History of English #37 (21 Jan 2014): Seafarers, Poets and Traveling Minstrels
The inhabitants of England at the time (6th century ish?) had been seafarers and there’s a lot in English that comes from this. The word way (cognates include weigh) which was originally more like weg; and the word from Latin that gave us port which is also cognate to ford; and voyage might be cognate to those too, through French, or that might have been a similar-but-unrelated thing.
There was a bit with like four kings, Ethelbert in the south and Ethel??? in the North and someone else in East Anglia and Edwin. Edwin ran away from Ethel??? to the East Anglia dude, Ethel??? tried to bribe East Anglia to give Edwin up, but East Anglia supported Edwin, overthrew Ethel???, became a power, then later Edwin became a power too. At some point we discovered the ship-grave of East Anglia, no body remains but it did have his lyre. Lyre cognate to lyric, and the instrument may predate Indo-European in Greece, one was found in a particular region of it.
Because these guys weren’t writing, minstrels just had to remember their poems. Poetry itself is a way to help with this, it’s easier to memorize poetry than prose. Modern English poetry is all about rhyming, but Old English poetry was more about alliteration: word endings were more constrained. The standard form was a line would have two halves, the first stressed sound of the second half had to be found in the first half. A modern English example would be:
Jack and Jill / jogged up the hill
Pleasantly pursuing / a pail of water
Jack did drop / damaging his crown
Jill tripped too / tumbling after
Old English also had a lot fewer words than modern English, so poets would invent compounds. Beowulf describes something going over the sea as going “by whale-road”, “by sail-road”, “by swan-road”, changing the middle word according to alliterative need.
There’s a possibly-even-older poem from around then too, describing a minstrel meeting all sorts of historical figures including Julius Caesar and Attila the Hun.
After writing comes in, we have someone writing (in this style, possibly as homage) a complaint that no one does things this way any more.
History of English #37 (21 Jan 2014): Seafarers, Poets and Traveling Minstrels
The inhabitants of England at the time (6th century ish?) had been seafarers and there’s a lot in English that comes from this. The word way (cognates include weigh) which was originally more like weg; and the word from Latin that gave us port which is also cognate to ford; and voyage might be cognate to those too, through French, or that might have been a similar-but-unrelated thing.
There was a bit with like four kings, Ethelbert in the south and Ethel??? in the North and someone else in East Anglia and Edwin. Edwin ran away from Ethel??? to the East Anglia dude, Ethel??? tried to bribe East Anglia to give Edwin up, but East Anglia supported Edwin, overthrew Ethel???, became a power, then later Edwin became a power too. At some point we discovered the ship-grave of East Anglia, no body remains but it did have his lyre. Lyre cognate to lyric, and the instrument may predate Indo-European in Greece, one was found in a particular region of it.
Because these guys weren’t writing, minstrels just had to remember their poems. Poetry itself is a way to help with this, it’s easier to memorize poetry than prose. Modern English poetry is all about rhyming, but Old English poetry was more about alliteration: word endings were more constrained. The standard form was a line would have two halves, the first stressed sound of the second half had to be found in the first half. A modern English example would be:
Jack and Jill / jogged up the hill
Pleasantly pursuing / a pail of water
Jack did drop / damaging his crown
Jill tripped too / tumbling after
Old English also had a lot fewer words than modern English, so poets would invent compounds. Beowulf describes something going over the sea as going “by whale-road”, “by sail-road”, “by swan-road”, changing the middle word according to alliterative need.
There’s a possibly-even-older poem from around then too, describing a minstrel meeting all sorts of historical figures including Julius Caesar and Attila the Hun.
After writing comes in, we have someone writing (in this style, possibly as homage) a complaint that no one does things this way any more.