Language Archive
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(Re)casting the Past: The Cloisters and Medievalism
Posted on July 22, 2014 | No CommentsIn this essay, I focus on a variety of texts printed using Anglo-Saxon type between 1566 and 1623 in an effort to explore the use of Anglo-Saxon typeface in the early modern period as the use of the Old English language progressed from polemical truncheon to historiographical instrument. -
How well do you know the origins of English words?
Posted on July 14, 2014 | No CommentsCan you tell which word derives from the English of Anglo-Saxon times, and which word came from French? -
From Old Norse to Modern Icelandic
Posted on July 1, 2014 | No CommentsThus the language spoken and written in Iceland today is quite close to what has been called Old Norse, such as it appears in the medieval texts. -
Old English Words for Relics of the Saints
Posted on June 29, 2014 | No CommentsThis study begins with a review of some Latin terms and of certain material traits common to early medieval relic-cults, since these profoundly shaped the Old English vocabulary surveyed in the second part of the paper. -
The original Frenglish
Posted on June 10, 2014 | No CommentsWhen France was speaking English without the prompting of a war or was it England who was speaking French…. -
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: How Messages were sent in the Middle Ages
Posted on May 7, 2014 | No CommentsLet’s imagine, for five minutes, what it must have been like to try and communicate across long distance in the Middle Ages. -
Island Words, Island Worlds: The Origins and Meanings of Words for ‘Islands’ in North-West Europe
Posted on May 5, 2014 | No CommentsThis paper proposes the notion that words mirror ideas, perspectives and world- views. Etymologies and meanings of general words for ‘islands’ in a number of languages in North and West Europe are then discussed. -
Old Norse Influence in Modern English: The Effect of the Viking Invasion
Posted on April 12, 2014 | No CommentsIt is estimated that there are around 400 Old Norse borrowings in Standard English. These borrowings are amongst the most frequently used terms in English and denote objects and actions of the most everyday description. -
Theories of the Nonsense Word in Medieval England
Posted on April 8, 2014 | No CommentsThe goos the cokkow and the doke also So cryede kek kek kokkow quek quek hye -
From Legible Text to Magical Pattern: Arabic Inscriptions in Muslim and Christian Spain
Posted on March 28, 2014 | No CommentsThe Arabic inscriptions in this building fascinated me, and led me down a long path of research that continues today over a decade later. Today I will present some of that research, showing you some of the other structures and objects that are adorned with the same inscription. -
British Library purchases the Catholicon Anglicum
Posted on March 21, 2014 | No CommentsThe British Library has paid £92,500 in order to keep a 500-year old dictionary from leaving the United Kingdom. They announced earlier this week that they had completed the purchase of the Catholicon Anglicum, a 15th-century English-Latin dictionary. -
Alphabet Poems: A Brief History
Posted on March 16, 2014 | No CommentsAs a collector of alphabet books, and sometime editor of a newsletter on the subject, I have had many opportunities to consider the history of the alphabet poem. Although alphabet poems may take a wide range of forms, most are generally divided into twenty-six parts (lines, couplets, stanze...), one for each letter. -
The Anglo-Saxon Name for the s-Rune: Sigel, a Precious Jewel
Posted on February 22, 2014 | No CommentsThe Anglo-Saxon rune-name sigel has been interpreted as meaning ‘sun’. In some contexts Old English sigel does refer to the sun, in others it means ‘clasp’, ‘brooch’, or ‘jewel’. All these meanings, however, are difficult to reconcile with the maritime imagery of the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem’s sigel stanza. -
Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds
Posted on February 20, 2014 | No CommentsA Professor in Applied Linguistics believes he has decoded a few words from the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, a 600-year old work that has baffled scholars for the last hundred years. -
Norse Rune code cracked
Posted on February 7, 2014 | No CommentsA scholar of the University of Oslo has cracked one of the rune codes used by the Vikings, revealing they were sending each other messages such as 'Kiss me'. -
The Most Significant Manuscript Sources of Medieval Croatian Vernacular Verse
Posted on February 4, 2014 | No CommentsThe first part of the article gives a brief overview of the history of Croatian literacy up to the first written record of poetry in the Old Croatian language. -
Medieval English for Dummies
Posted on January 30, 2014 | No CommentsA quick-and-dirty guide for would-be Time-travellers -
The Anonymous Old English Legend of the Seven Sleepers and its Latin Source
Posted on January 25, 2014 | No CommentsThe earliest extended treatment of the legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus in a western vernacular language is the anonymous Old English prose version preserved in British Library MS Cotton Julius E vii... -
The Rise of the French Language in Medieval Europe
Posted on January 23, 2014 | No CommentsA free exhibition, The Moving Word: French Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge, begins today at Cambridge University Library. -
Víking – ’rower shifting’? An etymological contribution
Posted on January 18, 2014 | No CommentsThere is an extensive literature on the etymology of víking f. ‘freebooting voyage’ and víkingr m. ‘sea warrior’, but none of the well-known suggestions are satisfactory. -
How To Tweet From Another Century
Posted on January 7, 2014 | No CommentsMartha Bayless shares rune sticks from centuries past that illustrate how brief and personal everyday messages (exactly like tweets) — sometimes sharing 'too much information'— are nothing new! -
Is the Author Really Better than his Scribes? Problems of Editing Pre-Carolingian Latin Texts
Posted on January 1, 2014 | No CommentsLatin texts composed after ca. 600 and before the Carolingian writing re- forms that began in the late eighth century present problems that editors rarely have to face when working on classical texts (including most writings of late antiquity), or texts written after ca. 800. -
Losing the null subject : a contrastive study of (Brazilian) Portuguese and (Medieval) French
Posted on December 30, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper deals with the development and the use of subject pronouns in Portuguese and discusses the question of whether or not Brazilian Portuguese is a language which is losing its null subject property or which has already lost it -
Heathen: Linguistic Origins and Early Context
Posted on December 29, 2013 | No CommentsIt is my hope that this endeavor will allow the reader to have a serious understanding of the origins, early history, and more importantly the context of the word heathen, and what this might have meant for the people implied by it. -
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources completed after 100 years
Posted on December 10, 2013 | No CommentsAfter over 58,000 entries, 3830 pages and seventeen volumes, the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources is now finished.
