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(a)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
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http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
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