Re: Ander-Saxon and New Old English (was: RE: [CONLANG] Worldken bard Poul Anderson in deathstead (not a funny)

On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Sally Caves wrote:

>Interesting surmise, And.
>
>This is a question I raise almost every time
>I teach Old English.  What words would you
>bring back and what would they have evolved
>into?
While I don't think it's actual OE, I've publicly used
'ungothroughsome'; so I suppose that's one of my votes!

>It would take a philologist to reconstruct
>an Alternate Modern English, but I think this
>has been attempted, hasn't it?   At least in part?
>But not to the degree that you are suggesting?
>
>What about late Latin borrowings?  Would they
>be expelled from the AME?  Instead of
>"dormitory" we'd have "sleepstowe"? etc.
Only if English speaking lands had some kind of
tonguecraftmoot that would say "aye" or "nay" to
outlandish word.

>"Gleed," ("coal") is one of my favorite recon-
>structions.  Actually, I think it's used in Yorkshire,
>though, isn't it?  Burning gleeds.
>
>"Beership" for "party" is another one I'd bring back.
>"Dright" for "lord" or "master."
>"Seal" for "occasion"?  "Songseal,"
>    "a time for singing"?
>"Overmood" for "arrogance"?
>"Gale" for "sing"?  gale, gole, galen?
>"Thorf" for "need"?  I thorf, he tharf, we thorf?
>    I thorfed yesterday?  Or:  he tharfs?
>    (would the preterite present verbs lose their
>    distinctive third person singular present
>    formation?)
From a Onemade Bundle Business advert: "If you tharf it there
tomorrow; we get it there to day".

>"Nay" for "suffice"?  It nay?  It nught?
>    (pronounced "newt" /nut/)
Oughtn't that be "an eft"? :)

>It could function as a modal, as do most of the
>other pret.pres. verbs:  "It nay be said" (it
>suffices to be said, it's enough to say); "It nught
>be told," etc.
>
>And then, our lovely Class 4 verb niman, nam,
>namon, numen, which got replaced by Scandinavian
>"take":  so  "I nam his horse for he hath numen me
>wain."  ("I took his horse because he's taken my
>wagon.")
I've been known to use that as well.

>
>In a construction of an alternate modern English,
>though, we'd also have to decide if we're going to
>leave in other interventions, such as the assimilation
>of Scandinavian "th" in the pronouns and possessives:
>"they" instead of "hie," and so forth.  What about the
>Scandinavian assumption of "-s" in the third person
>singular present indicative?  Would it be "hath" or
>"has"?
Them are Owd English already - why not leave em be?

>
>What other assimilations would we allow?  What
>other changes or shortenings?  What spellings?
Noe thoughtgirding speechcraftmoot = no spellin laws!

>
>Are you aware of our under-visited ENGLISC
>listserv where some of us, in varying degrees of
>enthusiasm, attempt to compose or translate into
>Old English?  At the moment, several members
>are writing a romance in Old English.  We've translated
>the Gettysburg Address, the Four Questions of the
>Seder, and we attempted to translate some of Isidore's
>De Portentis, "On Monsters."
>
>http://www.rochester.edu/englisc
>
Cool. I'll have to check that out!

Padraic.

>
>Sally Caves
>scaves@frontiernet.net
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
>To: <CONLANG@...>
>Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 9:53 PM
>Subject: Ander-Saxon and New Old English (was: RE: [CONLANG] Worldken bard
>Poul Anderson in deathstead (not a funny)
>
>
>> Has anyone tried to develop an alternate Modern English that
>> descends from OE of c. 1000 CE without the influence of
>> French and its subsequent repercussions? I'm particularly
>> interested in modern reflexes of OE words that Here were
>> lost (e.g. _wye_ 'warrior' < _wigan_). I don't have the
>> necessary philological knowledge to essay such an exercise
>> myself. (I've asked this question before, some years back,
>> to no great avail, but I ask it again because the pool of
>> competences on this list is ever crescent.)
>>
>> --And.
>>
>