Beowulf Prologue said in Old English

[Goethe4932]

I'm at Uni studying the development of the english language and the /r/ phoneme is pronounced with a trill. The clip sounds great but no idea how accurate it is? I think it's all a lot of what knows what and all that. Nice one. Cheers Syril.

[Telos41]

I have no idea what the fuck you're saying but it sounds awesome

[Musterfrau27]

very beautiful and amazing, thank you! schade, dass das heutige englisch nicht so ist, obwohl ich das heutige auch schön finde. ^^

[Soervin]

Sounds like old Scandinavian with some latin sounding words once in a while.

[thatdude10000000]

Sounds kinda like Swedish? Though I haven't heard much Swedish besides Finntroll.

[violatormelms]

Sounds Icelandic to me.

[ojideagu]

@violatormelms It shares some Old Norse and Scandinavian words. Although nobody knows if the R's are rolled.

[Grundalizer]

so fucking gay sounding

[mrmartinmartin]

Fucking good!

[FogiTofu]

@eisernteufel I agree with you on the subject of rolling R's, in Icelandic and other Scandinavian languages the R is rolled, location pending of course.

[ojideagu]

@FogiTofu Old English shares some words and has some influences with Scandinavian languages. Although it is mostly related to German.

[FleetingVoid]

You've done a lovely job( r's and all)! It's definately helping my pronunciation a lot!

[m1049]

Sounds like the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show.

[foodovision]

This sounds better than most renditions I've heard (having put a good amount of time into the study of reconstructed Anglo-Saxon phonology). Nice job.

[ALBIONTYKE]

It really needs a guttural northern/eastern English accent to bring out the best. East Yorkshire is by far the closest dialect. The old rural people still pronounce Wednesday as "Wudensdah"

[alexross8]

I am going to make a video of me speaking Old English.

I have been studying for a very long time, especially phonetics theorizing.

[Queezbo]

Very nice! Thank you.

[Haldinyar]

Accidentally clicked on this... This is gay.

[brupey]

@Haldinyar "this is gay" insightful comment!

[Haldinyar]

@brupey I try.

[mantizz]

thats not old english its a version of old nordic language lolz from a time long before it was even close to become english lolz

[WirocuPritanos]

Sounds great - needs more expression though?

[Metaldude1945]

Curse the French, they ruined the Germanic character of English so much :(

[Frottussle]

While the r might not have been rolled in normal speaking in the seventh century (and we have no idea it wasn't) it might have been rolled for emphasis if this saga were being recited at a campfire or public gathering. This was a non literary time and most stories were handed down by word of mouth. Oratory was still the major form of presenting material and the orator might have ornamented his style with rolled r's or anyother form of verbal expression.

[SpockLuvsLogic]

I like this :D

[Einherier1994]

can i found the text in O.E anywere?

[Frottussle]

This is English of over thirteen hundred years ago! This reader took on no easy task in studying and voicing a language not heard since the seventh century C.E. We expected the outcome to reveal a great deal of Gaelic, and even Scandinavian influence in its delivery. What we would like to know is when English began to be audibly intellgible to us living in the twenty first century (since one can actually read Chaucer in middle English and get most of it)?

[hobbes71002]

@Frottussle

You are right, Middle English is fairly readable even today. On that note though, Old English is also somewhat readable if you know a few simple rules, for example a long 'a' in Old English generally becomes 'oa' in modern english. Bat, for example, mean boat. It has some difficulties, but in some sense, even Old English is readable to the native speakers of today.

As far as being udibly intelligible, I'd guess sometime after the great vowel shift, so around 1700 AD...

[bleckb]

I'll be sharing this with my students in a week or so. thanks for putting it up. It gives them a solid sense of what "Olde English" sounds like, despite the criticisms. Better than my ME!

As for the recording, if you put the mic to the side of your mouth, and direct your voice across its path, that will address the popping and such.

[xbridesxmaidx]

beautiful

[celtic4ever18]

sound very viking

[Englishkin]

Some operatic versions of French and even German have trilled "r"s. There have been so many shifts in pronunciation over the centuries, it's hard to tell what the original Old English would have sounded like--assuming some kind of general dialect was spoken which is highly unlikely. Whether influenced by Celtic or considered as related to Celtic, as Tacitus seems to have considered the Germans, Old English--certainly most closely related to German--probably did have strong Celtic elements.

[ExitosGnosis]

knowing a lot of languages actually really makes you understand genetics, music and everything else that demonstrates the unity of life. does anyone in here do german? i'm a native californian but i know german and have studied norwegian/swedish, and at that point it's all pretty obvious across germanic languages, old and new, that the variations are predictable and naturally harmonious :-)

[stv1163]

This sounds incredibly similar to modern Icelandic IMO. Not surprising since Icelandic is very close to and little changed from old Norse (from which the Scandinavian languages came) and old Norse was extremely close to old English. Great job.

[Bluehawk2008]

Every language is better with trilled R's. No exceptions.

[F0reseer]

@Bluehawk2008 Cantonese has no r's. And Mandarin's beauty lies in its rhotic non-trilled r. Japanese r's are merged with the l's, it sounds just as good without the trill. French has the guttural R, it would sound very weird for French to be trilled.

[YakobusRO]

@Bluehawk2008

I entirely agree with you. Languages that already sound good without a trilled R would come to sound even better with it, sociolectal prejudices apart.

[ARCANUSIMMOTUS]

As far as it is known to me, we have not the clear evidence we need to determine the nature of the /r/ in Old English. I prefer the trill as it aids clarity, since flaps and the like tend to be lost or lessoned, which I have noticed many a time in different latin classes. Nice job.

[sundayliein4]

It has to be said that the heirs of Old English, the various dialects of this land, with the exception of Geordie, drop the "h". Explain that!

[cilibinarii]

There are no rolling R's in Old English as far as I and a grammar book on Old English I've read know. Other than that, quite nice work :)

[eisernteufel]

They aren't sure; you read book, I looked at different online sources it might have been rolled or flipped my opinion is that it was rolled like Scandinavian languages so i rolled it.

[cilibinarii]

@eisernteufel according to my book ("Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer, great book, look it up) || "r initially was probably trilled, as in Scots: "raed", "ridan". Finally and before a consonant it was probably made with the tip of the tongue curved back, as in southwestern dialects of Mn. E (modern english) and in American: "ar", "eard", "feorh" etc. || And Beowulf is from a quite late age so I suppose it's not a rolling R.

[eisernteufel]

@cilibinarii (i'm not trying to be like you wrong fuck you or anything) but beowulf was a story probably well before it was written down...

[ExplorerFreak]

@eisernteufel "but beowulf was a story probably well before it was written down..."

This.

[ExitosGnosis]

@cilibinarii you're right on, and it can be reconstructed in many positive ways that what is now "scottish" is the spitting image of old and middle english -read any chaucer lately? read it out loud with a scottish accent, if you can!

[cilibinarii]

@ExitosGnosis You probably can, but there's quite some videos of Middle English for example (Old English definately shouldn't be read with a Scottish accent!!) and it doesn't sound a lot like Scottish..

[fluffytom82]

@cilibinarii We'll never know how the R was pronounced. Both theories have their pro's and con's. If you look at it as Old-English, "mother" of modern English, the non-rolling R makes more sense. But if you call the language Anglo-Saxon, "daughter" of germanic languages, the rolling R seems better.

I am more in favor of the rolling R version, since Old English is a germanic language and ALL germanic languages have rolling R's. I guess the shift came later.

[cilibinarii]

@fluffytom82 Yup. As I said, initially it was probably trilled but it later shifted to the non-trilled form. However, it is likely that the written version as we know it today should be pronounced without a trilled "r" as it was written down somewhere between 800-1100, which is late old english.

[fluffytom82]

@cilibinarii I get your point. Of course I don't have a proof or anything, but my gutfeeling says that the non-rolling R in English only became widely used somewhere around the 17th Century, if not later. There's just too many R's that are now silent (like: weather) which would have been omitted by the standardized spelling if they were already gone by then.

But I guess we'll never know :)

[silenteyesspy]

@eisernteufel: but in Dutch they don't roll their Rs and in German it depends on the word...same goes in the latin languages 

[HojoOSanagi]

@silenteyesspy

Only in the South of Germany (where the dialect that became nationally spoken one is from) they don't roll their Rs often and how they speak in the Netherlands only came to be about 600 years ago(Flemish is more accurate). I speak a Northern dialect of German and we always roll our Rs and pronounce the ge' at the beginning of verbs to put it in past tense always as a j(y). As well as follow many of the supposed rules of Old Saxon. The accent is a bit off from ours though.

[silenteyesspy]

@HojoOSanagi: ich sehe

[fluffytom82]

@silenteyesspy The correct way of pronouncing Dutch is with a rolling R. Only in the Netherlands younger generations use the "English R". Listen to radio shows from the 50's or so, you won't hear one single non-rolling R.

Just for the record: I'm from Belgium and Dutch is my mothertongue...

[eiwaz]

@eisernteufel Yeah, except that these were people settled on the Continent. I'm of the opinion that the original Anglo-Saxon R would have been like the German R that is formed at the back of the throat. There are some very good reasons to think that was the case. If anything, by the time Beowulf was written, the R had evolved into the R in modern English. I believe the sources saying it was rolled suffer from a prejudiced viewpoint. Then again, you know what they say about opinions.

[montka666]

@cilibinarii Oh Yeah Bill and Ted tell you that did they?

[cilibinarii]

@montka666 Who are Bill and Ted?

[wildvenisson]

@cilibinarii You'd have to do some extensive research since the roots of Old English consist of several older languages. I've studied Medieval Literature at my University and one of our first lectures was on multi-lingualism and the history behind the committing of texts to writing. Celtic, Germanic and Latin are the most prevalent base languages identified. Welsh is a Celtic language and they roll their R's. Also take into account regional dialect and inflection. 

[enzedbrit]

@cilibinarii I didn't know that! Thanks :) Where did you find the recording from Anglo-Saxon Britain that proves we had no trilled /r/?

[cilibinarii]

@enzedbrit There are no recordings. There is a science that attempts to reconstruct languages and it is called Linguistics, and the majority of linguists will tell you that at least by the time Beowulf was written (later stages of Anglo-Saxon), the r was not trilled.

[allisonforfornsed]

@cilibinarii Everyone I have heard reading old english has rolled the R's. I do believe that the R's were rolled. of course, that would lead me to wonder why we don't roll our r's today.

[cilibinarii]

@allisonforfornsed Everyone you have heard reading was on YouTube. That's where you get your information from? ;) Seriously though, if you need Youtube videos instead of books to convince you, there's a fair bit of readings that use the "soft" r, look at the related videos ( julian glover and dr manuel seem to both not use the rolling R for example ).

[alexpjp]

@cilibinarii I reckon that it was rolled slightly in places, but less than here. If we look at Danish and/or Dutch r's- that might give us some inclination. Then again, there are dialects of all 3 mainland modern Scandinavian languages where r's are rolled heavily, where they're almost non-existent like in modern english, and where they're more like american r's. Either way, I think all h-sounding letters need to be harder, and the letter æ should be more like modern swedish ä, more open.

[WHL2012AD]

Youth must return to study Ancient Anglosaxon!

[silenteyesspy]

@WHL2012AD: I so agree with you...I love anglosaxon and wish that it never died out...but even if they were to bring it back..there only like 400 manuscripts that survive..so all the words and modern words wouldn't be there and would need to be borrowed

[dusthillguy]

To my untrained ear, it sounds a lot like a Scandinavian language.

[thesaint252]

Back up from the microphone. But a great reading, thank you.

[MeinnameistDreck]

You make it sound very much like a living language.

[commdude0621]

It would sound ALOT better if you didnt have the mic right at your mouth.

[eisernteufel]

one day I'll re-record it

[ieatdeadbabies101]

@eisernteufel ill do some death metal growl make it brutal as fuck and re re re record it >:D

[ATCWARE]

@eisernteufel Really enjoyed this. I speak English and German, and so I can understand bits of it with modern cognates (plus what I know of OE). How does one learn to speak Old English anyway? Btw, your mic would sound better if you rubberband some cotton balls over it and hold it to the side of your mouth. ;-)

And about the rolling R's. I think you're both partially right. I think the R's rolled ever so *slightly* in some words. Make it more subtle, and I think you'll nail it. :)

[MaBu888]

Perfect.

[Linguiphile]

Sounded great except for overdoing the rolled "r"s. Linguists studying Old English generally agree that "r" was pronounced softly as still in American English. Otherwise your Old English sounds fluid and easy to listen to.

[eisernteufel]

some say rolled some say flipped i think rolled makes more sense so i went for it there is no way to really know but it seemed to make sense to me

[Linguiphile]

You may well be right. Either way it sounded great. I look forward to more like it.

[MaBu888]

Though I think the ge- should be more ye-.

[eisernteufel]

ge is ge sometimes and ye other times and i looked up when and marked it in my book so unless i forgot to mark some it's correct

[MaBu888]

Ah thanks!

[TsalagiAgvnage]

@MaBu888 It depends on the word.sometimes

[1PostPoMoMaN1]

@TsalagiAgvnage

MaBu888 here.

Thanks for that.

[NewYorkFlavour]

@Linguiphile No, in many dialects it was often trilled, but soften to an American like r between vowels, or before consonants.

[allisonforfornsed]

@Linguiphile where have you heard this? I heard exactly the opposite.

[allisonforfornsed]

are you sure you're not confusing it with middle english?

[seonah1994]

sounds like german too huh

[jo123phoebe]

What a great video - thank you! I am a student studying English and it is so nice to have the opportunity to hear Beowulf in its original aural form! You read it so well, this made my day! XXX

[eisernteufel]

thank you!

[Werwurf666]

King Arthur? Celtic? Cumbric? The surviving manuscript MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv was produced in Wessex around 1000, come on. As for an alleged ur-text, scholars have varied vom 430 (Thorkelin in 1815) to the eighth and even 11th century. They just don't know it.

The same accounts for the pronunciation of O.E. - linguists have phonological theories, but they are only theories. Don't confuse facts with hypotheses.

[JamesCunnyy]

Anglo-saxons had their arse kicked by King Arthur A CELTIC legend he rapes beowulf english sucks brng back Cwmbraic (Cumbric north england kingdom of rheged), Cymraeg (Welsh), Kernewek (Cornish), and Brezhoneg (Breton).

[adventussaxonum]

Yawn!

[mastercheff1216]

By Celtic?, hahahahah we kicked the shit out of the celts, why you all held up in a shitty piece of land called wale's?.

[nitramgnal]

Of course, there's the whole question of the great bowel shift.

[eisernteufel]

lol did you mean for an alternate meaning or is that just a typo?

[DoctorEq]

Very well pronounced! It's very "old germanic" sounding. And you're from the Us? Well done, I'm from Sweden, but I bet old Norse and old Anglo saxon sounded a lot like modern day Icelandic.

[eisernteufel]

Thanks and yes I'm form the US. As far as the r, some people think that the r was rolled and others think it was flipped but I know German and French at one time didn't use the uvular r they had rolled or flipped r's like some people still do today, so to me it makes sense being a rolled r and i think it sounds nicer too.

[66612345678]

It doesn't sound to difficult to pronounce . I heard a lot of rolling r's and since my mother tongue is Castillian I already know how to roll my r's.

[eisernteufel]

You can find how to pronounce it online and it isn't too hard. I figured it out and there is no y, ea, or rolled r's in modem English (my mother tongue), though knowing German and Italian help as far as the vowels and r.

[nitramgnal]

Roll your arse???

[66612345678]

That's childish for someone who says he teaches english as a foreign language.

[nitramgnal]

Oh, grow up!!

[sumahasuver]

Does old Enlgish share a same Germanic root with German? I seem to catch some of the German word.

[DOSEmulation]

Yes, English is a Germanic language. Each language with those roots has obviously evolved and gone its own direction, but English has undergone transformations from a variety of cultures, which makes it so unique. Most of the reasoning is invasion and occupation by foreign-speaking powers such as the Romans and Normans.

[bazzatheblue]

A very good interpretation,but a little too scandinavian ?After all the Angles and Saxons were from Germany not scandinavia.But i suppose the tale is set in Denmark

[eisernteufel]

well i just said everything based on what sounds the letters made. r was thought to be either rolled or flipped i agree with it being rolled which is a big part in how it sounds more Scandinavian since most people don't roll their r's in German nowadays. its kind of funny you say that though since i know German and don't know any Scandinavian languages...

[DoctorEq]

Don't forget that, back then all the Germanic languages were a lot more similar than today. I don't know however if they rolled their r's back then... But some ppl still speak with rolled r's in some parts of germany today.

[VoltoDanzante]

there's no need speacking in epic way

[eisernteufel]

it is a poem though not just a story

[eisernteufel]

I need to try to emphasize the alliteration too that's part of reading that type of poetry I actually tried to make it sound more conversational rather than exaggerating it too much but whatever.

[cicodelico]

some words are german,i understand it

[eisernteufel]

z.B. cyning (küning) = König god (godd) = gott usw ;)

[SarahLee1]

Old English is sick, but it's pretty much nothing like what we have today. Old English sounds more like some of the Scandinavian languages than modern English. How did you learn Old English?

[eisernteufel]

I bought an old english-modern english beowulf book, went on google to search how to read it, and listened to benjamin bagby's reading to get when g is y or when c is ch and basically follow what the internet said everything was

[janaflau]

where can I find it written and the translation?

i need to do a work for college

if you could help i would be really thankful

=)

[Cris19tian89]

So how does something like this change entirely to become the language of English we speak today? or maybe the better question is... why has it changed so much?

[eisernteufel]

The normans brought a huge french influence and with that a latin influence and the romans brought a latin influence and the vikings brought an old norse influence though that was pretty similar anyway

[eisernteufel]

thats why so many words are from french and latin some people say that modern english is a creole language so a combination of the languages to make it easier for two groups to communicate since it lost gender, which would happen when a feminine masculine system like french and a feminine masculine neuter system like old english combined also it lost declensions so the grammar simplified greatly but this is only a theory you can read about this on wikipedia if u want

[iwillpissinyourmouth]

Cris ,thank goodness for the Normans!also just a little background on the Normans(coming from the name norseman or northmen) they were decendants of Viking conquerors in northeast france they adopted a beautiful language called french to bad Norman-French did not take root in England, but at least they changed english so much it sounds nothing like the the way it was originally spoken.

[DOSEmulation]

I would have preferred that England retained its Scandinavian and pagan culture. The mainland European influence changed that.

[eisernteufel]

I agree English would sound much prettier if not for the mainland influences.

[BlindHeadShot87]

This reminds me a bit of old Norse or Icelandic.

[eisernteufel]

Yeah they're pretty similar but idk if people who spoke old norse and people who spoke old english could talk with each other and understand

[ChantaIsReal]

I would like to know Old English, it sounds so interesting and exotic.

[zapspace]

Really sounds Scandinavian ...

[Clayton412]

Ic hæbbe leornode hwón Ealdenglisc.

I have learned little Oldenglish.

I have learned a little Old English.

BTW, are you a conlanger?

[eisernteufel]

Not really though i have made the roots of two languages called eogskyn and thorwik

[Clayton412]

no, but i tried to learn it once. I couldn't find the right resources, and there are so many noun declensions. I don't know when 'g' is pronounced 'y' instead of 'g', or when 'þ' or 'ð' are voiced, or when 'c' is pronounced 'ch' instead of 'k'. I also find it hard to pronounce 'ea' in old English. I can pronounce an Old English 'y' easily, though.

[eisernteufel]

i actually watched the benjamin bagby version with my book and a pen and marked when g was j or gh and c ch or k.

[Clayton412]

He is awesome at this, and I wish I had $20 to buy the DVD.

[eisernteufel]

thanks do you know old english?

[Clayton412]

Nice job!