Old english

[cahult]

Anyone here with a love for old english or anglosaxon as one can also call it? I

[cahult]

Here

[Laukev7]

I do like English from Britain. Not only Olde English, modern English as well. I just find it classy. Depends on the dialects, of course.

 

quote: Bokstaef

We can find this word in German 'Buchstabe', which also means 'letter'.

And I've read that Olde English was very similar to Old Norse. It even had symbols like

[jasonlane]

I did a bit of Chaucer at school, I should have paid more attention really. Although a lot of words sound very similar to modern English, for obvious reasons. I noticed that if I really listened to Swedish (when I was there), the same was true. It's amazing to see the similarities in many European languages, when you concentrate that is      

Old English must be closer, or perhaps easier for a modern Swedish speaker to understand than a modern English speaker to understand?

No I didn't get it. What's the prize? If it's good I might learn Od English just for the prize

[ September 22, 2003: Message edited by: Zardoz ]  

[ September 22, 2003: Message edited by: Zardoz ]

[cahult]

English, frisian and dutch-flemish are one distinct family on the germanic family tree. That branch is very close to the north germanic branch, maybe they have the same origin. German is actually a cuckoo in the bird nest with its odd version of germanic words.

Thw word germanic is an odd word with an even more odd origin. The first time it is named is when a roman author mentioned a people to the north of the roman empire. The word seems to be celtic in origin, meaning sprout or seed, oddly enough the words goth and swedish word g

[cahult]

OK, here is the Lord

[Laukev7]

I've seen that website. It's very interesting. I really like Germanic languages, as well as Latin languages. In fact, I just love languages, period.

[cahult]

quote:Originally posted by Laukev7:
I've seen that website. It's very interesting. I really like Germanic languages, as well as Latin languages. In fact, I just love languages, period.

Me too. I like the ones which are dead today, like hittite or gaulish. They have lots to teach us about how we have developed from there to here.

[jasonlane]

quote:Originally posted by cahult:


Me too. I like the ones which are dead today, like hittite or gaulish. They have lots to teach us about how we have developed from there to here.

Really nice link that's going in my bookmarks. Why was Yiddish in there? Or not, is this a mistake? I thought that Yiddish was an Aramaic language.

Anyway I agree with you, language (and history) is very important, fascinating as well.

English place names for example, can tell you a lot about the history of the British landscape. We have quite a big Nordic influence in the British Isles dating to around 700 - 1000 AD.

Actually the history of the British landscape is a fascinating one, from pre-history, roman through to the industrial revolution, I guess how different cultures view and see the landscape I find interesting. If you asked different cultures at different periods in time what their ideal (or idillic) landscape would be it would vary so much. You know you have this notion in British society of the pleasant green rolling hills, hedges, woods etc... This is a modern view though. In the 16th century this was not the case, it's very tied in with language. I think the notion the British had about the landscape changed dramatically in the 18th century, especially when the romantic poets, well, started romanticising.

An extreme example, take how the Nazis changed the view of the landscape, and the language they used to describe it..... all very interesting..... and now I'm just rambling    

[ September 22, 2003: Message edited by: Zardoz ]

[cahult]

I