[HN Gopher] Reading English from 1000 AD
___________________________________________________________________
Reading English from 1000 AD
Recent and related: _How far back in time can you understand
English?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47061614 - Feb
2026 (400 comments)
Author : LAC-Tech
Score : 93 points
Date : 2026-02-24 02:06 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (lewiscampbell.tech)
(TXT) w3m dump (lewiscampbell.tech)
| kusokurae wrote:
| Highly dependent on passage and writer imo, for anything before
| 1500
|
| Some people I've had say middle english is easy enough to read
| now, and that's sometimes true, but if you drop some passages of
| Gawain or Pearl in front of people they'll be convinced it's an
| extra 2-300 years older. Anything non-London dialect is harder
| rob74 wrote:
| As a native German speaker, I can at least say that knowing both
| German and English doesn't really help in understanding the text.
| Not even the most "dumbed down" version - ok, he's apparently
| saying something about his wife, but no idea what exactly. And
| when I read " _shyne (Modern English "sheen" but German cognate
| is closer)_", I was even more confused. "Sheen" is the property
| of an object that is shiny, which in German would be "Schein",
| but because it is applied to a woman, I assume that the "cognate"
| he refers to is "schon" (beautiful)?
| Sharlin wrote:
| Another Modern English cognate even closer to _shyne_ than
| "sheen" is "shine" (and obviously the German "schein"). The
| words for "beautiful", "fair", "bright", "shining", "well-
| reputed", "righteous" have a long history of being related:
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schinen#Middle_English (to
| shine, to appear)
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skyr#Middle_English (clear-
| coloured, pale, light, luminous, radiant)
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sciene#Old_English (beautiful,
| fair, brilliant, shining)
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...
| _*skinana_ (to shine, to appear)
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...
| _*skiriz_ (pure, clear, sheer)
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...
| _*skauniz_ (beautiful, shining)
|
| and ultimately the PIE
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...
| _*(s)keh1y-_ (to shine)
|
| There are cognates absolutely everywhere in modern Germanic
| languages:
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sk%C3%ADr#Icelandic _skir_
| (bright, clear, pure)
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skir#Swedish (sheer, delicate,
| shining)
|
| And even in Slavic languages:
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/s...
| * _sijati_ (to shine, to illuminate)
|
| _Skauniz_ was even borrowed to Proto-Finnic and highly
| conserved in modern Finnish, Estonian, Ingrian, etc. which all
| have _kaunis_ meaning "beautiful"!
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Finnic/k...
| _*kaunis_
| ChrisGreenHeur wrote:
| One way to say it that is understandable in modern English
| and Swedish: She shines with beauty/ Hon skiner av skonhet
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| This makes sense in the Firefly universe, too. Shiny!
| schoen wrote:
| I resemble that remark!
|
| For a modern semantic parallel, we might point to the phrase
| "she's quite a looker".
|
| It's also interesting to see the words related to hearing and
| reputation; I'm thinking of Greek
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleos and Slavic
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs#Ethnonym where there's a
| whole thing about having people talk about you _loudly_ (or,
| alternatively, being able to produce intelligible speech at
| all).
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Words to do with light are so subtle between German and
| English. Like Kraftwerk tells me neon lights are "schimmerndes"
| in German, which I will take their word on, but they also say
| they are "shimmering" in English which is definitely not true.
|
| scyn/schon/sheen are a different root from schein/shine, for
| what its worth.
|
| Also I realise now "forlet" is very archaic in modern english
| whereas "verlassen" is very common in modern german, which
| would have helped.
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| What I just learned is that OE scinan, to shine, gives OE
| scimrian, "to shine fitfully" [1]. Fascinating: Gothic skeima
| - torch, lantern.
|
| [1] Eric Partridge: _Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary
| of the English Language. sn paragraphs 8,9.
|
| Also fascinating: "prob from Old Norse skaerr" "is English
| sheer, bright, hence pure, hence sole, hence also
| transparent, perpendicular" under paragraph 10.
|
| and further down the rabbit-hole, OHG filu-berht, full
| bright. Name of St. Philibert, "whose day falls on August 22
| early in the nutting season". Norman French noix de filbert.
| canjobear wrote:
| Knowing German would mostly be helpful for understanding the
| grammar of Old English. The three genders and four cases,
| participles prefixed with ge-, verbs like sindon (=sind). There
| are tons of cognates with German (like thurh = durch) but
| they're hard to recognize immediately unless you know the kinds
| of sound changes that are common.
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| I, too, find it confusing. The "German cognate is closer" is
| not helpful!
|
| I think the o is significant. It could correspond to English e,
| but not ei, -ine.
|
| Under sHn, Partridge [1] states that OE scene, scyne are
| related to G schon, from PIE *skauniz "Ultimately, to E sH."
|
| I think we have two compartments here:
|
| 1. o/e words - schon, E shown, shewn. Under Partridge [1] sHn
|
| 2. ei words - G schein and E shine. OE scinan, under Partridge
| [1] sn
|
| [1] My favorite reference: Eric Partridge: _Origins: A Short
| Etymological Dictionary of English_. More concise than the OED,
| and you can carry it.
|
| As an English speaker, I'm delighted by the borrowing "ser
| schon". It is the highest grade in English catalogs of ancient
| coins. "Shiny" is not a good quality in ancient coins!
| sgt wrote:
| Fascinating
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Related? "How far back in time can you understand English?"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47061614 18-feb-2026 399
| comments
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! I've added that to the toptext as well.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| That's a nice reconstruction. My old dead-tree Webster's
| Collegiate Dictionary has an essay in its foreword that covers
| the evolution of English in reverse order, ending with texts in
| Old Anglo-Saxon. The further back, the more alien it seemed. I'd
| need a lot of help with Middle English, and anything older would
| require the sort of major effort/rewriting discussed here.
| William the Conqueror set a huge linguistic change in motion with
| his little dust-up.
|
| Really, even early Modern English (e.g. Shakespeare or the King
| James Bible) is pretty thick for today's English speakers.
| us-merul wrote:
| For a while, I mistakenly thought that "Germanic" meant related
| to German specifically. Old English makes more sense if you're
| aware of Frisian, Dutch, and other non-Scandinavian Germanic
| languages, since that's the area it originated from. German and
| Spanish make this distinction explicit (Deutsch/Germanisch and
| Aleman/Germanica).
| bgnn wrote:
| I don't know the German speakers, but knowing both Dutch and
| English this text is more readable to me than using only modern
| English knowledge.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Should be "1000 AD", not "Ad"
| Zambyte wrote:
| Yep, I was expecting this to include an advertisement from
| 1000.
| chistev wrote:
| I think it was earlier this week, or maybe last week, that
| someone on one of the frontpage posts recommended "The History of
| English Podcast".
|
| I haven't finished the first episode yet, but it's already
| seeming promising and I know I'm going to continue with it.
|
| In that first episode (which is basically an introduction), the
| host explains that the history of the English language can be
| divided into three periods: Old English, Middle English, and New
| English.
|
| After establishing that there are three periods, he asks where we
| think Shakespeare falls, and I immediately thought it had to be
| Middle English.
|
| Then the host proceeded to say he wouldn't be surprised if most
| listeners guessed Old or Middle English--and that he wouldn't be
| surprised at all if nobody guessed correctly. Because
| Shakespeare's plays are actually classified as New English!
|
| I smiled in surprise.
|
| But he explained that if you can more or less understand the
| English being written or spoken, then it still falls under New
| English. The King James Version of the Bible is considered New
| English too.
|
| Keep in mind, Shakespeare wrote his plays between 1589 and 1613.
|
| The King James Bible was published in 1611.
|
| So when I opened that link in this thread's header and realized I
| couldn't understand a damn thing, it all suddenly made sense!
| 542354234235 wrote:
| The History of English Podcast gets much better once he gets
| into the groove of things and I'd definitely recommend sticking
| with it. I love all the random fun facts that come in most
| episodes, like where idioms came from, meaning behind the names
| of the days of the week, and how the word for hospital relates
| to Christians pilgrimaging to the Holy Land.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| I've seen this recommended a few times here, and I've listened
| since the beginning. I'd recommend it. But it would be hard to
| catch up after nearly 14 years and 187 episodes (probably
| averaging an hour?) - I wonder if there's a shorter history of
| English somewhere.
| chistev wrote:
| Is it still in production? I mean are new episodes still
| being released? Because I haven't finished the first episode
| yet, but if all episodes are as interesting as the first,
| I'll finish all those 187 episodes in no time. Hahaha.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| Still in production. The most recent episode was released
| 2025-12-31, and it looks like he's lately been putting them
| out every two months. (I subscribe to the Patreon; there
| are bonus episodes interspersed between the regular
| episodes.)
| madcaptenor wrote:
| Update: episode 188 just dropped.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _I wonder if there 's a shorter history of English
| somewhere._
|
| I don't know what's a good podcast for it, but learning
| "linguistics/linguistic theory" I think is a more rewarding
| experience. Then when you listen to the history of english
| you'll have more insights.
| throwawayk7h wrote:
| I would rather like to see a fully modern rendition of this text.
| Even as English-first-language, I still find this hard to
| understand.
| nkurz wrote:
| I used Claude to come up with this translation for the
| submission a couple days ago:
|
| And what she said was all true (And that she said was all
| true). I married her (I wifed on her), and she was a very
| beautiful woman (and she was full beautiful wife), wise and
| steadfast in battle. I had never before met such a woman (Not
| met I never before such a woman). She was in battle as bold as
| any man, and yet her face was lovely and fair (and though
| however her countenance was winsome and fair).
|
| But we are not at all free (But we nothing free not are),
| because we could never depart from Wulfsfleet (because we never
| not might from Wulfsfleet depart), unless we find the Lord and
| slay him (unless we the Lord find and him slay). The Lord has
| bound this place with cunning arts (The Lord has this place
| with cunning-crafts bound), so that no man may leave it (that
| no man not may it leave). We are here like birds in a net, like
| fish in a weir. And we seek him still (And we him seek yet),
| both together, husband and wife, through the dark streets of
| this grim place. May God help us nonetheless (However God us
| help)!
| chromehearts wrote:
| Old english using "ne" as a negative concord is definitely
| borrowed from the french right?
| canjobear wrote:
| It goes all the way back to Indo-European. There wasn't much
| French influence on English before the Norman invasion.
| dddgghhbbfblk wrote:
| No, Old English is pre-Norman invasion. I think you have
| (understandably) misunderstood what a "negative concord" means
| --it's when a double negative is still a negative, ie multiple
| negative elements agree with each other rather than cancel out.
| Like "I didn't hear no bell". A lot of languages are like this
| (eg Spanish).
|
| In the OP article the sentence has both this "ne" and also a
| "never"
| _emacsomancer_ wrote:
| See Colin Gorrie's "How far back in time can you understand
| English?".[0]
|
| [0]: https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-
| time-u...
| Sharlin wrote:
| "Stede", besides German _Stadt_ , Swedist _stad_ , etc. is
| cognate to English _stead_ , fossilized and now only occuring in
| the adverb "instead"/"in (someone's) stead" and a few compounds
| such as "farmstead" and "steadfast" (literally meaning "standing
| firmly (in place)"). "Steady" is of course also related.
| bgnn wrote:
| It survives in modern Dutch too: in bedstede, steevast etc.
| Steevast mostly means always, but sometimes means firmly
| similar to modern English steadfast.
| voxleone wrote:
| It is interesting that Google translates the first paragraph of
| the text like this>>
|
| "And the word he spoke was all like this. He was a hired hand,
| and he was full of malice, and he was in waelfaest. He didn't
| remember the man's name. He was in gefeohte(...)"
|
| It says Icelandic.:)
| bgnn wrote:
| If you find this interesting, try Nedersaksissk (low-Saxon)
| Wikipedia: https://nds-nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsassisk
|
| It's fun for modern Dutch/Frisian speakers, most likely the same
| for German speakers. I think English won't be enough though.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-02-27 23:00 UTC)