From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 62890
Date: 2009-02-06
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "bmscotttg" <BMScott@...>It's a nice clear hand, though; from experience I can say
> wrote:
>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette"
>> <anjarrette@> wrote:
>>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "bmscotttg" <BMScott@>
>>> wrote:
>>>> Unfortunately, all that survives from the earliest
>>>> period of Old West Low Franconian, beyond a great
>>>> deal of onomastic material in Latin texts, is the
>>>> following remarkable West Flemish sentence of the
>>>> eleventh century, found in England in the binding of
>>>> a Latin manuscript:
>>>> hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan hinase hi(c)
>>>> (e)nda thu w(at) (u)nbidan (w)e nu
>>> Do the parentheses indicate that the letters are present
>>> but nearly illegible, or that the letters are completely
>>> illegible or absent (and hence that they could be any
>>> other letters)?
>> I'd say 'present by nearly to entirely illegible', but
>> you can judge for yourself:
> <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Hebban_olla_vogala_fragment.jpg>
> <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Hebban_olla_vogala_overview.jpg>
>> In the second one the relavant passage is in the second
>> and third lines under the inkblot near the righthand
>> edge. The five lines there are usually read 'quid
>> expectamus nunc. Abent omnes uolucres nidos inceptos
>> nisi ego et tu. Hebban olla uogala nestas hagunnan hinase
>> hic enda thu uuat unbidan uue nu. Rector celi nos exaudi
>> ut dignare nos saluare.'
> It's a very difficult fragment to read, at those lines.
> I'm surprised scholars have been able to deduce as much as
> they have.
> One question: might <hagunnan> be separated into <hag<Hagunnan> is 'begun'. An over-literal translation: 'All
> unnan>? I haven't a clue what the translation is (only
> "all birds have nests"?), so I don't know whether this
> suggestion would make sense.