Talk:Old English/Archive 1

message: I don't know how a linguist would want to handle this: have separate articles for the dative case for each language, or try to have one dative case article for all languages that have it? --LMS
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These case entries need to be integrated into the article on OE and the stubs reserved for a consideration of the phenomenon of CASE in language.  
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they deleted it! Lir 12:44 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)
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Wikipedia is not specific to your character set, folks. Your þ (thorn) characters in the pronouns table showed up on my browser as the "fl" ligature. I've corrected them to the HTML reference þ. If you need an ð somewhere, use ð. --FOo
Apologies, FO: I have been busy enough trying to get the facts straight in the matter in the first place; I was going to do everything and then globally replace thorn & eth, but if it's causing grief I'll do it periodically e.g. every time I pack up for a while. Also there are a number of other ligatures in use (principally æ).user:sjc
:FO, you're wrong. Wikipedia explicitly advertises itself as iso-8859-1, and if your browser doesn't understand that and if necessary convert appropriately, *it's behaving incorrectly*. --Brion 21:00 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)
::Brion, if you're about, is there any way I can get Wikipedia to display the futhorc alphabet? (must get round to writing an article about futhorc, btw). I could put an image file up but it would be nicer to be able to work with the futhorc for illustrative purposes. user:sjc
:::If they're in Unicode, you can use numeric character references (see code chart for runic chars). ᚦ ~= þ; ᚪ ~= a, etc. But, that'll be very unreliable -- I expect the vast majority of users will not have a font that includes them. It would likely be more useful to use inline images such as I used for the Shavian alphabet. --Brion 01:15 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)
::Thx. I think the images would be OK if I just wanted to do the futhorc as an article. Unicode chars would be very unwieldy to deal with in volume. I think we will probably just skate around futhorc texts pro tem. user:sjc
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Can somebody do something about the width of this table, which causes the page to spread into the right margin?  I tried cutting it down to first 75% then 65%, but it's still too wide.  -- Zoe
:I've split it into three tables, which greatly helps legibility too I think. Better? --Brion
::Much better.  Thanks, Brion.  -- Zoe
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I've tweaked a bit of the linguistic terminology; and regretfully removed the claim that cnight 'would have been pronounced exactly as by the old woman in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "kernighet".' It would have been (whether spelt cnight or cniht) pronounced with ich-laut well into Middle English. - Gritchka
:'cniht' was spelt 'cniht'.  'gh' didn't come in until after the Norman invasion - a French representation of a sound they didn't have.  I think it was pronounced with [x], not ich-laut. Plus, it was the French guy who said it like that, not the old woman. - User:BovineBeast
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I'm deeply suspicious about the accuracy in this bit:
"During the 700 years in which it was in use it assimilated some aspects of the indigenous pre-Celtic languages, some of the Celtic languages which it came into contact with,"
There are a few Celtic, specifically Brythonic loan words, but no other Celtic aspects were "assimilated," nor do we know a damn thing about the "indigenous pre-Celtic" languages of Britain.
I'm going to check a bit, but I think that bit should be excised.
DigitalMedievalist 04:44, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, I very strongly agree.  Old English being almost completely devoid of Celtic loan words, the suggestion that "Pre-Celtic" (???) loan words or even borrowed grammatical characteristics made it into the mix is pure science fiction and should by all means be excised from the article.  --Yst 06:13, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Miscellaneous 

message: In the Prepositions section, it says that prepositions may occur in postposition. As it is a notable feature of germanic languages, couldn't a preposition found in the postpositional location be the particle of a verb-particle construction, or am I mistaken?
:Prepositions do indeed sometimes occur in postposition in Old English.  Having said that though, the article's point about postposition seems an odd one to me, as while it does happen, it is not the typical order.  Their occurrence in postposition, I would almost say, is the exception to the rule.  You do get prominent examples, of course, however.  You only have to go nineteen lines into Beowulf to find the lines,
:Beowulf wæs breme blæd wide sprang   
:Beowulf was renowned; (his) fame spread wide
:Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in. 
:Shield's offspring in Scedeland.
:In which we have a preposition ending the noun phrase "Scyldes(genitive) eafera Scedelandum(dative) in."  But my inclination is to think that this word order was favoured here in order to best suit the metre of the line.  Regardless, it is by no means the favoured order in Old English prepositional phrases, though it does happen. --Yst 11:33, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A question about OE prepositions 

message: Does anyone have a modern translation for the Beowulf quotation? The current one isn't in a form of Modern English that's spoken today. As it's only a small part that's being quoted (24 lines), there'd be no problem using the Heaney translation (though we should credit it). Does anyone have it to hand? jguk 23:20, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, the Beowulf passage's facing "translation" looks like a practical joke.  Old English sentences which are already conveniently in a completely coherent modern SVO word order have been intentionally placed out of their original and modern order in the translation to make the phrase appear more abstruse in Modern English.  Take for example Beowulf is min nama, which one needn't know a word of Old English to recognise as "Beowulf is my name."  The phrase has been intentionally distorted as "I am Beowulf named" for no apparent reason.  And how the similarly transparent "Ic eom Hroðgares ar ond ombiht" ("I am Hrothgar's herald and officer") ended up as "Messenger, I, Hrothgar's herald!" in translation is completely beyond my imagining.  Given the atrociousness of the present translation, absolutely anything at all with which it might be replaced could hardly be worse.  And seeing as this passage does not impose any problematic critical issues in interpretation, and no interventionist manuscript ammendations are required to reconstruct it, I will endeavour to write a proper translation for it when I've got a spare moment using conventional glosses (the critical editions I have in my possession do not conflict in their interpretation of any part of the passage or in their choice of individual glosses) --Yst 06:47, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Alright, indeed, I've replaced the original with a fairly conservative semi-literal translation of my own creation.  The prior translation wasn't anything close to literal, and some glosses were simply incorrect.  On the other hand, a word for word translation is of course impossible, as Old English sentence structure ranges anywhere from ungrammatical to completely incoherent in Modern English, but this translation attempts none of the ridiculous poetic flourishes of the original, nor does it use Elizabethan English, which should be an improvement.  --Yst 12:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Even though Yst's translation into modern English is much easier to read, in the Old English version I have replaced the wynn  character with w for easier reading.  If a novice tries to have a go at reading the Old English version, the  character can unfortunately be mistaken for p (due to how some fonts render the character).  Also most modern prints or translations (that I have come across) these days use 'w' instead of . – AxSkov 02:08, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I've added macrons over the vowels, but Heaney's edition doesn't place dots over the c's and g's. StradivariusTV 01:35, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Beowulf translation

message: Amongst other things I do on Wikipedia, I also copyedit. Being able to improve articles so they are more readable I think is a worthwhile thing to do, whilst also giving me a chance to learn something about subjects I know little about.
It is disappointing, however, when some editors reject improvements by just saying "it was all right as it was". Personally I would welcome copyeditors (especially those who know little about cricket to have a look at the cricket-related articles, or the article on United Kingdom corporation tax I have written and suggest how to improve them). Here we have a simple dispute. The years referred to in the article are currently presented in a highly confusing manner. They adopt a style that many do not understand, and which, although this is a British topic, is wholly non-standard in the UK (in that no British English usage guides I've ever seen even refer to the style). I am proposing to make the date references easier to follow; there should be no ambiguity here as long as the reader clearly understands that it is a year we are referring to. That is why I am making the adjustment. I am surprised that there are those who are against improving the readability of the article. Kind regards, jguk 20:24, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not against making articles more legible, but by removing information that could give someone else a chance to learn something new about a subject – that they may not have come accross before – robs them of that chance to learn about it. You said yourself, that you like to learn something new about subjects of which you have little knowledge. You also said that people from the UK would not understand the date references in this article, that's a mighty big assumption, just because you don't understand something does not mean everyone else does.  CE is a date system used by academics, historians and modern scientific publications. What's wrong in using it especially if there's a wikilink to an article explaining what it is? -- AxSkov 00:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Because there's no need for it in this instance. There is no ambiguity to resolve here. Also, it is confusing. Nor does it provide extra information that's in any way relevant to the article. What's wrong in making articles easier to read? jguk 08:16, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just came across the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). After looking at the Eras section in the Manual, I understand why you made those changes, that CE/AD should only be used when dates span the start of the Common Era or from BCE/BC to CE/AD. So if you make those changes again I will not oppose them. -- AxSkov 11:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Don't worry about making those changes, I've just made them. -- AxSkov 09:20, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyedit

message: "The most important shaping force on Old English was, of course, its Germanic heritage in vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar, that it shared with its sister languages in continental Europe."
My problems here are that "of course" seems to be POV.  Secondly, that sentence makes little sense to me.  Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this to make it less awkward?  Also, if anyone would like to second or counter my statement, please feel free to do so.  Thank you.  - Thorns among our leaves 16:17, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: First sentence (under Germanic Origins)

message: I am going to remove the X-SAMPA pronunciation codings, now that Internet Explorer can display IPA symbols using the IPA template.  X-SAMPA is not really needed for this article anymore. – AxSkov 13:48, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. – AxSkov 14:34, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for doing that. I'd been thinking about it but never got round to it. Xipirho 22:31, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove X-SAMPA 

message: Are you sure final 's' was devoiced? I always thought it wasn't, just like in modern English. After all, OE didn't have auslautsverhärtung. Xipirho 17:54, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No one can be 100% sure that final 's' was voiceless, but (all of) the Old English language experts say that the final 's' was voiceless. From what I have read on the Internet and in encyclopaedias the final 's' didn't start becoming voiced until the later part of the Middle English period.  See the External links on the Old English language page for links to more information about the 's' pronunciation. Hope this helps. – AxSkov 14:07, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. Cool, I didn't know that was the general concensus - thanks for enlightening me. You don't know why it stayed unvoiced in most (all?) nouns do you BTW? E.g. 'ice', 'horse', 'goose' etc. Anyway, thanks for changing it. Oh, I wasn't sure which links to check - are there any specific ones I should have a look at? Cheers. Xipirho 22:28, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  's' Pronunciation 

message: I am going to nominate this article for featured article status. If you object, please do so within this week. --Zantastik 08:46, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article 

message: I know the language (and syntax, etc.) that, for instance, Shakespeare used isn't 'Old English'; what is the English from this period actually called? I'm trying to research similarities between modern Spanish and, say, the English of Shakespeare, but I don't know what to call it. (I'm trying to look up similarities like how people used to be much more flexible in their subject verb object placement, etc. I'm also looking at how "we" used to ask questions like, "Have you a pen?", just as the Spaniards do today.) Anyways, any help would be great. Thanks. --Djacobs 18:28, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Shakespeare's English is known as "Early Modern English" today. Everyking 00:58, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Added that to the article.  Also replaced the bit about correctness of the term, mainly because Shakespeare, while not Old English, is certainly old English--with "English" meaning "Modern English" of course, not "all ages of English".  —Muke Tever 14:12, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Used to? I still do sometimes. Have you a sharpener handy? It seems ultrapolite and a bit 1950s, but still modern.15:07, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The English of our Ancestors 

message: The semicolon in the first sentence of the second paragraph has been changed to a comma about five times now. I think there are some misconceptions about when to use a semicolon and when to use a comma The phrase in question is:
Old English was not static; its usage covered a period of some 700 years or so.
Old English was not static, its usage covered a period of some 700 years or so.
As they are two indpendent clauses, if a period is not used, the semicolon should be instead (first example). A comma (second example) creates a comma splice and makes the phrase sound like a run-on sentence. If an and was added, then a comma could be used. But as it stands, this needs a semicolon.
Also, the second external link on the comma page (http://www.geocities.com/markboonejesusfreak/academic/commas) talks about the comma splice and the example is very similar to the one here.
:I would actually opt for a colon there (it shows proof and [sometimes] causality); either is fine. It's basically a matter of preference. But you're right: the comma has no place in the middle of that sentence. --Djacobs 18:28, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semicolon/comma 

message: Why couldn't the Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative be the voiceless version of <l>? It is in Proto-Semitic. At least mention the hypothesis in the article.--ikiroid | (talk) 19:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think so.  Generally the initial h in front of a consonant was the retention of PIE k.  If that's what you meant.  Do you have a source? --Chroniclev 21:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

text: No it did.  I was just saying that it was distinct from <l>.  Spelling would have followed pronunciation, at least in early old english. --Chroniclev 23:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it didn't. <hl> phonologically represents just that, a sequence of two phonemes /hl/, phonetically probably realized as a voiceless lateral approximant , which is distinct from the fricative . I'm removing the reference from Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative. Angr/talk 00:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: about <hl>

message: When William invaded England, did he outlaw the speaking of Old English? I wrote a small piece about the linguistic effect of William's conquest. I wasn't sure though if he did or did not outlaw it. I vaguely remember my Latin Teacher, who also knows Old English, saying something about it being outlawed. I just wanted to confirm if it was or wasn't. Thanks guys.
This is what I wrote: 
It should also be noted that William's invasion had an immense linguistic impact on the Old English language, which received a large influx of Norman, or Old French vocabulary; in fact, William outlawed the speaking of Old English altogether. The Anglo-Saxons and Normans eventually intermarried and merged, combining languages, traditions, and cultures. This event explains why today such a vast amount of Modern English’s vocabulary can trade its origins to Norman and Latin.
On a side note, I think the page should be broken up into an Old English info section and an Old English grammar section like the Latin page.
Thanks again everyone,
Christopher 05:32, July 10, 2005 (UTC)Christopher.
:I don't know if it's true or not, but I'd certainly prefer to see a published source for the claim rather than relying on a vague memory of something your Latin teacher said! ;-) --Angr/ 07:56, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Question on William's influence on Old English

message: there was some revert-warring about whether to use entities or chars.  which is more correct?  i typed them as entities simply because i don't know how to do otherwise. [Angr, how do you type IPA in word?  do you have an IPA keyboard layout, or just insert them the hard way, with Insert/Symbol?]
Benwing 22:12, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think either can be called "more correct"; they're both fine, but using characters sure makes reading the raw data easier when you're editing! Word allows you to define your own keystrokes to insert characters, so I type characters into Word using keystrokes: Most IPA characters I've defined as Control-Shift-% + a letter (Control-Shift-% + a = , Control-Shift-% + b = , Control-Shift-% + c = , Control-Shift-% + Shift-A = , and so on. The IPA template I have to type in by hand here, of course.) --Angr/ 06:43, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  revert wars on entitues vs. chars 

message: If it is true that there are only 12 securely attested Celtic loanwords, would it be possible to list them?  BTW, the place names of Celtic origin are presumably not included in that figure?  This is confusing as the text is phrased at present.  --Doric Loon 11:55, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: From http://lonestar.texas.net/~jebbo/learn-as/origins.htm - binn "bin", bannoc "bit", dunn "dun, grey", broc "badger", bratt "cloak", carr "rock", luh "lake", torr "rock", cumb "deep valley". StradivariusTV 04:32, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Celtic

message: Isn't this more inconvenient for everyone? Wouldn't it be much easier to pick one article or the other (Old English language, I'd think, since that's how it works for most languages - more people go to French interested in the French language than in French people!), and simply put a link to the other one at the top of the page? I thought that was standard... -Silence 05:01, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Old English should be a redirect to Old English language, where there should be a note at the top saying where to go if what you're interested in is the "Old English" settlers of Ireland. --Angr/ 06:03, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Old English should definitely be redirected to Old English language, and perhaps an Old English (disambiguation) page be created to cater for "Old English language", "Old English people" and whatever else "Old English" refers to. The dab note for "Old English" settlers of Ireland used to be at the top, but disappeared at some point. This note should instead be for the "Old English (disambiguation)" page. – AxSkov (☏) 07:17, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Even Old English (disambiguation) should only exist if there are more than two things to disambiguate among. --Angr/ 08:00, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I've found a number of things spelled "Old(e) English(e)" to put onto the new disambiguation page. --Angr/ 08:07, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Rockin' Vast improvement. -Silence 10:36, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation for only two articles?

message: Why is <a> in Old English a low back vowel [ɑ] and not a low central vowel [ä], like in many of todays modern European languages, such as German, Dutch or Icelandic? Mark 03:44, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course we can't know the exact phonetics of it when there are no native speakers. But it's likely to have been a fully back  because it was sufficiently different from  that speakers felt the need to have two different letters for them. The long vowels were certainly different phonemes (I'm not sure about the short vowels though; for the most part their distribution seems to be predictable), and phonemes tend to gravitate away from each other to maximize their differences. (This is the real meaning of phonemic differentiation, not that you'd get that from reading the article going under that name.) Modern German, Dutch, and Icelandic have just one /a/-like sound (per duration, i.e. one short one and one long one, though in Icelandic vowel length is predictable), so it can hover around the middle. There's also the fact that Old English  developed into Middle English  and thence to Early Modern English  (e.g. stān > stone), which makes more sense if it were a back vowel than a central one. It may have been further front in Northern dialects, though, considering Scots staen with . --Angr/ 06:51, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Dutch has only one a-like sound? I think we've two: compare dar (male bee) with daar (there). The sound in daar is not only longer, but also differs in other ways, although I thought that wasn't yet the case in Middle Dutch. Or did I misunderstand you? Ucucha (talk) 18:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I was just taking Mark's word for it. If the two Dutch a-sounds are different in quality as well as quantity, then the above doesn't apply. (There are differences in quality in German between short /a/ and long /a:/ too, but they're so slight people almost never bother transcribing them.) --Angr (t·c) 06:29, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there are differences in quality (although I don't know fonology very well). The a of "dar" can be pronounced longer as the aa of "daar". Ucucha (talk) 08:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound of <a> in Old English 

message: I've read that the underlying word order of Old English was subject-object-verb. Is this true? - FrancisTyers 16:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm writing an essay on this and both the books I've read state that old english was SOV, but had transformation rules for style purposes similar to modern english, e.g. you could do topicalisation. Also, i've heard there was a rule where sentences could be subject-verb-object when the object of the sentence was another sentence. I won't write anything about it yet, but may if people don't contradict me here :) - FrancisTyers 17:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Word order

message: So I've read that 85% of Old English words were lost by the end ofthe ME period.  Does anyone know where to find a citation for this.  I would like to include a section on this page (or on a sub-page if enough info can be found) about this vocablary loss because I think it's significant.  Can anyone can suggest any source that addresses this topic? (hopefully in detail)--Hraefen
:Dude, that's a lot.Cameron Nedland 00:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vocabulary loss

message: Comment by User:Angr after edit by me '(Dutch does not have the complex morphology of German and Old English; translations of Old English into Dutch prove nothing)'
Old Dutch and English were and are often confused with eachother.Also phonetically Old Dutch and Old English were close. Dutch speakers can read/recognise EO words easier than English or german speakers. Sandertje Fri 16 dec. 16:19
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:Then it should have said "Old Dutch" and examples of Old Dutch sentences provided. It said "modern Dutch" and gave a translation of Beowulf into modern Dutch. --Angr (t·c) 17:05, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The original text was "In terms of morphology modern German is more similar to Old English than modern English itself is, because it still has complex gender, case, and verb conjugation systems similar to those of Old English" (emphasis added). This has nothing to do with the sound changes that make High German different from the Low German languages. This is about morphology. Modern German has three genders, just like Old English. Modern Dutch has only two (distinguished morphologically). Modern German has four cases, just like Old English. Modern Dutch has only one. Modern German has extensive declension of the definite article and adjectives, just like Old English. Modern Dutch doesn't. Saying "In terms of morphology modern Dutch is more similar to Old English than modern English itself is, because it still has complex gender, case, and verb conjugation systems similar to those of Old English" simply isn't true. And even if it were true, translating a couple lines of Beowulf into Modern Dutch doesn't prove anything. --Angr (t·c) 20:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

text: You'll notice I didn't say German verbs were conjugated similarly to OE. I said the nouns, definite article, and adjectives of German are more similar to OE than those of Dutch are. And while Dutch still has three genders in the pronouns (as does modern English, meaning Dutch is not more similar to OE than modern English in this regard), masculine and feminine are not distinguished morphologically: you cannot tell from the form of de goede man and de goede vrouw that one is masculine and the other is feminine. Nor is case distinguished morphologically: De man is goed (nominative), Ik zie de man (accusative), Dat is de hoed van de man (dative). (The genitive des goeden mans is archaic and can hardly be called "modern Dutch".) Pronouns still distinguish nominative from accusative/dative, but then they do in modern English too, so once again Dutch is not more similar to OE than modern English is. --Angr (t·c) 21:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: factually, Angr is right (hence my revert). But maybe we should think this "similarity business" over anyway? What does it teach us about Old English? All we learn is that German (Or Dutch, as the case may be) are more conservative, and closer to Common West Germanic, than Modern English. This is a result of the collapse of grammar in Middle English, and therefore has nothing to do with Old English at all. If you ask me, the comparison is rather futile. dab (ᛏ) 20:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's true too. I have no objection to losing the sentence altogether. But if the sentence is there, it should refer to modern German, which really is morphologically more like OE than modern English is, than to modern Dutch, which isn't. --Angr (t·c) 21:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Dutch grammar#Gender of pronouns and nouns indicates that man and vrouw are masculine and feminine based on their meaning, not their form. Consider de goede dis and de goede melk: there is no way to tell from form or meaning that dis is listed as masculine and melk listed as feminine in dictionaries. As for the sentence, I'm in favor of dropping it altogether rather than rewriting it. No matter how it's written, it's going to be vague and not really informative about Old English. --Angr (t·c) 23:03, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The word for "milk" is a plurale tantum in Dutch?? "The milk is good" is De melken zijn goed? Anyway, there are plenty of other inanimate nouns listed as feminine, like de vork. --Angr (t·c) 23:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I think what you wanted to say is melk is a mass noun, not a count noun. --Angr (t·c) 06:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The disagreement was whether the article should say that German is more like OE than ModE is, or that Dutch is more like OE than ModE is. And in terms of morphology (not phonology) German's similarities to OE are much more marked than Dutch's similarities to OE. --Angr (t·c) 22:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Compare to?

message: Wasn't ethel used in Old English?Cameron Nedland 01:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean eth? If so, yes. Angr (t • c) 22:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He's referring to the letter Œ. -Silence 23:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethel 

message: I prefer to write ɣ with yogh but I cannot display yogh on my Word Processor;; I
usually use a font size of 16 & substitute yogh to 3 at a font size of 8 for lower case yogh. For capital yogh I type 3 at a font size of 16.
Can anyone help me display a true yogh?? 81.153.121.155 17:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a Unicode character yogh; you probably just need a font (e.g. Code2000) that contains it. Capital yogh (Ȝ) is at U+021C and lower-case yogh (ȝ) is at U+021D. See the article yogh for more details. Angr (talk • contribs) 18:32, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yogh 

message: How did switch occur for the sound ʃ?Cameron Nedland 15:32, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Sc" and "sh" are the same sound (ʃ), just written differently. The way that this sound was spelt in english is the only thing that changed, the sound itself did not change at all.--The ikiroid (talk)(Help Me Improve) 18:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I know, but why was the writing pattern changed?Cameron Nedland 20:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When in doubt, blame the French. Angr (t • c) 22:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

text: LOL! Damn, they fucked up our language. Stupid Normans.Cameron Nedland 19:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SC to SH 

message: Interesting read, I made one small format change to bring together its development.  Well done to all editors for the efforts Gnangarra 15:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA promotion

message: How is it possible? Wouldn't that in some way restrict old english speakers the ability to comprehend future events? I don't understand how the language could lack, at least in my opinion, such a vital tool. Would someone please explain? - Christopher 23:26, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, language doesn't restrict people's ability to think. You don't need a future tense in your language to be able to comprehend the idea of the future. Secondly, what it means to say OE didn't have a future tense is simply that verbs aren't inflected to indicate future tense, which is true of Modern English as well. Both Old English and Modern English use modal/auxiliary verbs to indicate the future (sculan/willan in the case of OE, will in the case of ModE). Even in Modern English we very frequently use the present tense to indicate future action ("I'm visiting my mother tomorrow"). Using the modal verbs was less common in OE than in ModE, and correspondingly the use of the present to indicate the future was more common. Angr (t • c) 07:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well take cantonese for example, it has no past, present or future tense neither does it have a sex determination, so as you see languages doesn't need a tense to function. Enlil Ninlil 03:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No future tense? 

message: (my edit summary just now) was, of course, meant to be "Revert to version using British spellings, per the manual of style for British topics".  Damn these keyboards with "enter" right below "backspace"... — Haeleth Talk 21:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "r"