I don't know that this was used in everyday speech by commoners, as most were illiterate. maybe SA knows, I'm going to make some coffee and look it up. Good way to start my day. :smile:
wolram
Jul4-06, 02:12 PM
God dogor mine frond Evo, is there a way to use OE on script on pc?
selfAdjoint
Jul4-06, 05:46 PM
It's Old English "about English Language".
Bede's Story of Caedmon here, is a translation from latin into a West Saxon dialect of Old English.
"swetnisse ond inbryrdnisse geglængde ond in Engliscgereorde wel geworht"
I don't know that this was used in everyday speech by commoners, as most were illiterate. maybe SA knows, I'm going to make some coffee and look it up. Good way to start my day. :smile:
Well I don't know either, but turn the question around, was there sufficient depth of literary tradition in Bede's and Caedmon's time to have developed a learned dialect that would have sounded alien to the peasants' ears if it were read out to them by a scholar? I don't really think so, though there may have been some purely literary words in Bede's vocabulary.
arildno
Jul8-06, 08:29 PM
Well I don't know either, but turn the question around, was there sufficient depth of literary tradition in Bede's and Caedmon's time to have developed a learned dialect that would have sounded alien to the peasants' ears if it were read out to them by a scholar?.
Very probably, I'd say!
If you look at the oral Germanic bardic tradition, the vocabulary here is extremely ornate, and far removed from day-to-day speech.
Such court language can perfectly well have been the model for the development of a literary vocabulary.
selfAdjoint
Jul8-06, 10:06 PM
Maybe so, although I don't know enough about the conditions in the north of England (where I believe Bede's monastery lay) to say for sure. Is there any scholary work on this available online?
wolram
Jul9-06, 03:43 AM
This Wiki article skims the topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English
Middle English was one of the three languages current in England. Though never the language of the Catholic Church, which was always Latin, it lost status as a language of courtly life, literature and documentation, being largely supplanted by Anglo-Norman. It remained, though, the spoken language of the majority, and may be regarded as the only true vernacular language after about the mid-12th century, with Anglo-Norman becoming, like Latin, a learned tongue of the court.
It is also a valuable source of information about the early Middle English language itself. The first continuation, for example, is written in late Old English, but the second continuation begins to show mixed forms, until the conclusion of the second continuation, which switches into an early form of distinctly Middle English. The linguistic novelties recorded in the second continuation are plentiful, including at least one true innovation: the feminine pronoun "she" (as "scæ") is first recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle (Bennett).