Shut up, Nebulon.
January 9, 2007 – 9:58 pmI started Monday unable to find my class, only to learn that I had arrived two hours too early. Phonology was interesting today. The professor asked everybody’s name, except me. He asked me what I go by. I don’t know what to think of that. I am also praising my deity of choice that my structure of Arabic course isn’t filled with theoretical elitists and ignorant fools thinking they are getting an Arabic course.
Anyway, I am taking the following from Lyle Campbell’s book Historical Linguistics. Perhaps I find the change of Enlgish interesting, or perhaps I find the specific Biblical passage he chose to cite fitting, as it deals with language. Really, language change is inevitable.
Matthew 27:23
Modern English The New English Bible (1961)
Shortly afterwards the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Surely, you are another of them; your accent gives you away.
Early Modern English King James Bible (1611)
And after a while came vnto him they that stood by, and saide to Peter, Surely thou also art of them, for thy speech bewrayeth thee.
Middle English Wycliff Bible (14th Century)
And a litil after, thei that stooden camen, and seiden to Peter, treuli thou art of hem; for thi speche makith thee known.
Old English The West Saxon Gospels c. 1050
θa æfter lytlum fyrste genealæton θa ðe θær stodon, cwædon to petre. Soðlice θu eart of hym, θyn spræc θe gesweotolað
Note, the theta represents the what would be in Old English orthography ‘thorn.’ I can’t find that HTML entity. I would comment on changes, but I think the data speak for themselves.
Also, I am working on a new layout. How does white sound?
4 Responses to “Shut up, Nebulon.”
That old English looks so much like Icelandic.
By Sasha on Jan 10, 2007
You’re taking Structure of Mayan?? Cool!! I had that last semester, which is how I got interested in Q’anjob’al.
Is Lyle Campbell teaching that?
My semester starts week after next and I’ll not only be taking classes but teaching ESL too. I’m looking forward to a hectic semester!
By Dave Kaufman on Jan 12, 2007
You know, I really should change that to “Structure of Arabic.” I think I wrote this update after reading your Q’anjob’al post, leading to my typo, haha. However, we are offering a structure of Mayan next semester, which I want to take to expand my horizons.
By Rob on Jan 13, 2007
I find it interesting that the one that looks closest to (…modern) German is the Middle English one, not the Old English one which has words that I don’t recognize at all.
Because Iceland and the Faeroes are west of the Iron Curtain, Þþ is in ISO-8859-1, so every table of special characters has them.
By David Marjanović on Jan 15, 2007