The History of English Part 1 – Old English

OK, so today I'm travelling back in time quite a bit further than the Tudor period with my Claire Chats video talk, but I wanted to explore the English that was spoken in the Tudor period and to be able to do that properly we really need to examine the history of the language.

Sources, Further Reading and Resources

Caedmon's Hymn:

https://youtu.be/2SRmtbu0iXQ

Beowulf:

The Battle of Maldon:

The Lord's Prayer in Old English:

If you fancy learning Old English pronunciation then here's lesson 1 of a series:

and this website is useful too: http://people.umass.edu/sharris/in/gram/GrammarBook/Pronunciation.html

If you're in need of a laugh, here's "Let it Go" from the movie "Frozen" in Old English:

or how about Call Me Maybe? Warning: it's terrible!

This song is much better:

or how about "Yesterday" in Old English?

Basic phrases in Old English:

How to insult in Old English:

https://youtu.be/E_WQeKk996I

Other resources:

• David Crystal – The End of Old English, The History of English.
• The British Library - The Story of Caedmon's Hymn.
• The History of English website - http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_old.html
• The Anglo Saxon Chronicle - See http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2016/02/anglo-saxon-chronicles-now-online.html and http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126532.html.
• Old English: an overview - http://public.oed.com/aspects-of-english/english-in-time/old-english-an-overview/
• Beowulf: Language and Poetics Quick Reference Sheet
• Beowulf reading in Old English with translation - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturevideo/booksvideo/8135302/Beowulf-reading-in-Old-English-with-translation.html
• Hear Beowulf Read In the Original Old English: How Many Words Do You Recognize?
• Old English Translator
• Old English core vocabulary
• List of English words of Anglo-Saxon origin
• Old English Online