Although you'll probably complain now that it's not "authentic" and that you can't judge anything with it, I have replaced the "special" characters with their not-so-special equivalents (keep in mind though that the original used thorn, eth, and aewhateveritscalled):
"Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bith aeghwaem thaet he his freond wrece, thonne he fela murne. Ure aeghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se the mote domes aer deathe; thaet bith drihtguman unlifgendum aefter selest."
In modern spelling, that would be (keep in mind though that the words were pronounced differently - 'sorga', although equivalent to the modern 'sorrow', was actually pronounced 'sore-gah'):
"Not sorrow, (snotor) (guma); (selre) be each that he his friend (wrece), than he full mourn. Our each shall end (gebidan) world life; work se the must doom are death; that be (drihtguman) (unlifgendum) (selest)"
List of words without cognates: Snotor = wise; guma = one; "sel" is an adjective meaning "good" so "selest" is "best"; wrece = avenge; gebidan = pray; se = the; drihtguman = ??; unlifgendum = ??; selest = best.
Now note that in the above transcription I had to discard case endings or other parts of words in many cases (only "aeghwa" in "aeghwam" corresponds to "each", the final 'm' is the genetive case ending), and that many of the words have slightly different meanings ("world life" for example).
Now that you are so sure that Old English is only incomprehensible because of the way it's spelled, let's see how you handle some respelt Chaucer:
"Befell that, in that season on a day; In Southwark, at the Tabard as I lay; Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage; To Canterbury with full devout courage; At night was come into that hostelry; Well nine and twenty in a company; Of sundry folk, by adventure he fallen; In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all; That toward Canterbury would ride; The chambres and the stables were wide; And well we were treated with the best; And shortly when the sun was to rest; So had I spoken with him every-which-one; That I was of hir fellowship anon; And made forward early for to rise; To take our way, there as I you devise".
Of course that makes much more sense than the Beowulf extract. But much of it doesn't mean what you think. "with full devout courage" means "with a fully devout heart", not "with full devout courage"; "by adventure he fallen" means "by chance fallen"; "the stables were wide" means "the stables were large".
Also, there's the use of the pronominal triplet he - him - hir meaning actually they - them - their. And words which you probably don't know at all (at least not in such a normal sense) such as "anon" which means "forthwith", and you wouldn't say "befell that" but rather "it befell that" or "it so happened".
Other than those examples, to point out that prescriptivism changes... contractions are much more widely accepted today than perhaps a century ago.
You would probably have no problem with the sentence "A girl riding on a bus", but it is quite 'wrong' because it 'should' read "A girl riding on an omnibus". You probably have no problem with "Zoology is fun", but I do. It 'should' be (and I would write it as) "Zoölogy is fun" (dieresis on the second o because it is pronounced separately - it's not z+eulogy, it's zoo+ology). You would have no problem with "A trip to the zoo" but it 'should' infact be "A trip to the zoölogical garden". This isn't having to do with the dieresis so much as the usage of "zoo" rather than the more 'proper' "zoölogical garden" which nobody would expect today.
You could write "zoo" in a term paper and it wouldn't be a problem, but could you write "F'e'd've thought'f't, th'n'e'd prob'ly've invent'd th'telephone b'fore that"? Perhaps that's not how _you_ say "If he would have thought of it, then he would probably have invented the telephone before that" in casual speech (you may "drop" less sounds or you may "drop" more), but the point still stands: the same way that that is purely casual usage, "zoo" used to be purely casual and it was not OK to write a term paper on a zoo - it was, as far as you would be concerned with writing your term paper, a zoölogical garden (or perhaps a zoological garden, depending on how stuck up you really are).
Mark
On 29/05/05, Chad Perrin perrin@apotheon.com wrote:
On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 02:10:13PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
This has little to do with spelling - even in the most recent times when English spelling was largely up to the individual author, they would've branded that as "incorrect".
This seems almost without context. What?
People like you seem to believe that language does _not_ change over time.
I'm curious where you get that impression. Really. I have no such belief.
In that case I say to you, behold:
"Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bið æghwæm þæt he his freond wrece, þonne he fela murne. Ure æghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se þe mote domes ær deaþe; þæt bið drihtguman unlifgendum æfter selest."
I fear some characters aren't rendering properly. Your example, thus, is not presented accurately.
What, you say, English? Isn't that Icelandic or some other crazy langauge like that? No, it is indeed English, and that is how it was written. Even if you replaced the spelling of words that have cognates in modern English with their current standard spelling, it would be quite literally incomprehensible.
Really? Why don't you do so, and let others judge it for themselves? Maybe it'll be more comprehensible to me if it uses characters I can see.
Many of the words have been replaced by French ones, many others have changed in their pronunciation so drastically as to be quite literally unrecognisable.
I don't see how that in any way invalidates what I said.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]