Re: Old Norse Bible

On Feb 12 2004, James R. Johnson wrote:

>
> I'm simply saying that taking a modern Icelandic Bible and changing it to
> Old Norse should be relatively easy (or easier than Modern English to Old
> English), since the language hasn't changed that much in the 800 years since
> it was spoken, whereas English speakers couldn't understand the English of
> 800 years ago.

I believe Xigung's point was that the difficulty level is about the same
as taking a modern english bible translation, and converting it to
Shakespearian English, _without_ having the King James translation
available.

It's not as simple as making a few systematic spelling changes.
Shakespeare would have found modern english quite unnatural, and would
have had difficulty understanding it, but probably figured it out eventually,
because it's mostly got the same structure, with many changes of vocabulary
and idiom, and a very different pattern of typical usage. Likewise, many
modern Americans have great difficulty understanding Shakespearian english,

> James
>
> _____
>
> From: xigung [mailto:xigung@...]
> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 3:45 PM
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [norse_course] Re: Old Norse Bible
>
>
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "James R. Johnson"
> <modean52@...> wrote:
> > Can't we take the modern Icelandic version, change the -ur endings
> to -r,
> > and nearly have it be ON? Work backwards from what we have?
> >
> > James
> >
> Hi James,
>
> How about changing "you" to "thou"/"thee"
> and you'd have Shakespearian English? Try it
> with your last 10 emails, and see if you think
> it sounds like Shakespeare!
>
> Xigung

--
Arlie

(Arlie Stephens arlie@...)