How to learn Old English from scratch (and why you should!)

In this video, I show you a simple Old English text (the Lord's Prayer) and show you how easy it can be to get started reading it. I also give some advice about how you might want to approach studying Old English, either alone or with a teacher.
---
This is a segment from live stream #42:
• 🔴 Baby Steps to Beowul...
#oldenglish #language #languagelearning
For the latest news, follow me on social media:
----------
Patreon: / colingorrie
Twitter: / colingorrie
KZbin: / colingorrie
Twitch: / colingorrie
Discord: / discord
Website: colingorrie.com/

[@BaronVonDergner]

It is insane how ... recognizable the Old English Lord's Prayer is, like yes, "Fæðer Ūre" is obviously "Our Father", or how "hlāf" could obviously be "loaf", or "gehālgod" is obviously "ge-hallowed", it feels easy to read most of þeir uuords as still intelligbly modern Ænglish but with a heavy accent

[@NashRespect]

But, in all cases, the orthography muddies the connections. Once one learns to read it, connections pop up much more easily, especially when there's context that can help.

[@insanitynh923]

Old English should be taught in schools.

[@Felixxxxxxxxx]

why?

[@jackthehacker05]

⁠historical reasons I suppose. They teach Latin in some places, why not old English? :)

[@garymartin9777]

yea, no better way to impress your date than to recite a couple of romantic poems in OE. Hopefully your date likes nerds like us.

[@lalaland956]

I learn early modern english to read Shakespeare and French in school. It would have been so cool to have this as a class or taught in English classes.

[@davidmella1174]

@@jackthehacker05 remove latin and teach a language used for communication somewhere

[@Matt-Hurin]

I'm from East Anglia, Suffolk, Gippeswic(Ipswich), and extremely proud of my local history and culture and I really do wish we learned Anglo-Saxon at primary school and we based it as our first language

[@jayrhodes3766]

The more I read and read about the history of English and which languages have come in contact with each other, the more I feel like I’m reading old Norse/Icelandic (not the runic type). Language is FASCINATING

[@DthDisguise]

It's crazy how many of these words just fit neatly into modern english conventions. The one that really got me was "gyltendum" as in "kingdom of guilt" the guilt we rule over. It's a little clumsy, but you can just read whole prayer as if it were modern English. Father ours, who be in heaven, See thine name behollowed, to become thy reach, beforth thine will on earth so, so in heaven. Our bedailied loaf sell us today, and forgive us our guilt so, so we forgiveth our guiltendom, and do not belead you us in temptation, but release us of evil, soothly.

[@z.l.burington1183]

This is a good way to approach Old English, by reading something familiar.

[@kilianshatwell1027]

12:30 I think 'rīce' does actually have a descendant in modern English, which is reach. German 'Reich' itself simply means reach as well, though it's used as a noun

[@mythai05]

"Riches" is a descendant of "rīce".

[@TheAidanvr]

Reach is from ræcan like German reichen, related to rigid

[@kilianshatwell1027]

@@mythai05 makes sense. I think rich and reach are probably related, and in German they're actually the same word

[@mythai05]

@@kilianshatwell1027 Right. If you look up the etymology of the word "rich" you can see the connection. They are all related.

[@tfan2222]

@@kilianshatwell1027…they’re not related. Well, “reach” and “rīce.” You can tell that by just following regular sound change (rīce would become /raɪtʃ/ (rie-ch)).

[@lanekarabani8084]

Thanks. I took a class on the history of the English language and the daily prayer was the first thing we had to translate lmaooo. but its easier when you know German, we were able to comprehend a whole lot more than a native English speaker.

[@donna9679]

Yes! My German friend could understand it very well

[@jegr3398]

Old English: "Ac alys us of yfele" Modern English: "lmaoooooo"

[@FrozenMermaid666]

I could understand a lot of the words because I know over 2.000 words in Old Norse and Icelandic and over 3.000 words in German and over 8.500 base words in Dutch, and some words look just like the Norse word - a few examples are, the word svá which means so in Old Norse and it’s very similar to the Old English version of so, and the word for loaf also has the H before the L in Old Norse, and the word ne is similar to the Old Norse word né which means not / don’t, and honestly, most words are very obvious cognates, so they are even similar to the Modern English word!

[@tay-fj7vm]

​@@FrozenMermaid666can we learn some new things together i feel we're interested in the exact same languages its SO awesome to connect with you let's goo!!!

[@alanjameson8664]

The interaction between English and Danish was considerable in the Danelaw.

[@alexanderkrow3566]

Thank you for this. I got interested in Old English after learning Anglish for some time, and I've found it to be very hard to get into. There are resources, but they're very academic.

[@FrozenMermaid666]

Old English is one of the many languages I want to learn, but I haven’t started learning many words in Old English yet, because I have many ancient languages on my list of languages I want to learn and improve, which are usually category 2 languages, and I cannot do more than 5 category 2 languages at a time, and this year I am learning Norse and Gothic and Icelandic and also Hungarian and Slovene, which are all category 2 languages, and once I get to an advanced level in these languages, I want to start learning lots of new words in Old English / Faroese / East Norse! I am advanced level in Dutch at the moment, intermediate level in German and Swedish and close to advanced level in Norwegian and close to intermediate level in Norse and Icelandic and Welsh, and beginner level in Faroese / Danish / Breton and most other languages I want to learn! There should definitely be a lot more videos teaching Old English on yt, especially lots of vocab videos teaching each word with its grammatical gender and article etc that would cover all the words, including the verbs and prepositions and conjunctions etc, as it’s not easy to find videos teaching it, and it’s not even on Google translate yet, but it should be added to Google translate, and the other less known languages and the other ancient Germanic languages should also be added to Google translate!

[@iraschellenberg-kollenstei2247]

​@@FrozenMermaid666Where did you find Gothic material? I would like to learn that too.

[@nedeast6845]

it is still our language of the people

[@christianpipes2110]

Learning it would definitely be easier if you spoke german. That in conjunction with English being your native tongue

[@southernlady5085]

You are a marvelous teacher! Throughout my life, I’ve had a miserable time with languages. I want to learn Old English because (as a former English lit major), I want so much to again reread the great literature from the Anglo-Saxon period, Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Dream of the Rood, etc, as I dearly love that period of history. Can’t think of a better way to do that than through a better understanding of Old English! ( I know I have ancestors who were Anglo-Saxon. I sometimes imagine how they may have heard these epic stories and poems. So I feel a personal connection to this ancient form of English.) I also studied a bit in college linguistics way back when. (Lol, I had to smile when you mentioned the Great Vowel Shift- heard that before, lol!) But even with all of this to motivate me, I was hesitant to even try. Why? I’ve tried learning languages before. Took Spanish for six years and Koine Greek for a year. Do I know either well enough to have a reading knowledge? Nope, not at all. Although I did well in my classes, I was never taught to think in these languages. And that is why I’m so excited to find you. This is how languages should be taught: Listening to passages, hearing the pronunciations, discussing why and how the sounds differ, giving the brain opportunity to recognize patterns within word structures, discussing meanings. It’s much like how a child learns language. You hear sounds first, then patterns of speech, and then there is a natural progression toward the acquisition of meanings within dialogue or familiar stories. When i listened to your presentation, this made sense to me for the first time in my life. I now understand why I don’t remember a thing from these classes. My brain wasn’t truly acquiring and incorporating the language into my thinking naturally, like a child does on his own. I learned by rote memorization, and it just didn’t stick. I spent hours upon hours on vocabulary lists and verb conjugations, but I was never taught to truly understand the languages and to go through the process of “ interiorizing” them. So I’m very much delighted to have found your site and to learn more about Old English. I guess, as I approach another b-day of my (ahem!) “older” age, I can truly say, “It’s never too late!”

[@taisiapronina2556]

Oh my God !! Thank you so much, it's much more comprehensible now ❤

[@keithrobert5117]

In fact, Stamford in Lincolnshire was a sort of checkpoint Charlie between the Old English speakers and the Danish speakers (in turn bringing in the Scandanvian languages). A superb analysis. Thank you.

[@gandolfthorstefn1780]

30:28 The irony is that in Welsh ac = 'and' & ond = but whereas in Old English ac = but and ond = and.😆👍👏👏👏👏👏

[@Rinzler86]

Sir thank you so much 🙏 old English is my favorite language and by far the most beautiful. You are a god send

[@marybrito4405]

Thank you Colin this is the best lesson you are a great teacher thank you so much

[@gandolfthorstefn1780]

Great video Colin. 👍

[@dysonsquared]

"Some small inerest,"? Simply put, YES! Count me in! Subscribed.

[@lalaland956]

I watch this video almost daily and a few more of your videos. They are so helpful. I'm wanting to save up some $$ to take you course. I'm learning all of this by myself. I feel like I'm in an echo chamber and want correction.

[@buttmonkey2656]

Came here to stay that. I just started reading Beowulf first before coming here to get some help on better understanding it 😅

[@IosuamacaMhadaidh]

As someone learning Gàidhlig (Scots Gaelic) I think everyone should learn their ancestors language. I'm a Hiberno-Norse/Anglo-Scot American, and once I learn Gàidhlig and Irish, I'm moving to Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and then Welsh, Cornish and Breton. We need to do our best to keep these old languages alive.

[@grobbelaarthibaud]

Breton is still used in Brittany... there are trains and signs that use Breton lol, it has 500'000 speakers.

[@remen_emperor]

This is why I'm looking into Scottish Gaelic, Old English, and turning to either Old Norse or Cornish It seems like we're on a pretty similar course, brother! I don't have traceable family heritage, but my DNA is weirdly evenly spread between Anglo, Scandinavian, and a variety of the British Celts

[@southernlady5085]

@@remen_emperorIt’s great you are doing that. My great grandmother was Cornish and grandmother Norwegian. The rest were either from the traditionally Celtic nations and a handful from northern England. I know of a couple Vikings in the line. It wouldn’t surprise me if one side of the family had perhaps invaded the other during the Anglo-Saxon period! Lol! All from the now UK, Republic of Ireland, and Norway. Small world, at least in my family!

[@Kej.9]

Amazing video, thanks

[@murata.k.3264]

old englisch ist very close to german. indeed more closer to frisian. the compatibility range is like this: proto-germanic -> german -> dutch -> frisian & old-english. frisian an old-english are so close, you could mean, both are dialects to each other. as a native german speaker, i understood really much of it. if i here some dutch or frisian i also understand very much of what they say. it is possible, if these language-speakers are slowly, to communicate in a very good way. but english today, its also very close to the germanic languages, but the vocabulary is a bit the problem. lots of daily words are very close like nearly the same. a german is able to understand english, also the person doesn't know any english, because of very similar words like: do, you, and, in, on, to, into, onto, make, feel, say, read, speak, speach, light, white, blue, green, orange, come, go, will, stay, see, sea, wonder, street, heaven, hell, day, night, year, minute, second, word, wild, wind, hot, warm, warn, address, sight, land, lay, lie, sit, seat, best, old, new, shine, fine, book, way, live, have, had, must, can, could, shell, should, yes, no, not, mouth, world, room, thing, think, drink, bring, sing, sink, loud, wave, help, hold, house, household, hand, finger, mouse, kiss, love, friend, young, mother, father, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, mom, heal, health, good, god, satan, wood, stone, steal, board, glas, gas, wide, ship, heart, hard, allow, follow, borrow, fox, horse, cow, fish, happy, here, hair, there, that, the, this, these, those, dozen, dozens, what, water, cable, soldier, park, hundred, ton, number, name, pair, all, such, stick, lips, long, wate, round, rise, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, he, she, it, him, her, we, us, they, them, nature, and so on... the most words ending with "ness", like: wildness, happiness the most words ending this "ship", like: friendship, relationship, readership there also lot of latin & greek word, entered all the germanic languages that help us to understand each other: the most words ending with "logy" like technology, biology, geology, cosmology, archeology and ending with "dy" like tragedy, comedy, trendy or words ending with "ture" like adventure, architecture, gesture, tresure, lecture or words ending with "ion" like installation, communication, vision, abstraction, attension, television, collection, connection, ... or words ending with "ve" like relative, archive, collective lot of combined words like: household, busstop, airplane, water-melone and lot of common known very close sounding words like: family, team, company, star, abstract, planet, meteor, astroid, line, online, internet, continent, tropic, economy, university, travel, trip, energy, country, shop, store, computer, mobile, air, nice, beautiful, liter, meter, gram, zone, location, debate, and so on ... The english "ing" is in a similar way available in german as "ung" and means a nominative. but for us german speakers, it helps to understand a bit of what an english cognate says. german to english: bildung -> education beschäftigung -> business, work, doing someting endung -> ending, the end, the end of something trennung -> separation betrachtung -> consideration übenachtung -> overnight stay übersetzung -> translation english to german: ending -> Endung, das Ende, Abschluss, Schluss educating -> to educate considering -> all in one, actually working -> to work translating -> to translate in short: a german can understand tons of english, when the person communicates slowly or read an english text. but not all, because there are lot of words to, germans not using. but a dutch speaker is able to understand twice or tripple more than a german speaker. and a frisian speaker will understand also twice or more than a dutch speaker. related to old english, a german or a dutch, and of course frisian, will understand definitely more than understanding modern english. i think its more complicated for modern english speakers to learn old english and or dutch, frisian and or german. i think, english speakers have it harder than us. for us german speakers, the modern english sounds more like a creole language that lost lost of its grammer and nature. its more like a puzzle-block language. it is understandable, but not really flexible to describe something like in the germanic languages. It's like a modular language that works more with templates rather than offering linguistic flexibility. Many things cannot be described well in English. You have to form more long sentences or use a lot of foreign words. and even then English is often imprecise and you can understand it either way.

[@Probablyramisha]

wtf

[@garymartin9777]

yes when I was translating some words like gewerden from German the translator app showed it as Frisian, not Deutsch.

[@LetLooseTheLeatherStraps]

You started off with the Lord’s Prayer and mentioned Beowulf, I’m having fun!

[@michaelyandell8846]

This is awesome I think I really learned a lot! Thanks!!

[@maureenhallahan9336]

Really love these sessions on KZbin. Wish I could afford to join your course.

[@lalaland956]

Me too. I'm gonna squirrel away some $$ and sign up sooner than later lol

[@woolwell_farm]

Thanks!

[@BilingualLAB]

Wow, it’s AWESOME! May I ask you a question about the infinitives (both uninflected and to-) of Old English? I asked Chat GPT to translate the following sentences, and these are the result I got. Could you please check if these are reasonable especially in terms of infinitive and its usage? Thank you in advance. 1. I want to swim - Ic will swīman. 2. I go to swim - Ic gā̆ swīman. 3. I can swim - Ic cann swīman. 4. I have him swim - Ic hæbbe hine geswīmman. 5. I see him swim - Ic sēo hine swīman. 6. I help him swim - Ic helpe hine swīman.

[@brianrowe800]

Hi Colin! Great video! Where can I buy a copy of your lingua anglica antiqua per se illustrata?

[@RTJ3DCosplay]

i did a dna test that told me (im british by the way) im 98.5 % English decent my direct ancestors would have been speaking this old english so now im super interested to learn ! lol if not just to screw with my american friends when i say im speaking English lol

[@Eald_Englisc_beon_micel]

Wes hāl, Colin!

[@shannonelliott9230]

I LOVE it! I'm super interested in this, and just a bit further modern. It sounds quite a bit Germanic. Good day -- survived into Australian. I'm doing this with the spelling of Wycliffe right now. Currently trying to get what "hilid aboute" is from Revelation 4:4. Of course I get about.

[@shannonelliott9230]

Ah, it is covered about -- and is Middle English. Okay. I'm still really interested in all this old English, too. Fascinating.

[@taniasg11]

I love reading english literature, but most of the time dont understand the dialogues enhanced between characters due to complex slangs and grammar. So most of the time I end up giving up before I even start. Can someone help😢

[@sharkinthepark]

There is a modern English descendent of rīce, which is "Bishopric" (i.e. the area over which a Bishop is in charge). Also, "rich" is related, as wealth is / was a proxy measure of power within a kingdom.

[@Lukemacleary]

Cognates of "Costnunge" survive in the modern and literary words "Accost" and "Costen"

[@rgardner8791]

bishopric is the only word I can think of with vestiges of the word "rice" left in it - as in "bishop's domain"

[@tamerofhorses2200]

Is the version of weorthan in the past subjunctive with an ash and not a dental consonant something dialectic? I wouldve expected weorthan to be conjugated as wurde and not wurthe.

[@alanjameson8664]

My native tongue is modern English; I studied Spanish, German and Latin. The latter two added to the first help me considerably in understanding Old English, though the orthography will require significant effort. When I was in graduate school we had to demonstrate a comprehension of written Chemical German, and the people who tried to do it from a dictionary alone were very much at sea--- in large part because the dictionary entry would often be a different inflection than the word used in a sentence. Not being able to recognize the root of the word used in a sentence and what part of speech it was (verb, noun, adjective etc.) one couldn't find it in a dictionary. One interesting source of latinate words in modern English are those that were brought from Europe by the Anglo-Saxons, who borrowed them there before spreading to Britain. Ones that occur to me at the moment are "pillow," "chest" (the wooden storage box), and "street," but there are others as well. It is interesting that the Old English pronunciation of the digraph nowadays written as "wh" despite being pronounced "hw" persists in most of North America but is now in much of England pronounced as "w." Thus "Which witch did whine about the wine" sounds very much like "Wich wich did wine about the wine." People who study such things assure us that natives in the area where I have lived the past forty-odd years use the same sound for the "i" in "pin" and the "e" in "pen," but I have never perceived that; presumably the context informs my perception. I have been at some pains in recent years to un-merge the vowel sounds in "Mary," "marry," and "merry," which in my native speech are all pronounced as "merry." Good fun, that, even though it seems to pass unremarked by those with whom I speak. I wish there were an Old English textbook based largely on things other than Christianity and highly evolved poetry, i.e. "Beowulf." Maybe there is--- histories would be a good source of material. I can read Middle English (e.g. Chaucer) fairly well if I just don't worry about the orthography and let the pronunciation do as it will. The US president Andrew Jackson is quoted as saying "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."

[@shannonelliott9230]

The Bible is an awfully worthy book to want to do away with!

[@JNDReacts]

I have a BA in English, never got a grade worse than a B+ in any English class throughout all of my schooling…except for the C I got in Old English in college.

[@southernlady5085]

I’m impressed you took it! Good for you! I only had a smattering in linguistics. It’s great fun to learn now!

[@JNDReacts]

@@southernlady5085 yeah, on top of being an English nerd I’m also an ancient history nerd, so it seemed like the perfect class to get some credits for my major. I wasn’t thinking about how my brain struggles to learn any language besides my primary one. Seriously, six years of Spanish classes and I can barely follow along listening to/reading it.

[@j.s.c.4355]

Reach is cognate with riche. Reach, meaning, distant land, as in The Reach, in Skyrim.

[@tamerofhorses2200]

Yup. Also the West-Reach, East-Reach etc. in some parts of England.

[@garymartin9777]

or modern German reich as in rule, governance or kingdom.

[@maximuswohler7467]

Any recommendation on where i could learn this via zoom call as i learn much better once shown. Than i do from a price of paper

[@tamerofhorses2200]

Why is it not "thin naman" considering nama is a weak declension and should be naman in the accusative singular? Is it because in subjunctive sentences the object is kept nominative?

[@b43xoit]

Is there much material surviving in Mercian?

[@lucichan]

Yay dramatic reading!

[@solidbronze]

Is the context of the 'swa swa' (+ macrons) bit, 'on earth (as it is) so, so (it is) in heaven'? Or does 'swa swa' intrinsically mean 'as' or 'like'?

[@TheOnlyBootlegger]

Aggravation point: the word "rīċe" does survive into modern English. It's the direct ancestor of "rich," as in "wealthy." This is evident in phrases such as "a king's riches." "Riches" would be land in those days, which would be the kingdom. It's also related to Latin "rex" through a common root in PIE, though it appears both Latin and Germanic languages got it from proto-Celtic *rixs

[@garymartin9777]

Having studied modern German for several years back in the day I easily spot the influence of Old High German from which English is allegedly derived. Word spellings and pronunciations get slurred over time but when you see and hear a word you can get a sense of what it changed from or into. Some of the German influences I see are: use of the prefix ge which usually is attached to a verb to show it's used as a past participle. We use this in modern English as the verb prefix "a" as in affirm, afix, alight. Simple words like English us is uns in German and our is unser. Rice was pointed out to mean reich or rule (as in domain or kingdom). Gewerpe may be from werden (become) with ge attached. Evil is teuflisch which comes from Teufel (devil, which has evil in its name). I also see some Latin as with suffixes um and dum (from dom). In Latin um is the neuter gender suffix for nouns and dom is generally a state of existence as in domain, dominion or kingdom.

[@alanjameson8664]

I remember a story about a Neanderthal man who was struck by lightning and thereby rendered immortal. During the many thousands of years he lived he learned very many languages, and they came to seem to him like a single language.

[@captainclark2337]

I thought I would say that what you point out to be Old High German influences are really correlations. Old English was a sister language to Old High German, and both are part of the same branch of Germanic (West). However, OE had gone through some extensive sound shifts from the time it and OHG were the same language (West Germanic); and the same can be said of OHG, meaning that OE and OHG split off from West Germanic and not OE from OHG. Thus, ge- as a prefix was inherent in both languages, same with the variants of "us", "rice", and "weorþan". This is not to say that there was no influence from OHG onto OE, which there was, it just was not all that substantial. As for -um, its use as an ending in OE was entirely different from Latin. As you said, -um is the neuter gender ending of nouns, but it also had some other uses, particularly in the accusative of masculine and neuter nouns. As for OE, -um was the dative plural ending for every noun. You still see this same ending in Icelandic; and in German, it went into -(e)n. For example, "Ich stehe neben den Häusern": here, "den Häusern" is in the dative plural, and the -n in "Häusern" is the dative plural ending, despite the fact that the normal plural of "Haus" is "Häuser." The ending, in both languages, is a shared descendant from the Proto-Indo-European noun case system (a reconstructed proto-language whence English, German, and Latin are descended). Finally, -dom in this case is the word "dom" used as a suffix. In OE, "dom" (which in modern English is "doom") meant "judgement, law, authority". So, you could think of "kingdom" as meaning "king-authority" or "the area of the king's authority." It is a slight stretch to say it in Modern English, but that is essentially what it is. Please do not take this as me correcting you because I felt like it: I wanted to point out these things because I am a German major and am also focusing on linguistics, and thus am incredibly fascinated by such things and want to share my knowledge. In fact, it is great that you made these observations in the first place! Though they might not have been exactly correct, they all have a common root, that being forms of language that came before it. OHG may not have influenced OE all that much, but the two had only just recently split off from each other at that time. Latin may not have influenced the suffixes of OE, but they were similar because they had a common and quite distant ancestor. Making connections like so is the first step towards comprehending the deeper connection that most European languages (as well as Persian and Hindi) possess. I hope what I have said helps you out, and I'm curious about what other comparisons you have made between English, German, Latin, or whatever other languages you may have thought of. I'd honestly suggest checking out the wikipedia page on Old English, because it is relatively correct in its information and you can see very clearly how it and Old High German are related. Take care now.

[@tiborgyorok2105]

On eorþan = auf Erden, both are weak dative forms of eorþe=Erde. German Erden is here not a plural but an obsolete weak feminine noun form surviving only in this fixed expression. Gelæd= geleite ≈ leite. Yfele = Übel.

[@tiborgyorok2105]

​@@captainclark2337 Thank you very much for the precise explanations. I wanted to point out the same remark concerning heofonum. Only one minor observation. Correctly: Ich stehe neben den Häusern. Plural dative ending -n comes in German after plural nominative form Häuser.

[@captainclark2337]

@@tiborgyorok2105 Ah, yes, you are correct. I am just so used to the dative plural being -(e)n that it being the plural form plus the -(e)n entirely escaped my mind. Thank you for reminding me. As for the fixed expression auf Erden, it is incredibly fascinating that this specific phrase has stuck. It reminds me how, going back to Haus, the dative singular Hause is largely left intact in prepositional phrases.

[@JimKillock]

Wiktionary gives "rich" as being from "rice" (and French borrowed the same from Frankish, so it kind of merged)

[@philipbeyersdorf4026]

Do you have any suggestions of good dictionaries of Old English?

[@b43xoit]

People often refer to Bosworth-Toller, but I still haven't figured out how to use it.

[@Julia-gy9bd]

10:45 sounds like the letter, "ы" in Russian. Also, Russian has accusative/cases setup that remind me of Old English.

[@evanburgess8428]

Yes, they are of course related. The word for valley in Swedish and Russian (dal/dolina) are similar, along with the pronunciation of things from Blekinge and the Russian sounds like in vot. All these languages split at some point! Pretty cool.

[@bmxrider2641]

What is there that can be read in Old English? I’d love a reference to a list of Old English material. Also, does there exist material that one can buy in paper format? I imagine it’s very limited. Can you even buy Beowulf printed in Old English, or is it all really just online?

[@b43xoit]

Check the "Dēor" poem.

[@nutfromvs3933]

If I wanted to learn all variations of English. As in learning from Modern English to Old English. Would you recommend I start with old English? Or work my way backwards from modern english

[@Grak70]

Just my opinion, but if you learn OE first, you will have two reference points for ME, which will very likely make it much easier to pick up: one that is an evolution of ME (modern) and one from which ME evolved (OE).

[@MannyBrum]

As someone who tried to learn Middle English first, do yourself a favor and start with Old English. Middle English is a hybrid of Old English and Old French, and pronunciation sometimes varies depending on language of origin and it helps a lot if you know one or both of those languages. Middle English is where English got confusing as hell, and it doesn't help as much knowing Modern English despite that as much as it does knowing Old English. When you learn Middle English there will be tons of references to Old English so having at least a basic knowledge of OE will help a lot. Middle English does tend to look easier to learn because it looks like poorly spelled Modern English but it's not a good starting point. I don't know if it's as hard or harder to learn than Modern English as that's my first language, but I imagine it's similar to someone who doesn't speak English learning it for the first time, especially if you want to be able to speak it correctly and not just read it. I considered also learning OF before going back to Middle English but I don't understand that much French and most of the material on it is in French because I guess there's not much of a demand for non-French speakers to study OF.

[@Lookie752]

As a German who learns this in Uni I have 3 weeks to catch up 😂

[@jamiekomodo1751]

Rice...what about "realm" as a cognate?

[@garymartin9777]

German reich as in rule, governance or domain.

[@culinarynerd]

I never caught the "why" part... Don't get me wrong I'm interested, just wondered what reason he'd give

[@BrandonS-lk2qc]

Connection between "alies" and "allay?"

[@tamerofhorses2200]

A-liesan (the infinitive of the the imperative form "alies" seen in the video) is essentially "a-lease", to let go and redeem. Allay comes from "a-lecgan", to lay down something. Lecgan is the ancestor of "to lay" we have today.

[@radivojevasiljevic3145]

I don't understand part about lack of books for learning Old English. There are many resource available (grammars, primers, readers), some are around 100 years old and most of them can be found dirt cheap in good condition.

[@idiotbun3552]

Where? List some books and resources.

[@radivojevasiljevic3145]

@@idiotbun3552 Teach yourself old and new, Wright's book (he was THE guy for all old Germanic languages), Hogg's grammar book set, Quirk's grammar, Sweet's reader, Alexander's literature selection. For newer readers Amazon search would give you number of books. If you have any trouble locating mentioned books, just leave your email in comment, this format is not very good for listing bibliographic jazz.

[@tamerofhorses2200]

He's talking about shiny exercise books that moderns use like those frilly German A1 textbooks with pasty placid schoolchildren laughing on the cover lol

[@dwomker]

Minos Prime is proud.

[@EngliscMidEadwine]

Wes þu hal Colin! Gif þu me hwæt secgean meaht þanne gladie ic. Ic swa swa em-Engliscsprecend and -tæcend hæbbe swa swa þu hæfst þone willan, þæt Englisc syg eaþe to leornienne.

[@ColinGorrie]

Wes þū hāl, Ēadwine! Blīþe eom iċ þīnra worda :) Uton þurhwunian!

[@tamerofhorses2200]

I am sorry can you guys clarify something. Isnt the usage of meaht there unnecessary in expressing "than I may be glad/may rejoice"? Magan/may in English is never used impersonally but always as a helping verb to express possibility in subjunctive clauses. So technically this should've been "thanne maege ic gladian" as in "I may rejoice". Meaht is simply an aped form of "might" here without the personal ending "-e".

[@EngliscMidEadwine]

@@tamerofhorses2200 "if you can tell me something I'll be glad"

[@elinamakela8435]

I’m Finnish so I had to learn Swedish and I’ve also studied German & lived in Germany. Weirdly knowing English, Swedish amd German I get something out of Old English 😂

[@elinamakela8435]

Basically, this mostly sounds like a drunk Swede imitating other Scandinavian languages, a mix of Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic 😂😂

[@Mhwisgoodprovemewrong]

Why the might we not speak like such amazing sophisticated

[@connerSphotography]

All I know about old English so far is the age of empires villagers always say something like “yaru te work” or “workende” lol I didn’t realize it was a totally different language until I played this game I thought they spoke like Shakespeare

[@isaachall5373]

Anyone know of a good and affordable old english dictionary?

[@ColinGorrie]

Sweet’s is the best for learners! archive.org/details/studentsdictiona0000swee

[@martinburke362]

First steps in old English by Stephen pollington probably the best book out there on old English

[@Hers_owners_record]

´´swa swa´´ Made me breakdance :Þ

[@shannonelliott9230]

This is SO fun! Love that you said this. 🙂

[@Misty-nd4dp]

If this is old English, can you tell me what the 1560 Geneva Bible is written in? Thank you in advance.

[@ColinGorrie]

The Geneva Bible was written in Early Modern English, which means it's still under the broad umbrella of Modern English, the stage we are in today. Things changed a lot more between ~1000 and ~1500 than between ~1500 and ~2000!

[@SeFreaCweth]

Yes, I am from the future. How did he know?

[@Baa975]

Old-english also has Hindi & Arabic fragments Old norse is Actually ancient Russian........ Yes that's true

[@DeceasedLooney]

Old English sounds way better than modern English

[@b43xoit]

Gesawe ic seo Sunne.

[@JohnSmythe-od4gk]

I really want someone to forgeef me my guilties too

[@charlesdavis9937]

Duolingo sucks. They started using stars for each lesson. I ran out of stars and can’t continue . So I cancelled my account.

[@noodleninjachip2]

yeah ikr, I just want to learn languages but it makes you not able to if you make too many mistakes. I understand that it's trying to be like a game, but if I'm trying to learn it's really inconvenient.

[@yourmum69_420]

@@noodleninjachip2 that's because they want you to upgrade to pro and give them money. You're on free trial mode. I have a pirated copy of the full version, so I can make as many mistakes as I like, except when I'm trying to jump ahead to skip lessons. Then it does a test with 3 hearts.

[@shannonelliott9230]

You can study to earn hearts, gives more additional practice to more basic lessons. Good for reinforcement. I won't pay them money (for personal principle), but I'll take them up on the free practice. Click on the hearts, then choose the third item in the drop down menu (pops up), and this way you can refill your hearts and continue these free studies, if you please. : )

[@tammo100]

The easiest way to learn Old English is first learn Low German or Dutch. Then its much easier

[@smoking566]

North East England South Scotland

[@lalaland956]

I have a southern accent that I can't shake at the present. Is the accent that is important? I'm STRUGGLING rolling my stupid Rs, too. Ughhh!! Lol

[@gandolfthorstefn1780]

Forget the rolled r's. Old English did not use them nor did Norwegian. It's mainly for show. Look at the non- rhotic dialects of Northern England. It's unlikely then that they used rolled r's at all anywhere in England. Maybe those individuals influenced by Brythonic languages may have rolled their r's.

[@kipkipper-lg9vl]

​@@gandolfthorstefn1780no mate they did absolutely roll the r

[@lalaland956]

Thank you both!! I hear them all the time on you tube videos . Thank God I don't need to do that hahaha I'm improving so much thanks to ppl like Collin sharing this information and to ppl like you guys.

[@pj1708]

I came here trying to figure out what the hell my villagers were saying in Age of Empires IV… plz help

[@lalaland956]

Im a fangil of Collin ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ he is just so cool and awesome ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ i should start a fan page haha jk jk jk

[@astridposey]

rīc̊e, and by extension, Reich, are cognate to riches.

[@andreasneumann-pw1zw]

Old English=gehalgod Modern German=geheiligt Circumfixation and the great vowel shift.

[@forsakingfear3652]

Tha shud goa an listen to broad Yorkshire folk spayk, I reckon at you'd be fayr capped . You should go listen to the Yorkshire people speak, I think that you would be confused.

[@MothyEmms]

old english sounds elvish

[@gandolfthorstefn1780]

Byddaf yn dinistrio'r Ddraig Wen hon.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 v 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🐉😄

[@user-vl7vk3ne6y]

No again PU You Thou .. th is runic letter for Thor. So progression was Thi'ew.. thow... thou

[@siwakornkheangtong1483]

Came here from eldenring

[@evanburgess8428]

wyrþe þanc

[@user-vl7vk3ne6y]

As someone relives past lives in my dreams, The old English is being pronounced too much in a Roman way. Ure/OUR is not oo-ray sounded more like "ore". Most Angle/Saxon were gruff, Pagan and germanic. If you talked like that in a time machine they cut your head off for being a Latin spy. Also no disrespect just academic curiosity

[@grouchomarxist666]

Love the video. Love to learn. But please stop waving your hands around; it's really distracting.

[@user-sz9fv7cb3c]

Can we not have English speaking 'old English'? It's all Yanks!!! It does not compute

[@Lancer498]

I’ll give you three guesses who “Yanks” are descended from.