Beowulf Prologue In Old English

Beowulf Prologue In Old English

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Beowulf
• Prologue
• In
• Old
• English

[Metaldude1945]

My mother language is dutch, i understand a lot of it ^^

[Metaldude1945]

@oacmre Of course, just as Dutch, German, Swedish,...etc, English is a Germanic language. Even after the large latinisation after the battle of 1066 of English, there remain a lot of English ressemblences to Dutch. For example. Water = Water, God= God, King= Koning, Deed= Daad, Pit = Put, Freight = Vracht, Free = Vrij, Wolf = Wolf, Snow = Sneeuw,...etc That's why i regret the loss in 1066, we could've been a lot closer to the English language and people.

[basque2222]

@effecostello

Euskera (Basque) is definitely not an Indo-European language; it is an ancient language antedating the Indo-European ones, and was spoken widely throughout much of Europe. Spanish IS an Indo-European language of the Italic branch, a descendant of Latin...

[KillerBee256]

@Metaldude1945 Germanic languages did make some advances; the Rhineland was Latin/romance speaking, as the land that makes up Switzerland and Austria. Romansh survives as minority language in Switzerland.

[Metaldude1945]

@cosmictimes Exactly, Frisian, just like English, is an Ingvaeonic Germanic Language, or a north-sea Germanic language. Dutch also has a lot of Ingvaeonic influences. I will most certainly read that book! I'll also read some literature about it in Dutch. Frisian is also quite well understandable for Dutch-speakers, don't know about German-speakers or Scandinavians.

[cosmictimes]

@Metaldude1945 ".....as much as in the spelling, that any doubts fade: Frisian was a strong parent of English. 'Laam'(lamb),'goes'(goose),but­er(butter), 'brea'(bread),'tsiis'(cheese) are in the shops; outdoors we have 'see'(sea),'stoarm'(storm),'bo­at'(boat),'rein'(rain) and 'snie'(snow). Indoors there's 'miel'(meal) and 'sliepe'(sleep). Even entire sentences which you overhear in the street, sentences which contain not one word that you can translate, sound eerily familiar."

[cosmictimes]

@Metaldude1945 If you haven't already, there is a good book you can read called The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg.It relates to what you have been discussing. He states,"If you go to Friesland, an industrious province by the North Sea in the Netherlands, you can hear what experts believe sounds closest to what became our ancestral language ... When you look around the island of Terschelling in Friesland, you encounter words so close to English, again in the pronunciation..

[sdjnwhyNZ]

Sounds more like Swedish.

[alspageddi]

@Metaldude1945 Must have missed it--I only saw the part where you compared modern English to Dutch, like 'king' and 'konig,' 'free' and 'vrij,' etc. But I trust you. I should really get around to studying Dutch one day, because of the linguistic similarities. And hell, it's got to be easier to learn that Sanskrit, which I've also studied!

[Metaldude1945]

@alspageddi I gave some examples in another comment. Check that out please.

[alspageddi]

@Metaldude1945 Can you give us some examples? That wold be very interesting to see cognates between Old English and modern Dutch words.