in the pronouns (as does modern English, meaning Dutch is not more similar to OE than modern English in this regard), masculine and feminine are not distinguished morphologically: you cannot tell from the form of de goede man and de goede vrouw that one is masculine and the other is feminine. Nor is case distinguished morphologically: De man is goed (nominative), Ik zie de man (accusative), Dat is de hoed van de man (dative). (The genitive des goeden mans is archaic and can hardly be called "modern Dutch".) Pronouns still distinguish nominative from accusative/dative, but then they do in modern English too, so once again Dutch is not more similar to OE than modern English is. --Angr (t·c) 21:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

factually, Angr is right (hence my revert). But maybe we should think this "similarity business" over anyway? What does it teach us about Old English? All we learn is that German (Or Dutch, as the case may be) are more conservative, and closer to Common West Germanic, than Modern English. This is a result of the collapse of grammar in Middle English, and therefore has nothing to do with Old English at all. If you ask me, the comparison is rather futile. dab (ᛏ) 20:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

That's true too. I have no objection to losing the sentence altogether. But if the sentence is there, it should refer to modern German, which really is morphologically more like OE than modern English is, than to modern Dutch, which isn't. --Angr (t·c) 21:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm yes,in that case I'd prefer something like; in terms of grammatical difficulty OE can be compared to [...]. I just don't want people to , eventhough the text doesn't really say it, think that German is the closest living language to OE.Because it isn't.

>>you cannot tell from the form of de goede man and de goede vrouw that one is masculine and the other is feminine. << Yes you can.I suggest you look at the article about gender in the dutch grammer section. I believe they call this a 1c and a 2c. (no form of sarcasm intended whatsoever, just a suggestion.)

>>so once again Dutch is not more similar to OE than modern English is<<

How can you say this? Dutch is way more similar to OE than modern English is. Grammatically and 'wordwise'.

'Anyway' If nobody disagrees... could we drop the sentence as a whole?

--Sandertje 20:49, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Dutch grammar#Gender of pronouns and nouns indicates that man and vrouw are masculine and feminine based on their meaning, not their form. Consider de goede dis and de goede melk: there is no way to tell from form or meaning that dis is listed as masculine and melk listed as feminine in dictionaries. As for the sentence, I'm in favor of dropping it altogether rather than rewriting it. No matter how it's written, it's going to be vague and not really informative about Old English. --Angr (t·c) 23:03, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, 'melk' is a word that only exists in plural in Dutch.But you're right about dis though. --Sandertje 23:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The word for "milk" is a plurale tantum in Dutch?? "The milk is good" is De melken zijn goed? Anyway, there are plenty of other inanimate nouns listed as feminine, like de vork. --Angr (t·c) 23:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

No, not 'de melken' just 'melk'.

'een melk' is impossible, I guess what I wanted to say is that it has a plural equal to the singular. * confused * :-)

--Sandertje 0.12, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I think what you wanted to say is melk is a mass noun, not a count noun. --Angr (t·c) 06:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I meant ;-) --Sandertje 10.12, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

But the comparison was between (Old English, Modern Dutch) and (Old English, Modern English). It's true that the articles don't reveal the gender of de goede man and de goede vrouw, but neither do the articles in the good man and the good woman, while the articles in se gōda man and sēo gōda frēo do. --Saforrest 21:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The disagreement was whether the article should say that German is more like OE than ModE is, or that Dutch is more like OE than ModE is. And in terms of morphology (not phonology) German's similarities to OE are much more marked than Dutch's similarities to OE. --Angr (t·c) 22:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Future tense....

Did a future tense exist in Old English? I've heard the usage of the verb "will" meant "want," and I can't find anything about this in the article on Old English morphology. I do believe proto-Germanic, which it came from, was without a future tense, but maybe I'm wrong.--ikiroid | (talk) 22:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It did not have a future tense but rather used modals like today's English. Hence the joke with a double meaning that my OE teacher used to say: there is no future in Old English!--Hraefen 15:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

But what was the modal?--ikiroid | (talk) 21:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Oooh, it's been awhile. I'd have to look to be sure, but I think sceal (etymon of modern shall) was used in some cases. Sorry I can't tell ya more at the minute.--Hraefen 22:07, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Mitchell and Robinson, A Guide to Old English, say sceal usually means "must" and wille usually means "want to"; in both cases it isn't completely clear whether they're used to mean simple futurity, but it's clearer with wille. Angr/talk 22:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Yea willan and sculan mostly, but it was a later development as they both already had their own meanings. --Chroniclev 22:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, here's what the Wikipedia article on th Proto-Germanic language:

Proto-Germanic had only two tenses (past and present), compared to the six or seven in Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. Some of this difference is due to a loss of tenses present in Proto-Indo-European, for example the perfect tense. However, many of the tenses of the other languages (future, future perfect, probably pluperfect, perhaps imperfect) appear to be separate innovations in each of these languages, and were not present in Proto-Indo-European.

Based on this, and the ancient meaning of both sceal and wille, would it be appropriate to venture to say that the future tense rose from some form of the present tense?--ikiroid | (talk) 00:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Yep. No future in OE, but the verb "to be" had a special future form "bēon" as opposed to the present/past stem "wesan." The pre-modal verbs sculan and willan had shaded meanings when indicating the future; the first indicated some obligation, the second volition. They hadn't at the time of Old English formed a true future tense (and nothing like the German "gehen werden" form), but the simple present of the verb sufficed, perhaps with adverbs (example: ic gā tō mergenne tō þīnum hūse, I'm going to your house tomorrow). --JamesR1701E 07:14, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Ethel

Wasn't ethel used in Old English?Cameron Nedland 01:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean eth? If so, yes. Angr (t • c) 22:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

He's referring to the letter Œ. -Silence 23:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Yogh

I prefer to write ɣ with yogh but I cannot display yogh on my Word Processor;; I usually use a font size of 16 & substitute yogh to 3 at a font size of 8 for lower case yogh. For capital yogh I type 3 at a font size of 16. Can anyone help me display a true yogh?? 81.153.121.155 17:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a Unicode character yogh; you probably just need a font (e.g. Code2000) that contains it. Capital yogh (Ȝ) is at U+021C and lower-case yogh (ȝ) is at U+021D. See the article yogh for more details. Angr (talk • contribs) 18:32, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

SC to SH

How did switch occur for the sound ʃ?Cameron Nedland 15:32, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

"Sc" and "sh" are the same sound (ʃ), just written differently. The way that this sound was spelt in english is the only thing that changed, the sound itself did not change at all.--The i kiroid (talk)^{(Help Me Improve)} 18:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I know, but why was the writing pattern changed?Cameron Nedland 20:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

When in doubt, blame the French. Angr (t • c) 22:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

LOL! Damn, they fucked up our language. Stupid Normans.Cameron Nedland 19:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

With the influx of Old Norse words that have an sk sound (sky, skin and some others I can't think of right now), sc- could potentially be misinterpreted for that sound instead of sh. From what I understand, the sk sound before this was pretty uncommon, possibly almost non-existent. I don't think that this is the whole of the reason, but I know it's part of the reason. "Blame the French" is usually a pretty good go-to, but I don't think they're our culprit here.--Hraefen 19:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

GA promotion

Interesting read, I made one small format change to bring together its development. Well done to all editors for the efforts Gnangarra 15:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

No future tense?

How is it possible? Wouldn't that in some way restrict old english speakers the ability to comprehend future events? I don't understand how the language could lack, at least in my opinion, such a vital tool. Would someone please explain? - Christopher 23:26, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

First of all, language doesn't restrict people's ability to think. You don't need a future tense in your language to be able to comprehend the idea of the future. Secondly, what it means to say OE didn't have a future tense is simply that verbs aren't inflected to indicate future tense, which is true of Modern English as well. Both Old English and Modern English use modal/auxiliary verbs to indicate the future (sculan/willan in the case of OE, will in the case of ModE). Even in Modern English we very frequently use the present tense to indicate future action ("I'm visiting my mother tomorrow"). Using the modal verbs was less common in OE than in ModE, and correspondingly the use of the present to indicate the future was more common. Angr (t • c) 07:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Well take cantonese for example, it has no past, present or future tense neither does it have a sex determination, so as you see languages doesn't need a tense to function. Enlil Ninlil 03:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

"r"

(my edit summary just now) was, of course, meant to be "Revert to version using British spellings, per the manual of style for British topics". Damn these keyboards with "enter" right below "backspace"... — Haeleth Talk 21:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)