TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
User avatar
lavengro
Blue Belt
Posts: 728
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 1:39 am
Location: Hiding in Vancouver. Tell no one.
Languages: English - finally getting a handle on this beast of a language. Also tinkering with a few other languages intermittently.
x 1994

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby lavengro » Mon Dec 23, 2019 1:31 am

As much as I like trying to solve puzzles such as the riddle in Chapter 3 (Riddle 66 from the Exeter Book), I became too distracted by the word "hondwyrm" ("hand worm") to put on my best riddling hat.

Ic eom mare þonne þes middangeard,
læsse þonne hondwyrm, leohtre þonne mona,
swiftre þonne sunne.

I am greater than this middle world,
less than a mite(?), lighter (brighter?) than the moon,
swifter than the sun.
2 x
This signature space now on loan to the mysterious and enigmatic Breakmaster Cylinder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUGKldkiex4

David1917
Blue Belt
Posts: 596
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2017 2:36 am
Location: USA
Languages: English (N)
Professional Level: Russian, Spanish
x 1564

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby David1917 » Tue Dec 24, 2019 12:53 am

I'm remembering how odd this book is now. The selections are really good, the recordings are excellent, as are the culture notes. But as far as actually learning Old English? Well, there are practically zero grammar exercises. They keep telling me that some words are the dative form, but I have yet to see how nouns decline in dative in all three genders. I just got to one particularly ridiculous exercise in Unit 6 p. 62. They give a list of words to fill-in-the-blanks, but they're already put in the proper past tense! Come on, give me something to actually do here! (Moreover, I looked in the answer key and the wordlist uses þuhte whereas the key gives ðuhte. I know that OE orthography was irregular, but this seems like an odd way to do a teaching manual.) Is anybody else struggling with this?

I think because my goal is to get deep into OE, this might not be the best route. I'll probably just use this book for shadowing/reading excerpts, because that is a definite strength, but I will have to look at some of my other books to study the language more thoroughly.
1 x

User avatar
IronMike
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2554
Joined: Thu May 12, 2016 6:13 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Languages: Studying: Esperanto
Maintaining: nada
Tested:
BCS, 1+L/1+R (DLPT5, 2022)
Russian, 3/3 (DLPT5, 2022) 2+ (OPI, 2022)
German, 2L/1+R (DLPT5, 2021)
Italian, 1L/2R (DLPT IV, 2019)
Esperanto, C1 (KER skriba ekzameno, 2017)
Slovene, 2+L/3R (DLPT II in, yes, 1999)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5189
x 7265
Contact:

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby IronMike » Tue Dec 24, 2019 1:53 am

lavengro wrote:I am working through Chapter 2 and thought I was losing my brain trying to match the poem extract from Maxims II (top of page 16 in the latest edition) with the audio at Track 9, but then realized there is some material missing from the text but spoken on the audio (set out in bold below -from the more complete excerpt at the bottom of page 19):

" ............................... Fyrd sceal ætsomne,
tirfæstra getrum. ........ Treow sceal on eorle,
wisdom on were.

"Loyalty belongs in a nobleman, wisdom in a man" - I suppose the sentiment is open to debate.

not sure how awkward the spacing will present, I was not sure how to tab or indent

Thus my comment in a post a bit above yours:
I started Unit 2. I'll just say if you hear something that's not on the page, no worries, as it comes up later, in full.


:D
1 x
You're not a C1 (or B1 or whatever) if you haven't tested.
CEFR --> ILR/DLPT equivalencies
My swimming life.
My reading life.

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
x 6299

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby sfuqua » Tue Dec 24, 2019 2:00 am

I agree, @david1917. The book is weird, but excellent in some ways. I quickly scanned through the whole book, and a lot of things are covered late in the book. Why? I don't know. I'm going to keep grinding through it, shadowing, translating and learning word lists. I too plan to get deeper into OE than just one book. I think that Pollington's _First steps in old English_ might make a good companion to this book. Drout's _Quick and easy old English_ is basically nothing but declensions and conjugations, so it might be good too.
Adding these resources in will make this a multimonth project, but I'm in love with this language...

Edited to add commas
3 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

User avatar
lavengro
Blue Belt
Posts: 728
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 1:39 am
Location: Hiding in Vancouver. Tell no one.
Languages: English - finally getting a handle on this beast of a language. Also tinkering with a few other languages intermittently.
x 1994

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby lavengro » Tue Dec 24, 2019 7:22 am

I'm definitely enjoying this text. But my metric may be different than others, as I value something that is interesting over something that may be more efficient but less interesting.
3 x
This signature space now on loan to the mysterious and enigmatic Breakmaster Cylinder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUGKldkiex4

User avatar
IronMike
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2554
Joined: Thu May 12, 2016 6:13 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Languages: Studying: Esperanto
Maintaining: nada
Tested:
BCS, 1+L/1+R (DLPT5, 2022)
Russian, 3/3 (DLPT5, 2022) 2+ (OPI, 2022)
German, 2L/1+R (DLPT5, 2021)
Italian, 1L/2R (DLPT IV, 2019)
Esperanto, C1 (KER skriba ekzameno, 2017)
Slovene, 2+L/3R (DLPT II in, yes, 1999)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5189
x 7265
Contact:

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby IronMike » Tue Dec 24, 2019 2:17 pm

lavengro wrote:I'm definitely enjoying this text. But my metric may be different than others, as I value something that is interesting over something that may be more efficient but less interesting.

Me too. I like the history in it. And I have the goal of reading Beowulf in original one of these days, so it is nice when lines from the poem are in the text.
2 x
You're not a C1 (or B1 or whatever) if you haven't tested.
CEFR --> ILR/DLPT equivalencies
My swimming life.
My reading life.

User avatar
lavengro
Blue Belt
Posts: 728
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 1:39 am
Location: Hiding in Vancouver. Tell no one.
Languages: English - finally getting a handle on this beast of a language. Also tinkering with a few other languages intermittently.
x 1994

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby lavengro » Tue Dec 24, 2019 6:36 pm

Something perhaps timely for the holidays:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOfvCN_F5cg
1 x
This signature space now on loan to the mysterious and enigmatic Breakmaster Cylinder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUGKldkiex4

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby reineke » Wed Dec 25, 2019 1:31 pm

Re: TY Complete Old English

Ser wrote:
sfuqua wrote:I'm using Windows..., and... the Icelandic keyboard for my android phone.... I wonder about Linux...

I'm on Linux...
1 x

User avatar
Querneus
Blue Belt
Posts: 836
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2016 5:28 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Languages: Speaks: Spanish (N), English
Studying: Latin, French, Mandarin
x 2269

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby Querneus » Wed Dec 25, 2019 7:50 pm

reineke wrote:Re: TY Complete Old English
Ser wrote:
sfuqua wrote:I'm using Windows..., and... the Icelandic keyboard for my android phone.... I wonder about Linux...

I'm on Linux...

C'mon, I just meant to satisfy any curiosity he had about Linux and OE characters. :P Earlier on I gave a better response.
1 x

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby reineke » Wed Dec 25, 2019 9:14 pm

Ser wrote:
lavengro wrote:Quick question: to reproduce the squiggly characters...even more gibberishy...without a cat.

...


Back in the day we used pen and paper.

lavengro wrote:As much as I like trying to solve puzzles such as the riddle in Chapter 3 (Riddle 66 from the Exeter Book), I became too distracted by the word "hondwyrm" ("hand worm") to put on my best riddling hat.

Ic eom mare þonne þes middangeard,
læsse þonne hondwyrm, leohtre þonne mona,
swiftre þonne sunne.

I am greater than this middle world,
less than a mite(?), lighter (brighter?) than the moon,
swifter than the sun.


Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter wiki and some other sites offer nice translations. I'm not going to post any. However, the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary tells us that a hand-worm was an insect supposed to produce disease in the hand.
2 x


Return to “Language Challenges”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests