Children's storytime

[Phyllis]

Hello David and thank you so much for the help!

I will  keep liceætte if you think it's OK (as my prinunciation is a bit hit and miss I doubt the æ/e distinction will make much difference)

Funnily enough I had originally had wægn instead of scip but we encounter a car soon, which will be wægen so I htought it best to keep them distinct

I'll stick to tidmæl too unles anyone else comes up with anything better - it's quite a challenge!

The capitalised words are simpky the noise I am going to make so I don;t need an eald englisc spelling

I am haivng so much fun with this it ought to be illegal!

Thansk again

Phyllis

[Deoran]

Hi Phyllis - you may already have thought of this, but when trying to coin OE words for modern objects or concepts, it's sometimes useful to see what modern Dutch / German uses. If you don't have a dictionary, Google Translate provides a good (and free!) alternative.

So for example, by analogy with Dutch uurwerk (hour-work or "time-piece"), clock might be hwilweorc, or tidweorc? Alternatively, since solmerca is sundial (although somewhat poorly attested, it seems) perhaps hwilmerca or tidmerca? I think I like hwilweorc the best as it sort of alliterates and hwil also sounds like wheel, conjuring up the image of the cog mechanism inside a clock.

I too like lyftscip (provided Mrs Bear's not intending to travel on a dirigible later in the story...), but by admittedly creative analogy with German, something like fleogfering or flyhtfær might be alternatives for aeroplane?

[Phyllis]

I like hwilweorc very much! Thank you 

On a more I'll take it as neuter?

I have some German but was getting hung up on Stunde and Uhr so gave up - that will teach me

Flyhtfær is also nice - I had been toying with flyhtþing myself before lyftscip (Luftwaffe sprang to mind so obviously not all my German is useless!). I might leave well alone there though and stick to my airship. No blimps have been or will be harmed during this epic saga of one Bear's quest for peace

[Bowerthane]

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I too like lyftscip ( provided Mrs Bear’s not intending to travel on a dirigible later in the story...)
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Well this is just too jammy!  I’d hit upon lyftscip for ‘zeppelin’ in the script for Sucker Punch at which I am pegging away.  Babydoll shoots one down with a Maxim gun ( firing from the hip, it’s easy when you know how).

Ignore this Phyllis if you think, quite rightly, that lyftscip gives children the best chance of guessing what you’re on about.  Yet since I hit upon it quite independently as a synonym for ‘zeppelin’, I too wonder if lyftscip is best confined to ‘airship’ ( which it literally means) and a fixed-wing aircraft had better be something clearly different?  Since you are saving wæġn for later to avoid the risk of confusion, my suggestion would be folcflyġa ( lit. ‘people flyer’)?

Or of course you can do a perfectly good job without my help...


PS: Just thought of Wederscip too.  Why do I find this sort of thing so engaging?  Anyone for hweorfwæġn or whirlwain for ‘helicopter’?

Okay, I'll go and calm down...

[lawrence]

An enty in the New AS Chronicle has "lyftcræft"

Cheers,

Lawrence

[brian farrell]

Personally, I consider:-

(1) the verb "to wharf" as representing a reverse of direction; an about-turn, or U-turn (hence the comings and goings of ships at a "wharf", or dock-side), rather than a rotational-turn, which is probably better represented by the verb 'cirran', or 'ymb-cirran';

(2) "craft" as being the "art/science/skill of ... ", rather than a vehicle, or vessel.

[lawrence]

["craft" as being the "art/science/skill of ... ", rather than a vehicle, or vessel.]

Encouragingly, that's what I thought!

Lawrence

[Phyllis]

Oh I like folcflyga rather a lot! I think it sounds really good! Thanks, Bowerthane

The weekend has been a washout for OE translation so I will try and get the next bit up later this evening otherwise it wil  be next week

Thanks again to everyone for their help - I'm really looking forward to trying this out at Stamford Bridge in September.

Wesan ge hal

[Phyllis]

OK, here we go - it turned out I had less to do than I thought

This time I am struggling with declining my verbs in particular, but as always any comments will help me.

To recap, Mr Bear has left the living room and gone to the kitchen for some shut-eye:

“Drip drip” went the leaky kitchen tap
“Hmm” went the refrigerator
“Oh no,” said Mr Bear, “I can’t stand this!” So he got up and went to sleep in the garden.

Well, you would not believe what noises there are in the garden at night!
“Tu wit tu woo” went the owl
“Snuffle snuffle” went the hedgehog
“Miaow miaow” sang the cats on the garden wall
“Oh no,” said Mr Bear, “I can’t stand this!” So he got up and went to sleep in the car.

“DRIP DRIP”  drypde se cycenes tæppe.
“HMMM” great se cealdloca.
“Eala nese,” saegde Fæder Bera, “þis me ne licaþ!” Swa aras he and eode in wyrtgearde to restenne .

Hwæt! ge ne beliefan hu fela breahtm  man hierþ in wyrtgearde be niht.
“TU WIT TU WOO” ceallode seo ule.
“SNUFFLE SNUFFLE”  snyþode se hattefagol.
“MIAOW MIAOW” sangon þa cattas on þæm wyrtgeardes wealle.
“Eala nese,” saegde Fæder Bera, “þis me ne licaþ!” Swa aras he and eode in wægene to restenne.


Coming up: even the light gets noisy

ic þoncie eow ealle!

Phyllis

[brian farrell]

Hedgehog,

'hatte-fagol' ('haerean-fugol') appears to be very rare in OE literature. I think that it is an erroneous OE attempt at the Latin "herinacius", usually referring to the Middle Eastern "hyrax", a creature that would not have been kenned by AS people.

An alternate version of the same psalm refers to 'igil', {masc. noun}. This noun also appears in other OE literature, and has links to other Germanic languages, as "hedgehog" (or "urchin").

It is also tentatively linked to modern English as "{dropped-H}-igglepiggle", i.e. "little hedge-pig".

Brian

[David]

Rather than “drypde se cycenes tæppe” I would say “drypte þære cycenan (droppende) tæppa”.  You could possibly say “drypte se tæppa cycenan”. In the same way instead of “on þæm wyrtgeardes wealle” I would say “on þæs wyrtgeardes wealle”

When you say “went to sleep in the garden/car” you are actually saying “went into the garden/car to sleep” so I would use “in wyrtgeard” and “in wægen”.

Rather than “be niht” you should say “be nihte” or even better would be “nihterne”

Like Brian I prefer “igil” to “hattefagol” although I am not as knowledgeable as he.

I liked “cealdloca”

One shudders to think what the light is going to do.

[Bowerthane]

On a bit of an academic note now, since Phyllis seems to have made up her mind ( pleasure’s all mine, Phyllis!), but speaking of:

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(2) "craft" as being the "art/science/skill of ... ", rather than a vehicle, or vessel.
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Encouragingly, that's what I thought!
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But this is what I came close to posting the other day, too.  My copy of Henry Sweet’s An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, an unrevised 1988 impression of the original 1879-1882 edition, has no entry for ‘craft’ in the sense ‘vehicle, vessel’ at all.  Which was an eyebrow-raiser.  So cross checking with the online etymological dictionary dates ‘craft’ in the sense ‘small boat’ to the 1670s.  Yet the same webpage-thingy also refers to a “late Old English” usage to mean “trade, handicraft, calling,” that led to "something built or made" in the same period.

Yet also, when I made one last effort to be thorough ( I have been known to be wrong, honest) the other day I also checked against the online version of Bosworth and Toller and it seems that cræft in the sense of ‘vehicle, vessel’ does occur in the pre-1066 corpus, in the second of three references:

“Dele 'IV. a craft, kind of ship; navis qualiscunque,' and add under I. Mid eallum Créca cræftum universam Graeciae lectam juventutem, Ors. 1, 10; S. 46, 31. Under II :-- Hé leornode sumne cræft þe hine áfét, Hml. Th. ii. 556, 32. Under III :-- Hié wénað ðæt hiera unðeáwas sién sum gód cræft vitium virtus creditur, Past. 289, 13. Hearpestrengas mi”

I have no experience of the print-on-paper Bosworth and Toller, but I have come to lean on the online version more these last few months as it’s never put any typo, out-of-date or just-plain-wrong banana skins under my feet.  Yet.  So just at the moment also looks to me as if this shade of meaning doesn’t seem to be common but neither so scarce as to amount to little more than a few nonce words.  Left to my own devices I back off from any word or usage that seems too rare, too aberrant or otherwise obscure

So... I suppose Phyllis could have lyftcræft if that’s what suited her book.

I’m presuming that this is news to other aficionados of the Old Mother Tongue as I was firmly convinced that ‘craft’ as a synonym for a vehicle or vessel was a long-after 1066 development.  I only caught myself out with the long habit of checking.

Or is there still something I should know…?

[brian farrell]

Bowerthane,

You appear to confirm that the Bosworth/Toller Supplement rejects the idea of 'craeft' representing a "vessel".

Delete 'IV. a CRAFT, any kind of ship; navis qualiscunque';

and you further state that such use did not apply until the modern English language era (1670s); but then your final conclusion is that Phyllis could therefore use this variant of the word in an OE setting.

I'm struggling to follow the logic of the argument, or have I missed something.

Admittedly, the B/T Supplement does add a new sub-section 4; i.e.
"IV. a machine, instrument, engine",
but I have some doubts concerning the examples given there, as they are difficult to assess without analysing the overall context from which they come.

Brian

[Bowerthane]

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I'm struggling to follow the logic of the argument, or have I missed something.
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Well there's no logic or argument as such, Brian.  Simply an apparent clash between what I thought I knew and what that online entry in Bosworth and Toller seems to be saying.  Puzzling at it a bit harder, now, the exemplars it gives don't seem to represent the 'vessel' shade of meaning anyway, leaving me wondering to what the blinkingflip the "IV. a craft, kind of ship" reference is actually supposed to refer, or what the dickens it's doing there.  Yet this wouldn't be the first time that a reference work has bowled strange googlies at me, hence the caution I express. 


Can anyone who is familiar with Bosworth and Toller say what this "craft, kind of ship" reference is all about, when it's not putting people's noses out?

[Jayson]

You might like to try our own Stephen Pollington who has written many books on A-S England.  See
http://www.asbooks.co.uk/