There is the theory (mentioned in this paper [0], for example) that the critical event that pushed Old English on to the path of becoming modern English was not the Norman Conquest but the Danish invasions about two hundred years before.
As Germanic languages, Old English and Old Norse had a lot of similar vocabulary (e.g OE scirt, ON skirt, both meaning a unisex knee-length tunic, the former giving us the word 'shirt', the latter 'skirt'): but their grammar, especially their inflections, were different. Middle English, so the theory grows, developed from what was essentially a creole of Old English and Old Norse, which is why modern English does not have the complexities of inflection of, say, modern German.
There's a very interesting essay from 1989 written about basic atomic theory while avoiding latin and otherwise non-germanic roots as much as possible called "Uncleftish Beholding"
>At first is was thought that the uncleft was a hard thing that
could be split no further; hence the name. Now we know it is made
up of lesser motes. There is a heavy kernel with a forward
bernstonish lading, and around it one or more light motes with
backward ladings. The least uncleft is that of ordinary
waterstuff. Its kernel is a lone forwardladen mote called a
firstbit. Outside it is a backwardladen mote called a
bernstonebit. The firstbit has a heaviness about 1840-fold that
of the bernstonebit. Early worldken folk thought bernstonebits
swing around the kernel like the earth around the sun, but now we
understand they are more like waves or clouds.
>In all other unclefts are found other motes as well, about as
heavy as the firstbit but with no lading, known as neitherbits.
We know a kind of waterstuff with one neitherbit in the kernel
along with the firstbit; another kind has two neitherbits. Both
kinds are seldom.
>The next greatest firststuff is sunstuff, which has two firstbits
and two bernstonebits. The everyday sort also has two neitherbits
in the kernel. If there are more or less, the uncleft will soon
break asunder. More about this later.
This reads like an excerpt of some alternate universe version of Thing Explainer, from a world in which "up goer five" (which may well still have been its name) was a little different in limitation.
Somebody, build an allowed words and suffixes dictionary file, and I'll go look up the emacs documentation for how to verify text in real time. Let's do this!
I wonder if there are homonyms where one meaning has an OE etymology and one has a Romance etymology.
- I found one: "rose" (as a flower or color < Latin "rosa", as a kind of motion < Old English "risan")
So, you have to be a little careful about the etymology of meanings as well. Also, you should allow inflections (has, have, having, had) which might not be listed separately in some dictionaries or word lists.
The issue of inflections can be mitigated by applying Porter's algorithm to each word before you examine it. The algorithm isn't perfect, but it is fast enough to use in a context like this. An Emacs Lisp implementation is available:
You need to read Japanese to make sense of the comments, but it does seem to work, and for cases it can't handle an exception list shouldn't be too hard to implement, most simply by just including exceptions in the dictionary and falling back to exact matching when you can't match a stem.
Inflections, yes, although they may be listed separately. We shall see.
However, checking the intended meaning through context would be really hard. So the best I could do is offer warnings for words with both, indicating that the usage may or may not be valid.
It would be nice to have the translation done by a human speaker. Although Google's machine translation is pretty great nowadays, I doubt it does a great job with constrained languages containing nonstandard and constructed vocabulary!
I tried using Google Translate to translate this to Portuguese (which I do speak) and I found some mistakes in the translation that might not have come up in normal English.
It's an interesting question to what extent you'd want the translator to understand what Anderson is trying to do and translate accordingly.
I was born in Friesland and although I don't speak Frysk fluently, I can say that Google didn't do a good job in translating this text. Partly that is of course due to all non-standard words such as 'uncleftish' and 'bernstonish'.
But also a lot of normal English words were not translated to Frysk, e.g. 'early' would be 'eardere'.
Perhaps a speaker of a continental Germanic tongue could chime in?
As a native Russian speaker, but one who moved to the United States 20 years ago, I do find the Google translation of Russian to be really excellent, as well as vice-versa (but Russian is much more widely spoken, including of course, by a Google Executive, than Frisian.)
A lot of the words coined in the essay are Anglicized versions of words used in other Germanic languages. Sourstuff as oxygen, for example, is consistent with the word in several other languages (Sauerstoff in German). Certain words, like uncleftish, are based off of the root words in the original Greek or Latin (the German word is just Atom). I could attempt to translate the essay into German, but my German is quite bad and would no doubt have some serious grammatical errors :P
The tapestry they talk about is quite famous for being the longest in the world, and has survived really well. It's one of a couple sights worth seeing in Bayeaux.
The Normans were perhaps one of the most fearsome dynasties the modern world has known. They were birthed by a Viking Earl named Rollo, who basically pillaged his way into northern France around 876 and was so fearsome that the French actually gave him the lands he invaded in exchange for him not fucking them up so hardcore anymore. His descendants included William the Conqueror, and they ruled lands such as England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Sicily and Antioch, and generally kicked ass for a few hundred years as feared warriors and mercenaries. (Btw, if you want to see a statue of Rollo and don't want to go all the way to Rouen, France, you can visit a replica in Fargo, North Dakota)
Normandy was a powerful and independent region, even through its contested ownership over the hundred years' war, up to about 1468 when it began to cede its autonomy to Paris. Modern Normans are pretty proud of their heritage, and there's still a friendly rivalry with the neighboring Bretons. What really struck me was a kids theme park called Festyland outside Caen, sort of near Rouen. Lots of rides and attractions surrounding the battle of hastings and the Viking origins of the Normans. The billboards advertising Festyland shows a bunch of little Viking kids carrying off a princess tied to a wooden pole. Cute.
It's quite historically inaccurate. It's based on the mythical Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok (who may or may not have been a real person) and peppered with artistic license, like Aethelstan, Ragnar's Anglo-Saxon slave-turned-brother monk, who just happens to have the name of the first English King who popped up a few decades after the seige of Paris, and how the events in the show seem to mirror real life events that occurred across a 200-year timeline. And their lack of any battle armor. But it's a fantastic show.
It is worth pointing out that the Bayeux Tapestry (strictly, an embroidery) was actually created by the English - England at that time was the richest and most advanced nation in Western Europe which is what made it such a great prize.
There's something to be said for the vigor injecting new vocabulary and throwing the language into the great vowel shift had on the language, but at the same time, woe onto us the untidy spelling that came about and the loss of declension.
I wonder some times if Winstanley had a point --along modern day French, when he decried the assault of a foreign language on the indigenous culture. Never the less, I think we are better off for it.
An illustrative quote from the first chapter of Sir Walter Scott's historical novel Ivanhoe (published 1820, available from Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/82):
---
“Truly,” said Wamba, without stirring from the spot, “I have consulted my legs upon this matter, and they are altogether of opinion, that to carry my gay garments through these sloughs, would be an act of unfriendship to my sovereign person and royal wardrobe; wherefore, Gurth, I advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the [swine] herd to their destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travelling soldiers, or of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be little else than to be converted into Normans before morning, to thy no small ease and comfort.”
“The swine turned Normans to my comfort!” quoth Gurth; “expound that to me, Wamba, for my brain is too dull, and my mind too vexed, to read riddles.”
“Why, how call you those grunting brutes running about on their four legs?” demanded Wamba.
“Swine, fool, swine,” said the herd, “every fool knows that.”
“And swine is good Saxon,” said the Jester; “but how call you the sow when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung up by the heels, like a traitor?”
“Pork,” answered the swine-herd.
“I am very glad every fool knows that too,” said Wamba, “and pork, I think, is good Norman-French; and so when the brute lives, and is in the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a Norman, and is called pork, when she is carried to the Castle-hall to feast among the nobles; what dost thou think of this, friend Gurth, ha?”
“It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy fool’s pate.”
“Nay, I can tell you more,” said Wamba, in the same tone; “there is old Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in the like manner; he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.”
“By St Dunstan,” answered Gurth, “thou speakest but sad truths; little is left to us but the air we breathe, and that appears to have been reserved with much hesitation, solely for the purpose of enabling us to endure the tasks they lay upon our shoulders. The finest and the fattest is for their board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers, and whiten distant lands with their bones, leaving few here who have either will or the power to protect the unfortunate Saxon.”
Ivanhoe is a great read, Scott's pastiche of age-of-chivalry novels, but modern readers will probably find the treatment of the Jewish character Isaac to be glaringly bad antisemitism. (Oddly, his daughter Rebecca is far less presented as a stereotype and more as one of Scott's "strong female characters")
For those who are more curious, I found that "The English and their History" talks in depth about the post-Conquest society and emergence of the written English language, and some of the more distinctive English (and later Anglo-American) institutions: https://www.amazon.com/English-Their-History-Robert-Tombs-eb...
As Germanic languages, Old English and Old Norse had a lot of similar vocabulary (e.g OE scirt, ON skirt, both meaning a unisex knee-length tunic, the former giving us the word 'shirt', the latter 'skirt'): but their grammar, especially their inflections, were different. Middle English, so the theory grows, developed from what was essentially a creole of Old English and Old Norse, which is why modern English does not have the complexities of inflection of, say, modern German.
[0] https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/id/245485/Hanna%20Do...