Questions tagged [old-english]
Questions dealing with Old English, i.e. the language of the Anglo-Saxons up to about 1150.
149
questions
1
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0answers
42 views
How to determine Weak and Strong verbs in Old English (Anglo-Saxon)
How to determine whether a verb is a weak verb or a strong verb in Old English ?
6
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1answer
66 views
Was Old English “ēalās” equivalent to Modern English “hello”?
In a question in the Spanish Language site about the origin of Spanish hola 'hello', one of the answers states that Old English ēalās, written ēalā before a name, already sounded quite similar to hola,...
1
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0answers
39 views
how shepherd refer to a person rather than an object [closed]
When thinking in the title of the piece of music "The einsamer hirte",we immediately get in mind that "hirte"(hirt) in german is nothing than the word "herd" but in English...
Going further the word ...
3
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1answer
56 views
Did Old English have a middle voice or mediopassive voice?
I've read that Icelandic and Old Norse have a middle voice, so I wanted to know if either or both of these distinct grammatical features existed in Old English.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
9
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1answer
215 views
The “prickmouse” and the “butcher's broom”
I sometime go for walks in the wood near where I live, and in the undergrowth, beneath the oaks and pines, you'll find an evergreen prickly shrub which is called pungitopo in Italian. The word is ...
7
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2answers
719 views
Why is the origin of “threshold” uncertain?
The Barn, Church Hall Farm, Broxted, Essex (England)
See the YouTube video
(13.40) George Clarke: The architecture of threshing barns is absolutely driven by their function. With two opposing ...
3
votes
2answers
189 views
How is 'wl-' pronounced?
How is 'wl-' pronounced at the beginning of a word?
Of course, you just don't pronounce it at all, because there is no English word that begins that way and if there were, well, that's just not ...
0
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0answers
29 views
No Gender Nouns [duplicate]
Why do adjectives and some nouns in English not have gender?
Is there a history beyond that?
Don't this cause some ambiguity in the language itself?
7
votes
2answers
502 views
Etymology of 'black'
I saw a news article on ABC news that made the claim that "if you go back far enough in time", the word 'black' used to mean 'white' and has the same origins as the French blanc and English bleach.
...
3
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1answer
51 views
Is the edh ð always curved, or can it be straight?
I'm wondering about the orthography of the old english edh ð. It is always drawn (lowercase) as a curved d with the line through it. But I'm wondering if it would be acceptable to just have it be a ...
3
votes
1answer
73 views
How homogeneous was Old English spelling?
Are varying spellings available, or was Old English rather uniform, as far as the sources show?
Variant spelling may have indicated different verbal dialects, but written dialects, involuntary eye ...
5
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4answers
233 views
Why do ash (trees) and ash (burnt residue) have the same name?
I've often wondered why ash (trees) and ash (burnt residue) have the same name.
I've looked up the origin of both words, but I don't see anything that explains why the names are the same.
From the ...
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0answers
37 views
Continuous(Progressive) module in Old English
I'm curious as to the origins of the Continuous(progressive) module.
Whenever I meet texts emulating old speech, like in: video game RPGs, books like the Saxon Chronicles, Hollywood movies about the ...
0
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1answer
71 views
Looking for a list of hapax legomena that have lost their meanings over time [closed]
These are words that have lost their meanings over time and can't be reconstructed from context, as it only appeared in that context once and not in others. I've searched with Google but came up empty....
13
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2answers
4k views
Scottish, English, why not *Walish?
As the title question asks, and particularly in light of the Old English word wælisc apparently used to refer to "Welsh", when, why, and how did the English adjective meaning "of or relating to Wales" ...
0
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2answers
125 views
What is the grammatical name of prefixing a word by “A”?
I've noticed that in English, "some words" (I don't know if it could be used on all words) could be prefixed by the letter "a" to change the meaning,
here are a few examples:
Side and Aside
...
4
votes
1answer
186 views
Where did the word “brat” in reference to a spoiled child originate?
I've heard that the etymology is unknown as the original word refers to a garment and the old English word bratt a cloak. None of these seem to point to how it came to be used derogatorily.
5
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2answers
736 views
Shakespeare's “say sooth” vs. “tell truth”
The noun sooth, pronounced /suːθ/, is now archaic and means ‘fact’,‘reality’ and ‘truth’. Its legacy persists in the words soothe /suːð/, and soothsayer meaning someone who sees the truth, a synonym ...
2
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1answer
663 views
When do I use æ?
I've always seen this letter but didn't start learning about it until 10 minutes ago. What I was wondering most was when to use it. I have found some conflicting sources about it so if anyone could ...
0
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2answers
214 views
Has there been any theory on the vowel /o/ that was inserted into words like “arrow”?
Words like tomorrow, sorrow, arrow, follow, borough contain /o/, as in the diphthong /oʊ/, which was /wə(n)/ in Middle English which was weakened from Old English /x/ or /ɣ/ + some sort of vowel. ...
5
votes
1answer
408 views
Is the “blue” in “blue moon” a reference to betrayal?
There are some previous questions on this site about the etymology of the phrase "blue moon" (What is the origin of the phrase "blue moon"? Any alternate phrase for it?, Why do we call some ...
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2answers
419 views
Pronunciation and syllables of pre-Modern English “belewe”?
I know the word "belewe" from traditional astronomy as a precursor to the phrase "blue moon", also known as the "betrayer" thirteenth moon in one of every three years that would disrupt a lunar ...
6
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2answers
246 views
Can anyone translate this text from the Wessex Gospels of 1175, please?
I would be grateful if someone could translate the following text as I am doing some research on Luke 1:35 and the various historical readings of the text in English :
for þan þt halig þe of þe ...
92
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3answers
10k views
How did English retain its non-Christian names of the week?
It amazes me that despite centuries of religion dominating almost every aspect of life in Britain or at the very least exerting a great deal of influence on the public and private sphere, the English ...
16
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3answers
2k views
Did Old English (Anglo-Saxon) use contractions?
German uses contractions a lot, including im (in+dem) and zum (zu+dem) to name a few. As an Old English learner, I wanted to know if there were any attested similarities. My research hereto has ...
27
votes
2answers
2k views
Irregular verbs: the history of the suffix “-en” used in past participles
Recently, I've been helping my home students learn the past participles of some of the irregular verbs, in a "new" way. Basically, I show that sometimes the suffix -(e)n is added to the PRESENT stem. ...
7
votes
1answer
282 views
How did “stroke” become the verb “strike” to mean “deal a blow”?
I've just been looking up the etymology of the word "strike," as in “The pedestrian was struck by a vehicle.” (I was curious about why we always seem to use "struck" in this situation).
A quick ...
10
votes
1answer
204 views
Are there any Germanic cognates to “lithe”?
When winter first begins to bite
and stones crack in the frosty night,
when pools are black and trees are bare,
’tis evil in the Wild to fare.
In this time of ...
12
votes
5answers
1k views
Crush the spearhead leek
I've often wondered why the pungent plant called garlic is a mass noun. If I look at its etymology, I see it is derived from Old English.
Old English gārlēac, from gār ‘spear’ (because the shape of ...
8
votes
2answers
807 views
Why does the past tense form of sleep have a weak suffix?
Meaning: to sleep is a strong verb in the Germanic languages. While I'm quite aware that strong vs weak anything has very little bearing on modern English, this is still something that puzzles me.
...
18
votes
2answers
1k views
Construction of “woe is me”
The expression “woe is me” (meaning) looks strange. On the surface, it seems to mean “an unhappy event is me”. Sure, it's an old idiom, undoubtedly reflecting vocabulary or grammar that is no longer ...
6
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1answer
676 views
When did all-caps formatting come to indicate shouting?
A question on the History stack discusses when all-caps formatting came to indicate shouting in digital text, the answer being that such formatting has been interpreted to indicate shouting long ...
3
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1answer
90 views
“So clean it was fallen away”… what?
This quote is from the Very Bloody History of Britain by John Farman. I have a soft spot for it as the first history book I ever read, almost twenty-five years ago.
I have always wondered what the ...
1
vote
1answer
122 views
Did Old English have /uw/?
Old English had the unstressed syllable rhyme /ij/, spelled as ⟨iġ⟩; which became the Modern English sound /i/, spelled as ⟨y⟩ (or ⟨ie⟩ in plurals). This sound was found in the suffix ⟨-iġ⟩ of "mihtiġ"...
1
vote
1answer
204 views
Mixed saying / witty remark about remarks
I need to mix
To err is human, to persist [...] is diabolical
with a joke about too much remarking.
The result should be
To err is human, to persist in remarking is diabolical.
Should I ...
1
vote
1answer
188 views
Use of 'here' for an army in Modern English
I came upon that here used to be utilised for an army (more likely enemy) in Old English (also shown in Wiktionary). The same page also shows that there is a modern form of the word as here and that ...
4
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3answers
3k views
What is non-borrowed English word meaning “calculate”, “compute”, “count”?
What is non-borrowed native English word meaning "calculate", "compute", "count"? What was the word for these things in Old English?
5
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1answer
383 views
How are double consonants pronounced in Old English (Ænȝlıſc/Eald Englisc/Anglo Saxon?)
Doubles for Alternate Sounds Per Letter -- Preface to Actual Subject:
I am aware that, with the exception of the letters ess, thorn, eth (by extension, though not historically), b (older manuscripts*)...
2
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1answer
267 views
What is the Old English(Ænȝlıſc/Eald Englisc/Anglo Saxon) Word for “Grammatical Case?”
I am curious as to what the Ænȝlıſc word is for "grammatical case." I remembered hearing a man say it before, but I cannot remember for sure. If I recall, he said something along the lines of "ſe Fæle,...
15
votes
1answer
1k views
What was Ꝧ (thorn with stroke through descender) used for in middle/old english?
I was doing some research online and I saw that a thorn with a slash through the ascender was a common abbreviation for "that," but the same website (wikipedia) also listed this character: "Ꝧ". What ...
1
vote
1answer
111 views
How did “like” change from a noun meaning “body” to the modern verb?
As pointed out here, saying "I like X" in old English would have to be formulated as "X pleases my body" and the word "like" would represent "body" in that sentence. But it's not clear to me how "like"...
7
votes
1answer
910 views
Did Old English have diacritics?
I was learning English, which is my second language, when I came across the methinks word. I went to google to look up its meaning and usage, when to my surprise I saw this description:
Old English ...
0
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0answers
35 views
the first consonants of “think” and “than” [duplicate]
think /θ/
than /ð/
As you can see,the first consonant of the two words differs.But according to the wiktionary,they are both from Proto-Germanic,and the first characters in Proto-Germanic are both ...
10
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2answers
1k views
What's up with “this,” in Old English(Ænȝlıſ͡ċ/Anglo Saxon‽)
I am asking two things here, about Ænȝlıſċ (Old English)
First and foremost, see this picture here:
– which was taken from this page:
QUESTION 1:
What is the difference between these two words: "...
6
votes
1answer
3k views
Sice, cinque, cater, trey, deuce, ace, and then?
The set of numbers for a six-sided die are: ace, deuce, trey, cater, cinque, sice. They originate from Old French (cf. un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six in modern French). Ace comes from Latin as, ...
3
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0answers
251 views
The dative case in medieval English [closed]
I speak an analytic language, Chinese, and a weakly inflected language, English. As such I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around the concept of the dative case in Old English. I understand ...
4
votes
1answer
831 views
Why is therefore not written therefor?
Having just learned that in Old English the word for was written as fore, why is therefore still written as it is currently, and not as therefor?
Being a non-native English speaker, many times I ...
13
votes
1answer
2k views
What was “static electricity” known as before the discovery of electricity?
People must have dealt with static electrical discharge for thousands of years; well before they began to understand the principles of electricity.
What would a static discharge be called in early ...
1
vote
1answer
143 views
Meaning of 'to put sth. under the mind for sth.'
I found the following phrase when reading Ralph W. Emerson's The Poet:
The world being thus put under the mind for verb and noun,
the poet is he who can articulate it.
I am not entirely sure ...
3
votes
2answers
240 views
What's Old English for “petal”?
What was the Old English word for petal? (As in "rose petal".)
I've done research. And it seems the word petal is a relatively recent addition in the English language.
