The English Language

some history and links

Opal Dreaming wrote:
Dh and I have been watching a fascinating series called 'The Adventure Of English'.

"...the biography of English as if it were a living being, covering the history of the language from its modest beginnings around 500 AD as a minor guttural Germanic dialect to its rise as a truly established global language." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_English

Beowulf is mentioned in it because it helped them to pinpoint which words came into the English language and when [at least I think thats why]. Anyway, I thought you'd enjoy the series, Sandra, and wanted to point it out to you in case you haven't found it yet 🙂.

Peace,

Col


Links are gone that once were here, but as a brief reminder of the stages of English, I'm leaving these, and the a link to more, below. I WISH the internet were more stable. 🙂
Old English
Anglo-Saxon

from an SCA research list:

This is really cool! An almost nine-minute flash presentation of Old English—reading and pronunciation using the manuscript Laud 636 (the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle): [video no longer available], produced by professor Edwin Duncan.

Well worth watching.

Hrothny




Middle English
which Chaucer used in the 14th century

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath HAD a Blog
That's a fun way to begin to learn Middle English, because they're joking about popular culture (and medieval too).

[It was funny, they published a small book of good parts, but it was best as a blog, with fun comments!]

The Paston Letters [once-upon-a-time] at the site of the University of Virginia. 15th century letters of a family in Norfolk. much info at Wikipedia



Modern English
"Modern" meaning the past 500 years

Bringing Shakespeare Home

Strewing Shakespeare


Oddities and Joys of English