Children's storytime

[Phyllis]

Hello everyone!

I wonder if anybody would be willing to help me out? I am hoping to translate a children's story into englisc to use at future events where our local gesithas have a presence. I thought it would be nice to translate "Peace at last" by Jill Murphy because it is simple and repetitive with lots of sound effects so everyone should be able to follow it My thoughts are to use word choices as similar to new english as possible. It's not going to be Beowulf!

I have made a start on it today and being a complete novice it is a bit of a challenge. I am happy to keep working on it yet but if someone was willing to give it a look over once I have done more I would really appreciate it. It feels a bit long for posting up here...although I suppose I could do it in chunks if people don't mind that?

Any help appreciated!

Phyllis

[David]

Phyllis

It sounds ambitious but give it a try. I will try to help if I am able and can find the time. Hopefully others will too. Ask us about your problems and give us chunks to advise on.

[culfer]

I am still in the early stages of learning Old English, and I would be very greatful if you did post some or all of it on here just as an exercise for me!! Haha

[Bowerthane]

I'll be glad to help if I can.  But my Old English is imperfect and my attempts to improve it have to be filched from other commitments.

[Phyllis]

Hello again!

Thanks to all for offers of help - together we will get there I'm sure

Just a couple of notes before we begin. My posts may be a bit random as I am often away for work, so excuse me if I don't reply quickly to you. I am not ignoring you, but just caught up in the rest of my life.

And a note for the text: there are lots of sound effects in the story, so where these come in I will write them in capitals and leave them in Modern English as they really just represent a noise. The example in this first bit is "SNORE".

Also I am trying to use word choices most similar to Modern English where possible so that listeners have a better chance of following along.

I am struggling with verb declesions in particular so please tell me when I get them wrong

So if you are all sitting comfortably, I'll begin...

First the Modern English:
The hour was late
Mr Bear was tired, Mrs Bear was tired and Baby Bear was tired. So they all went to bed.
Mrs Bear fell asleep. Mr Bear didn’t. Mrs Bear began to snore.
SNORE SNORE went Mrs Bear. “Oh no, I can’t stand this!” said Mr Bear. So he got up and went to sleep in Baby Bear’s room.

In Eald Englisc:
Hit wæs læt.
Fæder Bera wæs werig. Modor Bera wæs werig and Lytel Bera wæs werig. Swa eodon hie to reste.
Modor Bera onslæpde. Fæder Bera ne dyde. Modor Bera begann fnæran.
SNORE, SNORE  fnærde Modor Bera.
Nese, nese, me ne licaþ þisse! saegde Fæder Bera. Swa aras he and eode to reste in Lyteles Beras slæperne.

Coming up: Baby Bear pretends to be an aeroplane!

Ic þoncie eow ealle

Phyllis

[David]

Phyllis

This looks really good.
However I think that onslæpde should be onslep and beras should be beran.

Then you might consider lyteling bera for baby bear or fnæst fnæst for snore snore.
Oh no might be eala or eow or even eala nese.

[David]

Re-reading this I am not happy with þisse. I wonder about leaving out this. If you do use it I feel that it is the subject and I would go for neuter (this thing). So I would try “Þis  me ne licaþ” or even “Hit me ne licaþ”.

[Eanflaed]

This is fascinating, Phyllis! Hope you will do this at Stamford Bridge. I know the story well - can't wait to see what you make of "aeroplane", "refridgerator" and "car" in Old English!

[Phyllis]

David - thank you so much! I would like to keep þis as it works well for reading aloud to small children, so will use what you suggest there. I like eala nese too, good rhythm - it's getting that emphasis for reading out loud

Eanflæd - yes, planning it for Stamford Bridge although I need to see what Bev thinks too!

Hoping to get part 2 up this weekend - I'm having loads of fun just trying it out, and while I do have plans for fridge, car and plane I will definitely welcome ideas too!

Wesan hal!

Phyllis

[lawrence]

Hi,

Do you know about the New Anglo Saxon Chronicle?  It's a chronicle of modern times written in Old English.  You may find some suggestions for modern items in AS

http://larashots.com/appleyard/nasc/nasc.htm

Cheers,

Lawrence

[lawrence]

Especially here:

http://larashots.com/appleyard/nasc/nascword.htm

[Bowerthane]

There’s nothing wrong with eodon hie to reste that I can see, but if you wish to “use word choices most similar to Modern English... so that listeners have a better chance of following” than you can have þæt bedd for “the bed” neuter, spelt the same for accusative as for nominative, though it’s bedde  in the dative.  So I suppose you could more briefly have eodon híe bedde but, even if that is more correct or historically likely, I’d turn a blind eye to it and keep the tó for this purpose!


Also I’ve a suspicion that ‘onslæpde’ should be ‘ġeslæpen’ but my Old English is, as I say, imperfect.


Are these news to you ( www.oldenglishtranslator.co.uk and bosworth.ff.cuni.cz), Phyllis? ( Only ‘ware the adjectival declensions given by the former as the computer seems to bung more than one on the same stem).


By the way, I forgot to mention what a spiffingly good idea this is.  More than once I’ve wondered if some if people swallow many of the ignorant or corny misunderstandings about the Old English when they are young, for instance the idea that gutter language is all or mainly ‘Anglo-Saxon’.  If only we could get ‘em while they’re young win children’s hearts, we could nip a whole raft of nonsense in the bud.

I’m looking forward to the creative anachronisms, too!  One reason I find daft things to set myself as translation exercises is the fun of pulling your head about, trying to think how to say ‘stogie/ cigar’ and ‘hijacked’ ( from Sucker Punch) or ‘drawer’ and ‘corduroy’ ( from Dickens, maybe I’ll get away with Mamċestercláþ for the latter as ‘Manchester cloth’ was a Victorian synonym for ‘corduroy’) and never mind ‘polarised silicon’ and ‘protein  polysaccharides’ ( from Alien)...

[David]

“Ġeslǣpen” does not sound right to me. This is the past participle of “slǣpen” (to sleep). So I would read “Mōdor bera ġeslǣpen” as “Rested mother bear”.

I agree with Phyllis that onslǣpen better reflects to go to sleep. However I prefer the strong verb version “onslēp” to the weak verb version “onslǣpde”. I also feel that it sounds closer to the modern English.

[Phyllis]

Thanks again everyone! I'm going to check out the link to larashots.com

I originally used "bedd(e)" but then thought "reste" also sounded OK out loud, which is how this is all going to work after all. Also, because I need to repeat the phrase "went to sleep in..." I ended up choosing "reste" as it specifically doesn't mean "bed". But I am happy either way to be honest.

Fortunately Mr Bear does not dabble in nuclear physics in this volume, so most of the words are not too awful to think up, although I have made wild guesses so will be thankful for your comments.  Basic language is another good reason to stick with children's stories, as well as the motivation of brainwashing them at an impressionable age

Without further ado, here is the next instalment! I am struggling in particular with "pretending to be...", aeroplane and clock.

Baby Bear was not asleep either. He was laying in bed pretending to be an aeroplane.
“NYAOW!” went Baby Bear. “NYAOW! NYAOW!”
“Oh no, I can’t stand this,” said Mr Bear. He got up and went to sleep in the living room.

“Tick tock tick tock cuckoo!” went the living room clock
“Oh no,” said Mr Bear, “I can’t stand this!” So he got up and went off to sleep in the kitchen.

Ealswa ne slep Lyteling Bera. He læg in bedde and licætte þæt he wære lyftscip.
“NYAOW!” cwæþ Lyteling Bera. “NYAOW! NYAOW!”
“Eala nese, þis me ne licaþ!” saegde Fæder Bera. Swa aras he and eode to reste in healle.

“TICK TOCK TICK TOCK CUCKOO!” clipode tidmæl in healle.
"Eala nese, þis me ne licaþ!" saegde Fæder Bera. Swa aras he and eode to reste in cycene.

Coming up: Mr Bear regrets not fixing the leaky tap!

[David]

Phyllis

You are doing brilliantly.

Licætte sounds fine. I thought it was licette (licettan) but maybe that is just a different dialect. If you really are not happy with that you could try bebrægd (bebregdan), hiwode (hiwian) or leasette (leasettan).

I love lyftscip. I was thinking of lyftwægn but I think that lyftscip is better.

I agree that tidmæl does not sound right. It sounds like a measure of time. I thought of tidere but that would be someone who measures time. If you really do not like tidmæl maybe you could consider tidsearu.

NYAOW defeated me. The best suggestion I could come up with is NIGAOW, but I do not know what the Englisc would make of “AO”

“went to sleep in the living room” . If you mean “fell asleep in the living room” I would use “onslep in healle”. If you meant “went into the living room to sleep” I would use “eode in healle to restenne/slæpenne”. It would be the same for kitchen but I would use “cycenan”.

For TICK TOCK I would leave out the Ks. If you think that TIC would be pronounced “tich” you could replace the “i” with any other vowel except “e”. Alternatively you could try TIH.
You could even use TIK TOK. In later years some people used K in “king” to show it was pronounced “king” not “ching”
CUCKOO I would spell CUCU”.

I hope that some of this is of help.