Thursday, October 9, 2008

Just in from the Castle's Intelligence Network

This language really reminds me of cutting butter with your tongue.
It's that bad?
Not really. It's just that letters take on a new sound and usage.
This is the first line of Beowulf:
Hwæt we Gar-Dena in gear-dagum...
The way you say it is like:
Hwat way garr-denna en gay-arr-dog-em.
What? That is a mouthful! How crazy could it possibly get?
Much. Some of the letters aren't even used anymore.
The correct translation is: So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by...
Anglo-Saxon is heavily influenced by Germanic and Old Norse languages. That is why the letters are so different from modern English.
The reason Anglo-Saxon is so hard to understand, ever if you can read it, is that the writing styles were much different from what we use today.

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