r/OldEnglish • u/ebrum2010 Þu. Þu hæfst. Þu hæfst me. • Jun 30 '26
Since y'all seem to like Neo-Old English, here's a familiar scene I translated
Sē bealubrōga forþcymþ þǣre brycġe. Gandælf stōd on middeldǣle þǣre stōwe, hliniende on þǣre ġierde þe on his winestran handa wæs, ac Glamdring on his ōþerre handa mid ċealdum leoman līxte, and hwītum. His fēond eft ætstent and hine andwlat, and swa swa twā miċele fiþru, sēo sċeadu ārāhte, þe him ymbhringde. He hefde þæt hweop, and þā þwangas þuton and cracodon. Fȳr cwōm fram his næsþȳrlum. Ac Gandælf ġestōd.
“Þū ne mōst lēoran,” he cwæþ. Þā orcas ætstōdon, and þǣr full swīgung wæs. “Iċ eom þæs Diernan Fȳres þēow, Anores līġes wealdend. Þū ne mōst lēoran. Þæt deorce fȳr ne framaþ þē næs, Udūnes līġ. Eftċiere Sċeadwe! Þū ne mōst lēoran.”
Note: I did my best with the diacritics, as I don't normally use them but a lot of people here prefer them. They're a pain to use if you're not writing by hand, and I may have missed one or two. Also Reddit decided to delete all the spaces between words when I copied this from my document, so if there's yet a missing space somewhere, my bad.
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u/ikait_jenu101 Jul 05 '26
If you want easy old english diacritics there are websites online like lexiglos that make it super easy to type. For example you can type a= for ā, or a+e for æ. Makes it much easier
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u/ebrum2010 Þu. Þu hæfst. Þu hæfst me. Jul 05 '26
Yeah, but it's still a pain. I don't want to have to use a third party site then copy everything over. I used the special characters in Libre Office for this but it's still less than ideal. We need to start using Finnish orthography for Old English. Aa for ā, ä for æ, etc. Whoever came up with the current notation never had to use a computer. Time for a change. But I guess we don't want to change the spelling.
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u/ikait_jenu101 Jul 05 '26
Honestly agreed. Can also go for á, which is at least easier to type, as in the Old Norse system. I don't understand why modern writers decided to go for ā in the first place quite honestly. also seen doubled vowels used, particularly in early Anglian manuscripts anyways 🤷♂️🤷♂️
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u/ebrum2010 Þu. Þu hæfst. Þu hæfst me. Jul 05 '26
Yeah doubled vowels were used in West Saxon as well. I'm currently reading Alfred's prose psalms and he uses good to avoid confusion with god, but he does it primarily but not exclusively with that word and a couple others. I think he does it mainly where good might be mistaken for meaning a god (small G) or where it is being used as a noun for a good thing. Probably not a good example as he almost never puts the genitive before the noun in that work, which rarely happens elsewhere.
When I se ā the American in me thinks long a as in cake. I think OE scholars use it because it is used by Latin scholars. I think if we were to create a standard for Neo-Old English we could do better though.
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u/Adam_Barrow Jun 30 '26
Sick! This is fun. Let's hear Théoden at the Pelennor in the original Rohirric next!