Beowulf in Old English

[@ioco.4712]

It's interesting to hear the manuscript. Thanks for doing a great job with the edit, and making it obvious which lines are being read. Would be absolutely great with subtitles in modern English!

[@Linguisticator]

Good point! I didn’t even think about subtitles. I’ll add them as captions you can turn on. Thanks for your comment!

[@Linguisticator]

Captions in modern English have now been added!

[@Tdoshok]

I understand even less Old English than I assumed I might, but that was captivating.

[@misres]

JRR Tolkien started his lectures about Beowulf by reciting the first sentence of the poem.

[@sole129]

I just read a book about Tolkien and his studies around Beowulf and Denmark. Very interesting theories about UK origin and jutland

[@lenethharris-johnson8238]

Thanks so much for the subtitles. It immediately enhanced my enjoyment and appreciation of the extract.

[@dguy0386]

you know a story is good when it originally sounded like this

[@tomasa-m5643]

One of the only surviving old Germanic stories, passed down by generations, perhaps christianised by the Anglo-Saxons, after 300 years of being passed down before being transcribed, such as with Grendel being a descendant of Cain in the text. It's sad we'll never know how much has changed, how the story varied, in three centuries, nor if this was _the_ go-to tale of the culture, like the Iliad, or just one that survived of many more popular stories. It's fascinating that it survived at all.

[@lenethharris-johnson8238]

Any chance of some modern English subtitles? I'd love to hear and read more of this seminal poem but I do definitely need the help of a modern transliteration.

[@Linguisticator]

Subtitles have now been added!

[@JohannStadlmann-x7f]

Sometimes you proununced thorn the Anglosaxon letter wich is used in Icelandick for proununcing th to f to a p but all in all it was pretty good

[@Linguisticator]

Thanks for your comment! I’m not sure where you mean - can you please be specific?

[@nicolamarco7110]

At 1:00 … I felt that

[@MrAllmightyCornholioz]

Sounds like an Englishman speaking German.

[@StuartistStudio1964]

That's because Old English is a Germanic Language.

[@aag3752]

@@StuartistStudio1964 English (any year of the calendar) is a Germanic language.

[@ramamonato5039]

​@@StuartistStudio1964Old English or Anglo-Saxon is a collective name for the Low German dialects spoken by the Angles and the Saxons living in Northern Germany. I am not sure if or not the native tongue of the Jutes is also called "Anglo-Saxon".

[@Ulfheðnarsohn]

Well it sounds very different from German with certain words remaining similar, its like a German English hybrid

[@zuzukuzu5427]

what font is this

[@Linguisticator]

The original manuscript is written in what is called “insular minuscule.”

[@ramamonato5039]

Oh I see an interesting word "oft". In Literary English and in Standard German we have that word. It means "often". A collective name, Old English or Anglo-Saxon is one of the Low German dialects. It was the native tongue to German tribal groups, the Angles and the Saxons. They once lived in Northern Germany, together with the Frisians.

[@geoalpha]

Hmmm yes. I understood very little.

[@Linguisticator]

English has changed a bit in the last 1000+ years!

[@kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474]

Final 'e' should be as 'e' in "met", not as the Italian 'e' in "bene". "G", when not as a "y" sound (i.e., the hard g sound) is like the Dutch 'g' or Northern German 'g' in "sagen".

[@So-Be-It_890]

Old English

[@MegaPierzak]

For me it sounds like any other Scandinavian language😅 Greetings from Poland

[@tepesvoda464]

Sounds like Norse...

[@АскарТуребеков-ж2н]

Except it wasn't. You can see it has Ge- prefix unlike Norse languages. Modern English is more Norse actually. Words like 'Are' are from Norse influence.

[@Mikefightercool22]

@@АскарТуребеков-ж2н Huh? Old English sounded like old Norse because are were more close then they are today, todays English sounds like a mixed with Latin, French and some German words since it’s mostly a Romance in vocabulary despite being still a Germanic language

[@АскарТуребеков-ж2н]

@@Mikefightercool22 Old norse didn't have ge- prefix like Old English did, also old didn't have Norse words like 'are' in modern English

[@korydentremont2200]

It even persisted into Middle English, including German word order: the yonge sonne/Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne I used to think Quebec French syntax was anglicized, now I think Quebec French and English syntax are both Normanized