Medieval Literature Can Save your Life

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/YEAMES.HTM

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/SGGK.HTM

(The above picture, The Green Knight, is by Ian Brown, http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/images/ianb05.htm)

The above links are to a great site, The Camelot Project, hosted by the University of Rochester. The first is a link to a play based on the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; the second is a translation of same into readable prose from the 14th century poem of said tale.

The title of this post eludes to a challenge posed to us in this course by our fearless leader -- that being to create a teachable lesson on the material we have covered thus far. Iintrepid fellow knightS of the U-Shaped Table, Nancy and Sarah, have chosen this theme to illustrate the themes of these early masterpieces of English and the great value that they hold for us even today. Specifically, we will be talking about the theme of tolerance (or intolerance) of other cultures as presented in Aurthurian Legend and in Beowulf. We have read in this course that England was a mass menagerie of different peoples: the Celts, Picts, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings (themselves Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Swedes) and eventually the Normans of France. How did all of these cultures -- many of whom took a "pillage first, ask questions later" approach to conquest -- manage to get along? How did they learn to deal with difference? The answers lie in the masterpieces of their combined language. English is a language that was and is a part of all of these cultures. How fitting, then, that it becomes the means of expression of these tales of welcoming (or hunting) the stranger.

In our lesson, we hope to draw parallels between these early struggles -- geographic, cultural, linguistic -- as represented in history and in literature, and the struggles of present-day students in an ever shrinking world. Nancy will engage them in an illustrated discussion of Beowulf, and just what exactly constitutes a "monster." Sarah will further the discussion by having the students act out the opening scene of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," where the title characters measure each other up in first impressions. Our lesson would conclude with an open discussion of other interpersonal themes in these stories: love triangles, honesty and loyalty, and vaulting ambition.

Some beleaguered students of history have argued that reading medieval stories can almost kill you. We endeavor to prove that they just might save your life!

Ye Olde Paradise Lost: Genesis in Old English

Click on the above image to see it in a larger size. It was originally translated from Latin by AElfric, one of the chief prose writers of the Old English Period.
And now, my attempt at translation:
1. So furthermore this serpent (adder) was more cunning than all other beasts that God made over the earth, and this serpent said to the woman: "Did God forbid you from eating fruit of every tree in Paradise?"
2. The woman answered: "Of the trees' fruit in Paradise we eateth;
3. And of this tree's fruits there, in the middle of Paradise, God bade us that we not eat, nor should we touch this tree lest we perish."
4. Then said the serpent to the woman: "No, you will be by no means dead, if you eat from that tree.
5. But God knows that your eyes will be opened, whatsoever as eats of this tree, and he will gain wisdom both of good and evil."
6. The the wife saw that this tree was good to eat, and she found the fruit fair and desireable, she gave the tree's fruit to her husband, and they ate it.
7. And both of their eyes were opened, they saw that they were naked and sewed together fig leaves, and wore them as breeches.
8. And the God came, and they heard his voice as he walked through Paradise in midday, so Adam hid, and his wife hid also, from God they hid behind the trees of Paradise.
9. God called to Adam, and said: "Adam, where are you?"
10. He said, "your voice I heard, Sir, in Paradise and it frightened me, for I am naked and I hid myself."
11. God said: "Who said this that you were naked, if you did not eat of that tree that I did forbid you to eat?"
12. Adam said: that woman that you gave me to have, gave to me of that tree, and I ate it."
13. God said to the wife: "what didst you do?" She said, "the serpent tricked me and I ate it."

This, from Genesis, 3:1-13, makes a bold statement in and of itself. Note, though, how it is translated into Old English: this woman you gave to me to have. (Chattel, anyone?) Note also that Adam did not argue with Eve at all -- he just took it and ate it, no questions. And yet who had the 27 hour labor 6,002 years later? ME. Not my husband, not the stupid snake, ME. Of course, God made it up to me a million fold, really -- in a truly wonderful little baby girl. She was worth it.
But Adam? Adam was a moron. And Eve was apparently a parselmouth.

Officially Sanctioned Crib Notes

Notes: Chapter One

Inflection: changes in a word form relating them to one another in a sentence; inflection can be internal (e.g. man to men, sing to sung) plurals, tenses, sub-verb agreement

Concord: (agreement) matching the inflectional ending of one word for a number, gender, case or person with that of another to which it is grammatically related, (e.g. this book, these books)

Word order: signal of an analytic language that often depends on function words in order for users to discern meaning.

Function words: grammatical signal words used with word order to serve some of the same functions as inflections—articles, auxiliaries, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and certain adverbial particles.

Morphemes: free: can be used alone – smallest meaningful linguistic sign that cannot be subdivided

Bound: cannot be used on its own – apple + Jack, 2 free; apple+-s (plural), one free, one bound.

Language changes:

Syntagmatic changes: nearby elements [within a word—e.g. Gramma goose’s sandwich] influence one another in the flow of speech

Paradigmatic changes: (associative): resulting from the influence on an expression of other expressions that might occur instead of it or are otherwise associated with it, as bridegum was changed to bridegroom, shift from lade board to Larboard to port

Social change: caused by change in way of life of its speakers, often the influence of other languages (invaders) or events (google, suicide bomber, Norman words in English)

Dialect: variation of language used by a particular place or social group; ethnic, social level, sex, age, grade, (idolect: unique to each person)

Register: var of lang. Used for a particular purpose or circumstances: sermons, classroom versus MTV.

Whorf Hypothesis: Proposal that the language we use affects the way we respond to the world (i.e. colors – the more words we have for them, the more variant colors we will name and see)

Chapter Two

Consonants classified by manner of articulation:

Stops/plosives: flow of air is stopped and then explodes without vibration (p,k,t)

Fricatives: a narrow opening is made somewhere in the mouth the air must move through(sibilants) (f,v,θ, s, z)

Affricatives: voiced and voiceless two sounds occur, one right after the other, counted as one sound(j)

Nasals: air through nose (m,n, ng)

Liquids: tip of the tongue on the alveolar ridge (l,r)

Vowels: classified by position of tongue vs. roof of mouth : high, mid, low and to position of highest part of tongue. (front, central, back)

diphthong: two vowel sesuqence pronounced by single syllable (sky, right, route [rowt])

tense vs. lax: tense are longer in duration than the closest lax vowel and also higher and less central (I, e,u,o) – current English length of vowels determined by neighboring sounds.

Monopthong: single, simple vowel

Effect of [r] : modifies quality of vowel before it (boat vs. boar)

Types and causes of sound change:

Asssimilation: sounds become more alike (pancake) ; palatizations (whatzyername, omina)

Dissimilation : sounds become less alike (caterpillar)

Elision : Sounds omitted (Galinda to Glinda; family to Fam’ly)

Intrusion: sounds inserted between consonants.

Metathesis: changing the order of sounds (ask – aks)

Substratum cause theory of sound change: different languages collide, and assimilate imperfectly

Languages tend to develop a balanced sound system.

Chapter Three

• writing grows out of drawing, imagistic in nature
• ideographic each word represented by a single symbol (Chinese)
• phonographic each letter represents a sound
• syllabary (rebus poems)

majuscule: capital letters

umlaut: symbols used to describe a specific pronunciation(usually lengthening) of a vowel (o, u)

rune: ancient symbols for sounds used in German, early English, Norse – six letters futhorc name of the alphabet; carved in stone or wood.

Insular hand: the decorative curly fancy writing of Old English monks

Thorn ( ) for (th) and p (wynn) for [w]

Chapter four

IndoEuropean is the language from which most Western languages can be traced. A cognate is a word which shows this ancestry through the ages into the difference languages, such as mithair, mother, mader, mater, etc.

The importance of word order:

Types of Language: (typological : show lang sim and diff)

Isolating ( one word, one idea, one syllable… English is more isolating now)

Agglutinative: words made up of parts whose syllables have clearer meaning

Incorporative: major sentence elements into a single word (Eskimo, Swahili)

Inflectional: suffixes that were once independent words (Old English, Latin)

Modern linguists use genetic classification (see tree)

Grimm’s Law: First Sound Shift

Aspirated voice stop becomes unaspirated voiced stop (bh to b, dh to d) BHATER-BROTHER

Voiceless stops become voiceless fricatives (p,k,t to f, [th], h) [UNLESS BEFORE S] PATER-FATHER

Indo-European voiced stop becomes voiceless stop (b,d,g to p,t,k) ABEL,JABLOKO, APPLE

Where is English on the tree?

Chapter Five:

*Celts invite Angles, Saxons and Jutes to fight picts; (A.D.449)

*St. Augustine of Canterbury brings monks/religion “musc. Lang of field capacity for abstract

thought” given by influence of Latin

*Vikings come in 787; come back in 865 to settle the good lands (eventually 2/3 of England)

*Alfred the Great keeps English alive through scholarship; Danish absorbed as neighbors trade.

Norman Invasion 1066

Traits of English: drive to simplify language – lose inflections to allow communication with Danes; hardy lang by joining with norse and Latin; Normans eventually intermarry English; Normans lose bond with territory across channel.

• handwriting was insular
• meanings changed (dream-joy, dreorig –bloody)
• words vanished (galdor-song, bochord –book hoard)
• Old English was gendered like French
• Inflective to isolating
• Nouns inflected: declensions: inflection of n, pron, adj, for case, number, and definiteness

Declensions are strong or weak (like the n-stem patterns)

• Like modern, OE verbs were weak (adding d or t) or strong (internal changes, sing-sang-sung)