Talk:Old English

Norse Influence

"It is very common for the intermixing of speakers of different dialects, such as those that occur during times of political unrest, to result in a mixed language, and one theory holds that exactly such a mixture of Old Norse and Old English helped accelerate the decline of case endings in Old English."

I know that John McWhorter discusses this theory in the book "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English" (2008), but I am not sure if he originated it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by False dichotomy (talk • contribs) 16:59, 10 November 2010

The originator of the theory matters less than the integrity of the source. Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources may help you here. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 08:40, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Error in Article Grammar

"Also used occasionally were abbreviations for following m’s or n’s." In the Orthography section. It is incorrect to use apostrophes to denote plurality under any circumstances, even the plural of single letters, symbols, digits or acronyms. The correct way would be to italicise the m and n followed by an uninitialised s or vice versa. Another solution would be to reword the sentence thus: "Also used occasionally were abbreviations for following an m or an n." 86.136.153.246 (talk) 12:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with you, and Apostrophe#Use in forming certain plurals indicates that I am not alone. That article does lack references, but so do you. I find "m's" perfectly clear and less confusing than "ms" or "ms". And while rewording to avoid genuine ambiguity is worthwhile, rewording because people cannot agree about how to punctuate is a waste of everybody's time and effort. --ColinFine (talk) 23:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Disagreement is not the issue, actual accepted English is the issue. If a few writers feel it is clearer to use an apostrophe in these cases, that does NOT make it correct. But hey! I was just pointing out an error, if you feel it is okay to have an encyclopedia article with a punctuation error in it, then that's up to you. Just go ahead and redefine the language as you see fit, then “everybody's” time and effort won't be wasted.86.136.153.246 (talk) 10:13, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Disagreement is the issue, because "correct" is not a single-valued function. Your "correct" does not trump mine. As a matter of fact the relevant authority here (insofar as there is one) is [[Wikipedia::Manual of Style]], which was what directed me to the section I cited above. --ColinFine (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I do believe that the function of language, both written and oral, is clear communication between parties. "Correctness" is different both from person to person (an English teacher and an orator), as well as from generation to generation. There is not a word in our language that existed before someone made it up, and if we are to operate on someone's codification of our language, then whose shall we use? Which is correct? The Table Alphabeticall? The oldest surviving manuscripts? The Canterbury Tales? From where shall we draw our references? "m's" works just fine, and if enough people write it and understand it that way, then one day someone will be arguing with another about how correct it is............69.171.162.148 (talk) 05:42, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

According to Garner's Modern American Usage, apostrophes can be used to "mark the plural of an acronym, number, or letter..." He gives the example of "p's and q's," so for this case I believe "m's or n's" is acceptable, and is easier to read and understand. This entry was found on page 674 of the third edition if you want to verify.

Beowulf Translation

I can understand the value of using modern cognates of Old English words in translation so that people can easily identify word correspondences, but isn't it misleading if the modern cognate has a significantly different meaning than the Old English word? For that matter, can we really call a word like "thrum" modern, given that the last citation for it in the OED is 1450? When I take a quick look through the OED, I see that the most recent citation for all of the following words was in Middle English: gare, thede, thrum, ellen, freme, atee, frover. In the most extreme instance (ellen) the most recent citation is 1240. These are not modern cognates, but late medieval cognates of early medieval words. Would it be more useful to simply do interlinear glossing of the Old English rather than give late medieval cognates which subsequently have to be translated into Modern English? As a side note, I am using the term "modern cognate" here simply because it is what the article uses, but I personally would prefer "modern reflex" or "modern descendant." 99.231.30.19 (talk) 00:47, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Thomas William Shore

I can't help feeling it's rather odd that the citation of Thomas Shore's book now links the author's name to ru:Шор, Томас Уильям - his article in the Russian Wikipedia. I understand why Dmitri Koshelyev (Koshelyov? I don't know where the stress is) has done this - because there is an article on him in Russian and not one in English - but I wonder if it is helpful to general readers, who may be puzzled why they have been sent to this unreadable page. No doubt the best solution is to write an English article on him, but in the meantime is this helpful? --ColinFine (talk) 12:12, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Fæder Ūre mistake

I notice that the g's in "forgyf" and "forgyfaþ" on line 6 of Fæder Ūre are not marked as palatalized. They should be. I am aware that a historically velar "g" before a "y" arising from i-mutation of "u" was not palatalized, but the "y" in "gyfan" is actually historically "i" (it is a strong verb - historical strong verbs didn't get i-mutated infinitives) - I won't bother going into the details of why it was written as "y" here. Also, there are clear Middle English examples that show that it was indeed palatalized. Most likely Modern English velar "give" is due to Norse influence.

I will do the correcting edit myself in a day or two, providing no one can object to what I've said. Gott wisst (talk) 06:32, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Sound changes

I understand that the purpose of this table is to give a general overview of the changes. But it has gotten the chronology muddled a bit. Firstly, the -e of "five" was lost before the raising of unstressed e to i, because -e was lost while -i was not. Secondly, the loss of final -t occurred after the nasalisation of final -n. And according to Ringe 2006 the nasalisation happened before the change of ā to ō. The article Proto-Germanic gives a more detailed (and sourced) overview. CodeCat (talk) 14:58, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Not all of Northumbria over run by Vikings

The sentence "Of these, all of Northumbria and most of Mercia were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century." is not entirely accurate. The nothern part of the old Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria seems to have allied itself (or been anexed by) the King of the Scots during this turbulent period - thus becoming in a later time Lowland Scotland (Lothian etc) . It's the reason that today's, 'Scotland' speaks English (or 'Scots'if one prefers)rather than Gaelic as the orginal Scots did. Cassandra — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.4.144 (talk) 08:55, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Only Lothian and the eastern borders were anglosaxon in language and even that's iffy (enough placename evidence to suspect a survival of the northern welsh that far east). The western lowlands were mixed Gaelic and North Welsh. 216.252.76.74 (talk) 20:51, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Ptolemys map from 2nd century only show Germaina and Germania Magna

The first I note FIRST German king was Charlemange of the 8th century!. So old English was latin as ins Bede's writtings, to King William of 1066 the dooms day book just to name a few examples. German did not exist in the 5th century it is IMPOSSIBLE!. So please if OLD English existed before the 13th century NORMANS that brought it to England. Please show some evidence. Also northen Germany near Holstein was part of Germany Magna, and they where not part of the Roman Empire, so they where not belivers of Christ. You need to do some research and stop writing dishonest lies. Atilla the Hun went up the danube and rhine and was killed in France 454AD. Avars had bases in Hunguary and Bugaria in the 8,9th century. Who ever wrote this of low intelligence. So please show the world!. Ohh sorry I believe some else wrote some thing simlar but you keep deleting his comments. Propaganda machine is at work here — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.80.98.184 (talk) 16:00, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

What, you mean this, this and this are all wronggg?!1! Fuck me. Nortonius (talk) 16:10, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

All you do is tell your lies here. Engish language did not exist until the Norman's( Orginally a tribe from Scandinavia) brought it over from present day France over sometime in the late 13th century. Facts are 1. German language did not exist until 8th century!. Why see ptolemy's maps from 2nd century AD, Germania (Mostly Roman, Christians and where latin speakers and writers, and Germania Manga which includes the area's of Schleswig-Holstein ( East and northern side, Non Christians, most likey did not speak latin). Charlemange was note: First German king in mid 8th century who started the use of the German language see Monk "Abogran". So how could these Anglo Saxon mythical tribes speak OLD ENGLISH when the German language did not exist in the 5th century its IMPOSSIBLE!. Attila the hun also traveled up the Danube and then the Rhine and was killed in Gaul (France) no where near the Angles. No Huns made it that far ever, And the later Avars around the 8th and 9th century had bases in Hungary and Bulgaria. Mongols in the 13th century also never made it to Schleswig-Holstein area. Please supply some artifacts some copies of the actual documents from 1000-1500 years ago. And shame me in front of the whole world. Also the slavic tribes see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limes_Saxoniae. Arrived in 9th century but yes all the Germanic and Germans tribes left for Britannia in the 5th century AD. My history is not the best but I believe only two unarmed Saxon tribes arrived by ship in the city of present day Wessex around 460,470AD but Saxony is near Czech Republic?. All English old documents like the dooms day book 1066, Bede the Monk, as example are in latin, all your churches before say the 16th century where all christian and later Catholic. I could go and on but you really should know better. OLD ENGLISH. Thou shall be quite now. https://www.google.com.au/search?q=germania+magna&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=VYZ5U5ziGcnikAWAsoG4DQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=684#q=magna+germania&spell=1&tbm=isch https://www.google.com.au/#q=britannia+latin+cities+names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_place_names_in_Britain ROMANS spoke and wrote in latin. SCHLESWIG HOLSTEIN WAS IN GERMANY MANGA they where not Christens like you!. OLD ENGLISH is mostly a latin based language

Number of speakers

What's the number of speakers? --Michael (talk) 08:40, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

"Old English had a grammar similar in many ways to Classical Latin. In most respects, including its grammar, it was much closer to modern German and Icelandic than to modern English."

These two sentences do not seem to agree. Also, under what possible interpretation was Old English "similar" to Classical Latin? Because they both had cases and grammatical gender? 151.163.2.113 (talk) 17:23, 14 November 2014 (UTC)