Graham Scheper - Medievalist studying Old English (BA: @UofMaryland) and Latin literature
Baltimore, MD
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Registration for the October class is now full! If you would still like to participate, you can sign up for half-price (as an Auditor) to get the class recordings.
To anyone already signed up, I hope you’re excited. Ġē sind wilcuman!
Happy to announce that I will be teaching a beginner's Old English course this October! In a month-long crash course, we'll cover the basics of grammar and pronunciation, and we'll also read some authentic Old English texts.
Join us here: habesnelac.com/courses/p/f26…
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One Old English word for poet was “glēoman,” which literally meant ‘glee’ + man: a merchant of joy!
Tolkien used the word to describe poets in his Maldon dialogue, casting it into Modern English as “gleeman.”
English has a large group of words in gl- about giving off light: glow, gleam, glint, glimmer, glitter, glister, glare, glisten, glory, gloss(y), glass
But two other words aren’t usually noted here: glee and glad. Happiness as light shining from a person
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One scribe in early medieval England misread a passage in Isidore and thought he was using ‘musculus’ to mean ‘whale.’
Consequently, that scribe then translated it as ‘hron’ (small whale), which survived into a glossary, and seriously confused modern dictionary makers.
Today's Latin word: Musculus
Root noun "Mus" (mouse) and "-culus" diminutive suffix, making it "little mouse". This word meant muscles, as the Romans thought flexing muscles looked like little mice running under the skin.
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Want to read cool texts like Beowulf and the Wanderer? Want to know more about the history of the English language? Want to be a philologist like Tolkien? Do I have the video for you!
How to learn the amazing language that is Old English: piped.video/FDnc_Qt3Gx0
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In Augustine's Soliloquies, the concept of knowing one's self comes up often. The Old English translator renders this as 'selfne onġietan.'
So, we can figure that a translation of Γνῶθι σεαυτόν would be 'onġiet þē self(n)e' - know (lit. 'comprehend') thyself. Good tattoo idea
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Grǣġhama retweeted
The Old English word for equinox is 'emniht', from 'efen' and 'niht', when night and day are evenly balanced. Today is the 'hærfestlice emniht', autumnal equinox; after this (says Byrhtferth of Ramsey) 'langað seo niht and wanað se dæg', 'the night lengthens and the day wanes'.
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Romeo! Romeo! Hwȳ eart ðū Romeo ġehāten?
Wiðsac þīnne fæder and forwiern þīnne naman!
Robert Eggers is set to direct a new film adaptation of ‘ROMEO AND JULIET’.
The film will feature the actors speaking in Olde English.
(Source: hollywoodreporter.com/movies…)
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My parents are always telling me to save up for unplanned expenses. By this I assume they mean “what if you walk into the used book store and find five new Loebs that you don’t have”
Well, I didn’t save up for this, but I’m buying them anyway
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The ‘-worth’ in places like Tamworth (once the seat of the kingdom of Mercia) has no connection to value; the word means ‘enclosure.’
The two ‘worth’ words were already homonyms by the OE period, but differed in PGmc: *wurþiz (raised area / enclosure) VS *werþaz (valuable).
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I googled this expression to see if a friend had gotten it from a website, and was unfortunately greeted by an ‘Old English’ response from the unsolicited AI overview.
AI is still so so bad at Old English. Most of this is incorrect in some way. Please don’t use AI for OE.
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Grǣġhama retweeted
Registration for the October class is now full! If you would still like to participate, you can sign up for half-price (as an Auditor) to get the class recordings.
To anyone already signed up, I hope you’re excited. Ġē sind wilcuman!
Happy to announce that I will be teaching a beginner's Old English course this October! In a month-long crash course, we'll cover the basics of grammar and pronunciation, and we'll also read some authentic Old English texts.
Join us here: habesnelac.com/courses/p/f26…
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Tolkien quote of the day: "Philology is the foundation of humane letters; 'misology' is a disqualifying defect or disease."
Greek wordplay: while 'philology' refers to the study of ancient languages, it literally means 'love of words.' 'Misology,' then, is the hatred of words.
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Nothing new for English speakers, though.
Every -chester comes from Latin 'castra' (camp)!
It's so interesting how many German cities have their name origins in Latin.
Cologne (🇩🇪 Köln) from 🇻🇦 'colonia' (settlement)
Münster from 🇻🇦 'monasterium'
Munich (🇩🇪 München) from an inflected nativized form of🇻🇦 'monachus' (monk)
And the Augs- in Augsburg is from 'Augusta'!
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It's so interesting how many German cities have their name origins in Latin.
Cologne (🇩🇪 Köln) from 🇻🇦 'colonia' (settlement)
Münster from 🇻🇦 'monasterium'
Munich (🇩🇪 München) from an inflected nativized form of🇻🇦 'monachus' (monk)
And the Augs- in Augsburg is from 'Augusta'!
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The oldest surviving English text written by a man is probably the law code of King Æthelberht (left), from some time around A.D. 600.
We can't be certain, but the oldest surviving English text written by a woman is probably the gloss to the Royal Prayerbook (right) ~ A.D. 800.
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The words ‘former’ and ‘latter’ literally mean ‘first-er’ (from Old English forma, first) and ‘late-er’ (from Old English lætra, later).
So why do we pronounce ‘later’ and ‘latter’ differently today?
In many monosyllabic Old English words with a short æ vowel (like fæt, dæġ, hwæl), a phonological process called ‘retraction’ occurred in some inflected forms, changing the /æ/ to /ɑ/. So the plural of OE hwæl (whale) was hwalas, and the plural of fæt (container) was fatu.
This happens in the comparative adverb of læt, being lator, but not in the comparative adjective, being lætra, so already in the Old English period the vowels were different.
Predictably, lator is now ‘later,’ pronounced with the normal vowel we would expect from OE /ɑ/ (compare nama -> name; bacan -> bake), and lætra is now ‘latter,’ pronounced with the normal vowel we would expect from OE /æ/ (compare cætt -> cat; æsc -> ash).
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The Old English word for ‘baptize’ was fulwian, which literally means ‘fully consecrate.’
It was likely a pagan term in pre-Christian England, and the related compound element wēoh- is used to mean pagan idol worship (wēohweorðung) and pagan altars (wēofodu).
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Why is it so hard to judge the quality of Old English poetry? What kinds of things were the poets trying to do? How should we read their work today?
Today I’m joined by Emily Thornbury to answer these questions. Check it out: piped.video/2NIch6CqTfM?is=zuey…
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