Where the Middle Ages Begin
This thesis examines the lexical field of baptism in Old English. The lexical development of the field and the semantic development of the individual lexemes were evaluated: the verbs fulwian, cristnian, depan, dyppan, and the vocabulary for baptismal water in Old English. At every stage of the project, the linguistic data was correlated to theological, liturgical and cultural backgrounds.
Professor David Wacks’s fascinating discussion of the Iberian Peninsula and it’s incredible linguistic heritage.
This article provides the first overview in English of how German has been taught and learned in Europe up to about 1800
Quit twattling and take the quiz – these were words spoken in England from the Middle Ages and Early Modern eras…
An English historian has come across the word ‘fuck’ in a court case dating to year 1310, making it the earliest known reference to the swear word.
Some of our most popular phrases have a long history, including some that go back to the Middle Ages.
The present study begins with a discussion of the different forms of non-verbal communication used in early medieval monastic communities, with an emphasis on the sources for the use of sign language among Cluniac monks.
This four-part series of videos created by Youtuber Thatoneguyinlitclass gives a quick guide to speaking in Middle English.
It may seem a little incredible that anyone would need a textbook to learn an older version of his or her mother tongue, but learning Old English (Anglo-Saxon) takes some time and effort – and a good textbook.
As I am finding, analysis of the language of illegitimate birth reveals a rich, complex vocabulary used to indicate something less than fully legitimate birth.
Take a look at the letters of the alphabet, as illustrated in medieval manuscripts
Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (HE), written c. 731, enjoyed a great popularity among the Anglo-Saxons and Carolingians and was one of the most popular texts in medieval Europe.
Situated in the southeast of Europe, Romanian Countries had an intense diplomatic activity, even if this was not recorded accordingly in documents of the day.
Through a study of metaphor in medieval Arabic literature, Stanford comparative literature professor Alexander Key finds that the Arab world had a head start on the West when it comes to understanding how language works.
One of the more obvious syntactic changes in the development of the Romance languages involved a switch in basic word order from the Latin SOV to the Romance SVO, a change still underway in early Old Romance. I
What is actually reliable about this highly literary colophon is Aldred’s purpose in writing the gloss: to give the Evangelists a voice to address ‘all the brothers’− particularly the Latinless.
It is my objective to detect what the semantic development of Norse loanwords in Old and Middle Irish can tell us about the language and social contact situation of the Irish and the Norse raiders and settlers during the Viking Age.
The literature of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, a miscellany of fourteenth-century poetry and prose penned before, during, and after the insurrection, often stresses the importance of literacy to the nonaristocratic population of England.
The Orkney and Shetland islands of Scotland were at one time colonized by Vikings and belonged firmly within the field of Scandinavian cultural influence. During this time the people of these archipelagos spoke a unique language known as Norn which evolved from the Old Norse language.
This short review discusses about itinerant sellers in Friuli, who are Cramaro called (XI-XIX centuries). Attention is focused, in particular, on the question if some of theme were alchemists.
“Birds,” writes Albertus Magnus, “generally call more than other animals. This is due to the lightness of their spirits.”
Can you tell which English words come from Anglo-Saxon or Old Norse?
In 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.
Can you tell which word derives from the English of Anglo-Saxon times, and which word came from French?
Thus 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.
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