TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

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TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby IronMike » Tue Nov 19, 2019 5:33 pm

Wesaþ hāle,

I'm completing a short little holiday mini-challenge from 15 December to 11 January. I'll be using the newest Teach Yourself's Complete Old English book, published a few months ago. My intent is not to speed through the entire book over that four weeks, but to take a pretty big dent out of it. I'll aim for three lessons complete per week, but that goal may change after I get started. After each lesson, I'll respond in this thread on things I've learned and/or issues I've had. I'll head each response with the lesson I'll be talking about, and the pages covered in the book.

I've mentioned this mini-challenge of mine in the Classical Languages study group thread and a few of you have mentioned that you'd be interested in joining me in the challenge.

David1917
Mista
PfifltriggPi
Systematiker
lavengro
Deinonysus
Ser
marie39
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I encourage you all above as well as anyone else who wants to join to respond in this thread and commit to having fun with us next month!

Ic þancie þē. God þē mid sīe!
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Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby lavengro » Tue Nov 19, 2019 6:11 pm

I'm totally in, but totally unsure of how much time I will have available over that period.

Quick question: to reproduce the squiggly characters, what would you recommend for a Windows 10 user? I have the Icelandic font available which provides most of them, but would you recommend Unicode, word numeric ALT codes, a third party supplier or something else?. Bear in mind that pretty much all I know about computers is that mine mostly starts up when I hit the "On" button, and that when one of the cats decides the keyboard is a good nap spot, the screen display becomes even more gibberishy than when I am using it without a cat.

Thanks for setting up the mini-challenge!
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Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby Lianne » Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:13 pm

Ooh, I shouldn't, but I just may!

Do you know if the new book is substantially different than older editions? My public library has one, but it's from 1964.
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Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby Deinonysus » Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:33 pm

lavengro wrote:I'm totally in, but totally unsure of how much time I will have available over that period.

Quick question: to reproduce the squiggly characters, what would you recommend for a Windows 10 user? I have the Icelandic font available which provides most of them, but would you recommend Unicode, word numeric ALT codes, a third party supplier or something else?. Bear in mind that pretty much all I know about computers is that mine mostly starts up when I hit the "On" button, and that when one of the cats decides the keyboard is a good nap spot, the screen display becomes even more gibberishy than when I am using it without a cat.

Thanks for setting up the mini-challenge!

The easiest solution is to use the US-International keyboard layout. Eth (Ð ð) is altgr+d, thorn (Þ þ) is altgr+t, and ash (Æ æ) is altgr+z (altgr is the right alt button on this layout). Unfortunately it does not support macrons. However, you can go into the Character Map and search for "combining macron". It's U+0304 and it should be the first thing that pops up. If you copy it into your clipboard, you can just ctrl+v after any vowel to add a macron to it.

You can read and write in Icelandic or Old English using any Unicode-compatible font (such as Arial, Times New Roman, or Calibri). You shouldn't need a special Icelandic font.

If you're down to learn a new layout, Colemak has full support for every symbol used in Old English including macrons. Or if you're really crazy like me, you can create a custom layout using Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator.
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Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby lavengro » Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:57 pm

Grazie mille, Deinonysus. I'll give those a try next month.

Deinonysus wrote:
lavengro wrote:... I have the Icelandic font available ....
...
You can read and write in Icelandic or Old English using any Unicode-compatible font (such as Arial, Times New Roman, or Calibri). You shouldn't need a special Icelandic font.

Yep, I misstated; I meant that I had previously downloaded Icelandic in Windows language settings (allowing production of Icelandic characters in the various fonts you describe).
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Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby Mista » Tue Nov 19, 2019 8:06 pm

I got a confirmation by email today that my book is on its way, which means I will probably have it in a day or two. So yes - I'll commit to having fun :D
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Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby chove » Tue Nov 19, 2019 11:44 pm

I actually have an older edition of this book! I occasionally pick it up but Old English isn't something I especially want to study right now. It might be nice "at some point" but I don't need any more languages at the moment. It does look pretty cool though. Do you think it would/will help if you know modern German?

Good luck, everyone!
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Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby Systematiker » Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:44 am

I’m in, for the value of “in” that I’ll actually be in, which is subject to change. Using the older edition because I’ve got it and I’m still cheap.

But yeah 2-3 lessons a week is a solid possibility.

chove wrote:I actually have an older edition of this book! I occasionally pick it up but Old English isn't something I especially want to study right now. It might be nice "at some point" but I don't need any more languages at the moment. It does look pretty cool though. Do you think it would/will help if you know modern German?

Good luck, everyone!


Yeah it totally helps in my opinion - hochdeutsch and a couple of the regional languages and you can pretty much read mittelhochdeutsch and a bit earlier, which is even more of a help. But I mean my perspective is super biased, so grain-of-salt :lol:
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Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby Xenops » Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:47 am

That is tempting. ;) Does the book from that link come with audio?
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Re: TY Complete Old English Holiday Mini-Challenge

Postby lavengro » Wed Nov 20, 2019 6:41 am

Xenops wrote:... Does the book from that link come with audio?

Hi Xenops,

The audio for the current version is available for free on the publisher's site: https://library.teachyourself.com/all/Complete-Ancient-Languages/352737
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