Questions tagged [old-english]
Questions dealing with Old English, i.e. the language of the Anglo-Saxons up to about 1150.
180
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1answer
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'lest': How did 'less that' evolve to mean 'for fear that'?
lest, conj. = [OED] Etymology: Old English phrase þý lǽs þe , lit. ‘whereby less’
= Latin quōminus
(þý instrumental of the demonstrative and relative pronoun + lǽs less adj. + þe ...
2
votes
0answers
96 views
For 'also', how is ' the demonstrative sense of “similarly” weakened to “in addition to” '?
also (adv.)
Old English eallswa "just as, even as, as if, so as, likewise," compound of all + so. The demonstrative sense of "similarly" weakened to "in addition to" in 12c., replacing eke. [...]...
1
vote
2answers
660 views
How did “but” mean “only”?
but (adv., prep.) : Old English butan, buton "unless, except; without, outside," [...]
I don't know Old English. From the étymons overhead, how did but change semantically to mean
but |...
1
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2answers
98 views
How did 'of' change semantically from 'away, away from, off'?
of (prep.) [⇐]
Old English of, unstressed form of æf (prep., adv.) "away, away from,"
from Proto-Germanic *af, [...], from PIE *apo- "off, away" (see apo-). Primary sense in Old English still ...
-1
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1answer
3k views
Single word for “how many” [closed]
Is there a way to say "how many" in a single word? (even something in Old English should be good enough)
0
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1answer
150 views
How did 'against the outside' (without) evolve to mean 'outside'?
without (adv., prep.) [<--]
Old English wiðutan "outside of, from outside," literally "against the outside" (opposite of within), see with + out (adv.). [...]
I am guessing that here, the ...
17
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2answers
4k views
How was the letter -u- written in Old English?
I was reading the etymology for 'come (v.)' when I encountered:
[...] The substitution of Middle English -o- for Old English -u- before -m-, -n-, or -r- was a scribal habit before minims to avoid ...
38
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4answers
5k views
Did the English call a fruit “openærs” for 700 years?
There is a small apple-tasting fruit called medlar in English. It looks like a cross between an apple and a rosehip.
It has two main curious features: first the fruit must be bletted before it can ...
1
vote
2answers
353 views
What is the grammatical designation of “that” in “…that she may have…”?
The following sentence is the Modern English translation of a line from the Old English poem Judith:
He (God) advanced a gracious favour to her, that she may have a steadfast faith.
My question ...
0
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1answer
568 views
Has the English language changed since 1854? [closed]
I've started reading a book named Walden, published in 1854. I am not a native English speaker, I am Persian, and I want to read this book for two reasons:
to improve my English and because I think I'...
1
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1answer
2k views
Is English considered easier to learn than most of the other languages in the world? [closed]
In comparison to the other languages, I think English is much more simpler. For example, compared to French, English nouns have no gender, adjectives have only one form and verbs have extremely simple ...
3
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2answers
253 views
Is this a 'justified' double negative? The answer may require some Old English knowledge.
The following is is my translation of a sentence from Bede's Account of the Conversion of King Edwin. Old English tolerated the double negative, and I am trying to translate the text in such a way ...
1
vote
1answer
4k views
Is It Correct to Say ‘I Care Not’?
I was watching the film ‘The Devil’s Violinist’ (which takes place a long time ago) when I noticed the following sentence in a dialogue:
I need not and I care not.
Here, need is used as a modal ...
7
votes
2answers
233 views
Is the -old morpheme in 'threshold' an OE locative?
I remember in days of yore being told by a professor that threshold held the meaning of "stepping (or more literally, treading) through," implying a locative sense to the remaining -old morpheme. This,...
0
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1answer
1k views
What is this letter/symbol called?
I found it in an old dictionary and I'm not sure what it means. It looks like the number "3", but the top of the three has been flattened(and slightly curved).
I've only seen this in three ...
7
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2answers
3k views
What happened to voiced velar fricative [ɣ] and velar approximant [ɰ] in English language?
The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in various spoken languages.
Wikipedia says that it is not found in English today, but did exist in Old English.1
Why did this sound ...
6
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2answers
657 views
Etymology of orchard
Etymology of orchard
As a German I would assume that orchard is related to German Obstgarten (a garden with fruit trees), and as Obstgarten has a consonant group of four consonants bst+g the bst was ...
4
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1answer
738 views
Split infinitives—did Old English have them?
I've read a few articles as well as questions on this site about splitting infinitives. In the Wikipedia article, it claims:
In Old English, infinitives were single words ending in -n or -an (...
0
votes
2answers
4k views
Meaning of the phrase 'out upon it'
I came across this phrase twice while reading the play Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare in the following contexts:
1 - "Out upon it old carrion, Your flesh rebels at these years?". A ...
2
votes
1answer
591 views
Byname or patronymic names for daughters?
Bynames in various texts and genealogies include the suffix -ing to indicate the son of. Example would be Cynric son of Cerdic written as Cynric Cerdicing.
Was there a similar practice for daughter's ...
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4answers
10k views
How did *Old* English transform into *Middle* English so quickly?
Anglo Saxon Old English was the most common language in England before the Norman invasion. To the modern eye, it is unintelligible without specialist learning:
lange þrage; &...
19
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1answer
1k views
Did the Tironian “et” (“⁊”) have any impact on the ampersand being shift + 7 on English keyboards? [closed]
How did 7 come to be an abbreviation for 'and' in Old English? is a beautiful question about the Tiroian "et", which is now the "⁊" character 1.
My question is what impact did the association of this ...
107
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3answers
12k views
How did 7 come to be an abbreviation for 'and' in Old English?
According to A History of the English Language: Revised Edition by Elly van Gelderen, p.53, in Old English the numeral 7 was used as an abbreviation for the word and:
Abbreviations are frequently ...
15
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2answers
4k views
Etymology of certain words ending in “-en”
Tchrist's comment here on my answer to an etymology question brought the following to mind:
Ox (from Old English oxa) maintains the same vowel in the plural oxen that it has in the singular. But ...
9
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4answers
1k views
What did Old English use Ꝥ for?
Here are some examples of citations in the OED of Old English where they use a standalone crossed thorn, Ꝥ:
Þu aclænsast Ꝥ weofod and ʒehalʒast.
Þær after com swulke mon-qualm Ꝥ lute hær ...
4
votes
2answers
600 views
Do the words with non-palatalized pronunciation of g/c (“get”, “give”) always have a Germanic origin?
In English, ge/gi is sometimes pronounced as [ge]/[gi], but mostly as [dʒe]/[dʒi]. The second form is explained as palatalization in the topic
What is the origin of the different pronunciations of C ...
6
votes
3answers
297 views
'Parasitic' Phonemes
In searching for the reason for the message -> messenger shift, I came across the theory of the 'parasitic n.' Essentially, the idea is that during the post-Norman Conquests period in England, ...
3
votes
1answer
283 views
How to pronounce “gemænscipe”?
I'm not sure if Old English counts here, but I can't find the answer to this anywhere.
How would one pronounce gemænscipe? I believe it's Old English for "community".
17
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4answers
4k views
Why “English” but not “Anglish”?
Etymology of English from Etymonline:
Old English Englisc (contrasted to Denisc, Frencisce, etc.), from Engle (plural) "the Angles," the name of one of the Germanic groups that overran the island ...
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4answers
5k views
Why are words like “Thou” / “Thee” / “Ye” no longer used in English?
When going through old English literature, especially stories and poems, we can see they have been full of words like "thou" and "thee" and "ye".
Some of my English ...
3
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3answers
2k views
Answering a negative question with one word
There has been talk of how to answer a negative question without ambiguity, most often with a qualifying phrase needed for clarification. (For example, "yes, I do"/"no, I don't.)
I've noticed that ...
1
vote
1answer
135 views
Where can I find information about the history of the study of Old English? [closed]
I'm curious about when the English, in early modern period, first found out about texts such as Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon chronicles and realised it was an old version of English? Or did they always ...
-1
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1answer
909 views
Why don’t “snow” and “plow” — well, or “plough” — rhyme? [duplicate]
They (sometimes?) have the same ending when spelt but don’t rhyme when said. Why is that?
23
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3answers
5k views
/ð/ → /d/ shift in English
As a result of a /d/ → /ð/ shift, fæder became father, hider became hither and togædere became together, giving us our modern English forms.
However, I know that murder and burden have archaic forms- ...
4
votes
1answer
813 views
Are certain English words cognates to Old English words?
For example, the English word spoor comes right from the Afrikaans spoor, meaning trail or track. This is from an identical Dutch word which is descended from the Proto-Germanic *spurą, from which ...
4
votes
1answer
2k views
English words of Latin origin: Did they replace existing words?
According to Wikipedia, the Latin influence on English builds more than half of its vocabulary.
The same source furnishes a percentage of 26% for words of Germanic origin.
Although I can easily ...
6
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2answers
726 views
How/When did English transform to the modern version we use today? [closed]
I know that a language evolves with time and constantly keeps itself up to people's needs. But when I read a bible or a poem of Shakespeare, I can see English was very different by then with sentences ...
6
votes
3answers
411 views
General history of the English language – book / website recommendation? [closed]
Having just come across this site, I am finally asking a question that's been on my mind for a while …
I am looking for a book, website or infographic that gives a (relatively) concise, high-...
5
votes
1answer
595 views
Is “are” a borrowed word?
I read somewhere that English is the only language to have borrowed a form of its to be verb from another language. I want to say, if memory serves, that it was are that was borrowed from an early ...
3
votes
1answer
2k views
Where do we get “queen” from? [closed]
King comes from Old Norse konungr, and prince is from French principle, but I have found no definite etymology for queen as we know it. I have found assumptive connections such as to keenan and gna, ...
11
votes
4answers
8k views
Did the “We shall fight on the beaches” speech mainly use words from Old English? If so, why?
I read today that Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches" speech mainly used words from Old English.
Wikipedia's article states that Melvyn Bragg claimed in "The Adventure of English" that only ...
28
votes
4answers
5k views
Why don’t we write poetry like Beowulf any longer?
Beowulf, the Old English epic poem, uses a characteristically Germanic style of poetry in which the number of strong beats per line is what counts. Instead of counting syllables, strong beats alone ...
17
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2answers
2k views
What did we gain in return for the loss of phonemic vowel length from Old English?
In Old English, vowel length was phonemic, but stress and certain kinds of consonant voicing were not. In Modern English, that situation is reversed: vowel length is no longer phonemic, but stress ...
59
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9answers
17k views
Was “book” to “beek” as “foot” is to “feet”?
"Foot" is a curious word in English because it is pluralized in an unusual way; the "oo" in the word is changed to "ee". Did this once use to be a standard way of pluralizing things in English (or a ...
32
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3answers
17k views
Ye olde english alphabet question: Any other letters lost besides thorn, edh, and yogh?
According to this link, we are missing (in Modern English) at least three letters that used to be in common use in English. These are thorn, edh, and yogh.
Are there others that were clearly in the ...
1
vote
2answers
968 views
Where can I read old English text with new English explanations [closed]
I like old English like "Coole their heeles", "thee" ,"thy" ,"ye" etc.
Where can I find old English text but with explanations and meaning?
I would also like to read old text, can you list them too,...
5
votes
2answers
942 views
Has there been an interrogative word to ask for a quantity or amount?
English uses how much/many to ask for an amount or a quantity. Has there been an interrogative word in Old, Middle, or Modern English to convey the meaning of how much/many (i.e., an equivalent to the ...
2
votes
5answers
3k views
Which version of English influenced the other? British / American
I remember hearing that modern American English is more similar to Old English than modern British English, due to rural British influences.
Is modern American English a more accurate representation ...
26
votes
3answers
2k views
Send, sent; end, *ent?
The past tense of a number of verbs changes from -end to -ent:
bend → bent
lend → lent
rend → rent
send → sent
spend → spent
wend → went
However, most do not, notably end. Granted, I say “I ent up” (...
16
votes
3answers
3k views
Why is “Saturday” Romanic?
Sunday and Monday are named after the sun and moon (English < Germanic), and Tuesday through Friday are named after Anglo-Saxon/Germanic gods. This seems consistent enough so far, but then we come ...
