A Sample of Old English

In starting Shakespeare, many of you often mistake Shakespearean language for Old English.  Actually Old English, is something so different from our own language it's virtually indecipherable.  Even Middle English is quite difficult to understand.  Surprisingly, Shakespeare actually wrote in MODERN ENGLISH! It's just that vocabulary usage changes over time and place, so it's harder for us to understand it now.

Even in modern times there are words in English that the British use, that we find confusing, strange, or silly (and vice versa).  And you may know that a Spanish word that a Puerto Rican would use would mean something completely different than what someone from Spain might understand it to mean.  In the same way, people in Elizabethan England would think you were pretty confusing, too!  Language is given meaning by those who use it, and it is constantly changing.  So much so that the Oxford English Dictionary adds new words every year!

Since some of you were curious about Old English, I thought I would post a sample of Beowulf (which you will read next year), in its original Old English format, to give you a sense of what it looks like.  You can also read more of it here.

1-21
HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum, 
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon, 
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon! 
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, 
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah, 
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde, 
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning! 
Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned 
geong in geardum, þone God sende 
folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat, 
þe hie ær drugon aldorlease 
lange hwile; him þæs Liffrea, 
wuldres Wealdend woroldare forgeaf, 
Beowulf wæs breme --- blæd wide sprang--- 
Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in. 
Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean, 
fromum feohgiftumon fæder bearme,