Talk:Old English/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Alphabet Cleanup

I think the alphabet section needs to be clarified. Not everyone understands the IPA letters and most just reflect whatever letter they're next to. Example "æ" has the IPA "æ" next to it. For someone who doesn't understand IPA they won't know how the hell to pronounce that. I think it would be best for an example to be given next to the letter; i.e.:

æ ; like "a" in "cat".

That kind of thing, similar to the way the phrasebook in Wikitravel works. Could someone with the right knowledge, please do this. I would do it myself but I am unsure as to certain areas.

How many?

How many people speak or otherwise understand this language today? Including academics. Angrynight 00:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I doubt if statistics are kept on that sort of thing, but I imagine the number of people who can read it with little difficulty is far higher than the number of people who could carry on a conversation in it. User:Angr 07:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The highly variable word order combined with a complex grammar makes it seem like this would be very difficult language to learn.Cameron Nedland 16:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know. Apart from the absence of native speakers with whom to speak it, I don't think it's any harder than German. User:Angr 17:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Youre the pro linguist, im just a kid who likes the subject. Heck, I havent even graduated high school yet...Cameron Nedland 02:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I can read selected passages with little difficulty merely because of German, but I am far from fluent, whatever that means in this context. Aren't Frisian speakers supposedly able to comprehend it with little difficulty? 68.219.39.159 21:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

See Category:User ang-N for Wikipedians who are apparently O.E. speakers. -- the GREAT Gavini 16:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Œ

¿Didnt Old English use this letter?Cameron Nedland 16:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure. West Saxon didn't have the vowel [ø] anyway; other dialects did, but grammar books usually indicate it as the digraph oe rather than the ligature œ, but it's entirely possible the ligature is used in at least some manuscripts. User:Angr 17:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up Angr.Cameron Nedland 02:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Old English did use this vowel, called eðel. It developed from a ligature in Latin of oe, which had developed from Greek οι, and appeared in words like onomatopœia. Its development was similar to that of ash's, æ, derivig from Latin ae and in turn Greek αι. It never did, however, become as widespread or enduring as æ, and did fall out of use by Middle English. Gnome Ninja 17:42, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I like to know where you found that information, my sources seem to indicate otherwise. According to my etymological dictionary onomatopoeia did not exist (or was not recorded) until 1577, and thus nearly 5 centuries after the proposed end date of Old English.Deman7001 04:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that "œ" either wasn't common or didn't exist. My book "A guide to Old English" by Mitchell and Robinson indicates only ash (æ), thorn (Þ), and eth or ðæt (ð). In old texts, the runic "wynn" is also used for "w" and a letter looking something like between 3 and z.Deman7001 07:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

This is what you mean ƿ as wynn. Gnome Ninja 18:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, not sure what you mean, but refer to the Wikipedia article on wynn. It looks kind of like a less rounded thorn. Deman7001 02:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Wynn is based on the Old Norse Rune of the same name. It made the "w" sound before the letter W was created. SKC

Does anyone here know Old English?

At tbe risk of asking a silly question does anyone here know Old English? If so is balsall the Old English for heath? I'd like to know to clarify an issue on the Talk:Balsall Heath page. Thanks. Aynuk N. Ayli 15:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. I can't find a word that looks anything like that in my Old English dictionary. AFAIK Old English for "heath" is hǣð. User:Angr 15:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Strongly doubt it. Like many place names, it probably consists of two elements. This name, being a place in the West Midlands, is probably made up of two Anglo-Saxon words: the latter possibly from heall ("hall"). -- the GREAT Gavini 16:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - I'll remove the sentence from the article. Aynuk N. Ayli 07:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I see someone has already done it. While we're on the subject is 'avon' the Old English for 'river', or is that just another myth? Aynuk N. Ayli 08:24, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

"Avon" is Welsh (and more generally, Brythonic) for "river". (The modern Welsh spelling is afon, but f is pronounced [v] in Welsh.) —The preceding signed comment was added by Angr (talk • contribs). 08:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The English word "heath" actually comes from the Old Norse hæð. This word is still used in modern Icelandic and means the same thing. "Heath" did not come from two Anglo-Saxon words, its simply a loan word. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.79.148.82 (talk) 21:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

Actually, mod. english "heath" comes from old enlish "hæð" which comes from old saxon "hetha". The old norse cognate was "heiðr".--Jr mints 03:30, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

This may be off-topic, but does anyone know of a place or person that could look over a modern-to-Old English translation I did? It's for an art project, and I'd like it to be as correct as possible. Thanks, A knight shall come 04:52, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

reference added later

Will add reference later today for Bright's / Hulbert's. --VKokielov 12:58, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Facsimile needed

Wow! We really need a facsimile of a typical Anglo-Saxon manuscript. I'll see if I can photograph something in the manuscript archives library tomorrow -- not sure what their rules are, but I suspect they'll take more kindly to my no-flash tripod setup than to cramming something into a xerox machine. —ptk✰fgs 04:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Examples and Translations

I just changed the translation of Beowulf again. While I can see the value of a word for word translation into Modern English, there really is no way to accurately render it without really making it complex. Since my OE is only OK, I would like someone else to proofread my changes. GulDan 01:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I have rendered the translations directly paralel using cognates with occasional explanations, which, while not as plain, helps readers see the connections between old and modern and highlights the most obvious changes such as the impact of the case system. --Jr mints 03:21, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

The sentence "The most important force in shaping Old English was its Germanic heritage in its vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar which it shared with poop" has clearly been vandalised and needs cleanup.

Thanks for noticing that! You can fix vandalism yourself by opening the page history, opening the version preceding the vandalism, and saving it. —Angr 05:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

HW

Okay, we all know that OE <hw> represents [ʍ] (or [hʍ]) and we know that such words are cognate with those in a number of Modern English dialects represented with <wh> and pronounced with /ʍ/. We also know, because of the article on Grimm's law, that this sound goes back to Proto-Germanic /xʷ/, which goes back to Indo-European /kʷ/. What I want to know is this: why isn't /ʍ/ in the table of OE phonemes? I would think strange to have something that is a phoneme in IE, a phoneme in PG, not a phoneme in OE, and a phoneme again in ME. Unless someone opposes, I think we ought to include this sound in the article's consonant chart. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:22, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it makes sense to consider it a monosegmental phoneme in Proto-Germanic, Old English, or Modern English. In Proto-Germanic it was a cluster /xw/, in Old English and Modern English (dialects that retain it) a cluster /hw/. [ʍ] is just the phonetic realization of the cluster. —Angr 08:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Ahh but the table also incorporates allophones. We could put it in (parentheses) right? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... an allophone of a cluster? That's a novel idea... —Angr 05:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Works for me. That's how it is for Russian phonology.Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Corpus of literature

This section seems quite inadequate to me. Couldn't we have a list of major works of Old English literature, like Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as well as a list of known authors/hypothesized authors (Bede, etc.), rather than a touching anecdote about childhood? Just a thought. Hlemonick 09:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Made some changes myself. Thoughts? Hlemonick 09:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Allophones

Do we really need to list all the allophones? I mean, we have (ŋ) listed as an allophone of (n) before velar consonants. Well duh, but then we would have to list (ɱ) as an allophone of (m) before (f). All I'm saying is that we shouldn't list all allophones simply because we can.Cameron Nedland 15:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, as the absence of [ɱ] shows, we don't list all allophones simply because we can. We list the major allophones, the ones that differ significantly in place and/or manner of articulation from the phoneme's primary allophone. Bilabial -> labiodental is a pretty minor shift (and do we know it happened in OE? Are there even any words with mf in OE?), but alveolar -> velar is a pretty major shift (and it's significant because of the subsequent history of ng). —Angr 16:17, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

In addition, while the place assimilation from an alveolar nasal to a velar one is very common, it is not universal. It's always good to clarify such things. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was just the historically important ones, I thought it was just a random set. Sorry.Cameron Nedland 06:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Old English "G"

I've read that Old English "g" is similar to Icelandic "g" in the fact that it can sometimes become "y". I've read that Old English "g" becomes "y" before an "e" or macroned vowel, hence the Old English word "geolu" evolving into "yellow". Is this true? Can someone confirm this and add information about it into the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.68.40.111 (talk • contribs) 22:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It's already there under Old English#Standardised orthography, with more info at Old English phonology#The distribution of velars and palatals. —Angr 06:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The rules are pretty damn complex, look at the article Angr pointed out.Cameron Nedland 02:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

"One of the first"?

The line "Old English was one of the first vernacular languages to be written down" seems a little eurocentric. I'm not a linguist, so I don't know exactly what identifies a vernacular language, but it seems like old Norse, Egyptian, and any number of Asian languages would qualify. Surely it wasn't the first, ever, anywhere. The sentence should have some kind of qualifier. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aubri (talk • contribs) 14:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

"Vernacular" means a common language of the people, not a prestige language/dialect. Under these criteria, Old English does qualify.Cameron Nedland 18:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... at this stage we don't know how vernacular or otherwise written Egyptian, Sumerian, etc., were. I agree the sentence needs to be rephrased. I think the point trying to be made is that it was one of the first vernaculars to be written down in Western Europe, as opposed to Latin. (Although even then, Old Irish was first written down considerably earlier than Old English was. Maybe the claim needs to be removed completely.) —Angr 18:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah true, if it is still there I'll rephrase it.Cameron Nedland 13:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Translation Issues

I was just wondering if everyone is ok with the current translation of the opening Beowulf. There are some definite mistakes/omissions in the translation. For example, I don't think translating fremedon to framed because it's a cognate is an accurate translation. The meaning of fremedon is translated in Bruce Mitchell and Fred Robinson's edition of Beowulf as do/perform. It seems somewhat irrelevant to drag in the etymology of the word framed. I don't think that the language should be mistranslated to try to illustrate the similarities to English. There are other more clear omissions such as not translating the Gar of Gar-Dena (Gar being spear). Before going ahead with any edits I would appreciate some sort of affirmation of people wanting to see it changed though. Thanks.

I forgot to mention, but in reference to the previous comment all I have is a year's experience with Old English, but I feel I have a good enough grasp of the language to be of some use. Anungoliant 02:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree the translation should correctly convey the meaning of the original, not use cognates at all costs. —Angr 11:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

In literary analysis, I would agree that translation is king, however, for a study on the differences between Old and Modern English, using cognates precisly delineates the extent of change. The article is not on Beowulf but Old English. As for "frame", it still more or less means the same today, "trim", "apried" and "mights" are probably the most questionable. I might have rendered "ellen" as "ells" but I didn't think that the conection beween "elbow" or "ell"(the unit of measurement) and the sense of strength was apparent. "Gar" exists today in reference to a type of fish also known as a "pike" funnily enough this means that one may look of "gar" in the dictionary and see "pike" listed as a synonym. Both words refer to the fishes pointed nose.--Jr mints 11:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, we are studying a LANGUAGE. We are not studying "how Old English is similar to modern English". Beowulf is listed under the "example" header of the page, and therefore should be accurately rendered to give a fair example of the language. It is a rather narrow minded translation to try to force all words into a modern English context seeing as this article is discussing an independent language (especially when the current translation seems to just be running off of cognates, a rather dangerous path to tread). If you are that intent upon showing the similarities to modern English perhaps you should create an entire section devoted to that subject, but please do not mis-translate a historic work to get that point across. I am working on a more accurate translation, and I do hope that when I post it you will not revert it back, because I honestly believe the current translation is doing more harm than good for the understanding of Old English. Anungoliant 21:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

First, I ask that you kindly not apply your "more accurate translation" to my posts.;) Nowhere have I said that my intent was to show "how Old English is similar to modern English," but indeed to show the "differences between Old and Modern English."

Second, your ire is misdirected, anungoliant. I am not of that school who believe the only good translation to be a literal one. When translating a story into another language it is essential that the meaning be translated with the words. However, when seeking to understand the the mechanics of the story's original language, paraphasing reveals only a silhouette of the actual meaning. What you have termed a "fair example of the language," would perhaps be a fair example of the story, but certainly not of the language. The truth is that Old English differs from Modern English mainly in pronounciation and the loss of declension markers.

I truly don't mean to be rude, but if you wish to translate a wonderful epic story into the popular tongue rather than educate about the language it is written in, then perhaps you should publish your translation in the "Beowulf" article. However, as you obviously enjoy the language like I do; you would, I think, do better not to further misconceptions about Old English by framing it as "independent" from and dissimilar to Modern English where it is not so.--Jr mints 20:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can see that you are not going to budge on your translation method, and though I still don't agree with it I can respect that. However, I do ask that you at least correct the capitalization of Eorlas and (perhaps a tribe). Eorlas is simply the accusative plural form of warriors/nobleman and is definitely not a tribe of any kind. My other main concern is that the grammatical structure is not clear in your translation. In the opening, the "we" are doing the hearing about the Spear-Danes, the kings of the people, the princes (still referring to the Danes). I don't think the apposition is clear enough in your translation, and it really should be since apposition was used quite often in Old English writing. I understand that you want to go word by word to show how they are related, but I think not clearly showing the apposition would be a mistake, especially since it makes it unclear who the subject is. Also, I think it would be rather helpful if you leave hronrade as whale-road to include a side note and link to the kenning page, especially since it specifically cites hronrade as an example. On a final note, is there any reason the example ceases to use macrons after the first line? Anungoliant 22:24, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, you're most gracious. When I Translated Eorlas as a tribal name, I was referencing a somewhat controversial conjecture that "eorl" in Beowulf is a reference to the tribe called heruli by Jordanes who described their exodus from Denmark. However, you're quite rigth that such conjecture is not called for on this page. In regards to the opening lines, the Old English apposition was much clearer because of each apposite term sharing the same case, yet the structure is an acceptable, albeit slightly ambiguous, one in modern English with "we" the only specific nominative. However, to make things clearer, I have inserted "of" before "people-kings" and changed "the" to "those" before "athelings. I have given the meaning "kenning for sea" after "whale-road" and will link to "kennings" in a few minutes when I find out how to do that.--Jr mints 00:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks great. Anungoliant 00:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about translating "sceaþena þreatum" as "scather threats". Literally, it should be "scathers athreat", meaning "enemies in groups", but in Modern English, "scathe" is strongly associated with a verb and "threat" with a noun.--Jr mints 01:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I think threats is a sound translation, since þreatum to threat is a clear link. Also, I don't think the noun correlation is much of a problem since the threats are troops in translation and therefore a plural noun anyway. However, I do agree that scathers/scather is problematic. The only noun form of scathe I've been able to track down means hurt or injury, so I suppose scathes would really be the closest modern English derivative to sceaþena (I've seen no precedence for using scather as a word for one who scathes), and it could probably be argued that injuries could be correlated to the word foes (though it's a bit tangential for my taste). This is one of those times I wish I had the Oxford English Dictionary at my disposal; perhaps there is an archaic term for foes more closely related to sceaþena. At any rate, I think scathes threats will be a touch hard to read, but as long as it is translated as "foes" and "troops" or some such I think it will be understandable. Anungoliant 03:54, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I have changed "scather threats" to "scathers [in] threats" to more accurately reflect "sceaþena þreatum". Also, I have re-translated "he þæs frofre gebad" as "he thence in loving care abode".--Jr mints 21:54, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Old English AKA Anglo-Saxon?

Surely Anglo-Saxon is the primary name for this language (the academic name) so why does this article premote the term "Old English"? I wish people would write facts not fiction on this site. Waffle247 12:27, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No, the modern academic name for the language is Old English. Anglo-Saxon as a name for the language sounds extremely old-fashioned. If you look at the bibliography of this article, you'll see all the books except one call it "Old English". The one that calls it Anglo-Saxon is a modern reprint of a book published in 1877. Likewise in the external links; all except one (a book published in 1898) call it Old English. —Angr 12:49, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Angr is right. Among linguists, "Old English" is currently prefered for sake of identification with the English language e.g. [Old English, Middle English, English] instead of [Anglo-Saxon, Semi-saxon, English]. However, there are some who still use the term and it might be helpfull to put an AKA on the page so that other wiki articles that use "Anglo-Saxon" may link here.--68.184.160.28 11:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The article already says "Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon)", and Anglo-Saxon language redirects here. Anglo-Saxon itself is a disambiguation page but includes a link to this article. —Angr 11:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Waffle247, this language is too different from modern day English to be "old english". Even Wikipedia itself calls this language Anglo-Saxon (on the bottom left where it offers the articles in other languages) and I am not completely sure but I believe the Saxon tribes spoke Anglo-Saxon long before England ever existed and the article's name should therefore be changed to Anglo-Saxon. If nobody objects within the next day or so, I will change the article's title to Angol-Saxon.--eskimospy^(talk) 05:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, people object. As I pointed out above, the language is universally referred to as "Old English" in modern scholarship. Do not move it. —Angr 05:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

What is popular is not always right. However, I was thinking and decided that whatever the speakers of Anglo-Saxon/Old English (along time ago, not present day scholars) called this language, should be the title of this Wikipedia article. If you could find a passage on Beowulf or some other Anglo-Saxon/Old English literature that refers to this language as English, then I would agree with you.--eskimospy^(talk) 03:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Eskimospy, it thinks me that you ought already know what is correct if you purpose to change anything. In the preface of Ælfric's Latin grammar he quothe, "Ic Ælfric wolde þas lytlan boc awendan to Engliscum gereorde". However, what the Angles and Saxons called their language doesn't really matter. English speakers don't refer to Greek as Helene, nor Japanese as Nihongo, nor Swedish as Svensk. Furthermore, it is the standard that the earliest literary form of a language be called Old "That Language" e.g. Old Persian, Old Spanish, Old Frisian.--Jr mints 03:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The Anglo-Saxon tribes did indeed exist long before England ever existed, but so did the word "English": "Anglo" itself is merely a Latinization of this word. In any case, we're talking about a time after the conquest of Britain, so England (or "Englaland" or "Anglecynn", if you prefer) did exist.

And lastly, the fact that Anglo-Saxon is the name used by the interwiki links for the Old English Wikipedia is a historical accident. A while ago I talked to ang:User:James, and suggested we change it to Ealdenglisc: IIRC he agreed in principle, but no one has yet gotten around to it. --Saforrest 23:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Jr mints, I did a search on Wikipedia for engliscum and found nothing, please tell me where I can find this "ic alfred wolde was lytlan boc..." passage.

Yes, English speakers do not refer to Swedish as Svenska but, that was due to years of misinterpretation of the word Svenska, however, or at least I believe, that the language's name should be liguistically accurite. Also, do you really think Anglo-Saxon is a literary form of modern day English, the English we speak today? New (or newly named) languages keep that language's own name. Example: Esperanto.--eskimospy^(talk) 15:18, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

For anyone interested, the people of Sweden were origionally called "Sweo". When the "Sweo" were refered to as a nation they were called the "Sweoðeod" which was later shortened to "Swede". The word "Sweden" was origionally an adjective describing something characteristic of the "Swedes", like "oaken" describes something of oak, while the country was "Swedeland". The Swedes called themselves "Sweon"(or modern Swedish "Sven") which is the plural form of "Sweo". The "-sk" ending in "Svenska" is a cognate of English "-ish".--Jr mints 16:30, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

As for literary forms, the chain of direct development from Old English to Modern English is undisputed. While Modern English has changed in some ways, it is still undeniably linked to Old English.--Jr mints 17:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Try a Google search for "Engliscum gereorde", you'll find a lot. And the word Swedish is not "due to years of misinterpretation of the word Svenska", any more than the word German is due to years of misinterpretation of the word Deutsch. Languages have names for other languages and always have. Therefore, even if speakers of Old English hadn't called their language "English" (which they did), we would still use the most common modern English name for the language. If this were 1897 instead of 2007, you might have a good case for claiming the most common modern name was "Anglo-Saxon", but as it is, the most common modern name is "Old English". —Angr 15:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

if the old english speakers called it engliscum, shouldnt we change the articles name to engliscum?--Spobmur 15:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

No. Articles in the (modern) English Wikipedia use the (modern) English names of things. Our article on the French language is not called français, our article on the German language is not called Deutsch, our article on the Spanish language is not called español, our article on the Navajo language is not called Diné bizaad, and our article on the Old English language shall not be called Englisc (Engliscum is an inflected form of Englisc). —Angr 16:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Earlier, I said "New (or newly named) languages keep that language's own name. Example: Esperanto." please tell me of your objections to that. Also, we should try to make this language's name a universally accepted name; it would be easier to understand a French speaker if he said Saxon or Englisc (well, maybe not Englisc because it sounds exactly like English), than vieil anglais.--eskimospy^(talk) 16:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I have no objections to calling the article on Esperanto "Esperanto", because that is its name not only in Esperanto itself, but also in English. Please read Wikipedia:Naming conventions and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). And we as Wikipedians should not be trying to make any language's name anything. —Angr 16:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Esperanto is, by very definition, universal and so has a universal name. Interestingly enough though, the Esperanto for English is Angla. That aside, the purpose of the modern English Wikipedia is to help Modern English speakers find information, not to be a universal source of informatin to all tongues. Articles should be titled so as to be most accessible to English speakers.--Jr mints 16:44, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The English name for Esperanto has nothing to do with Esperanto being universal. Also, Anglo-Saxon is just as "accesible" as Old English besides, there are redirects. By the way, thanks for that history of the word "swedish" passage, that was very interesting.--168.103.242.198 19:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, sometimes things make more sense in my head. With the part about the Esperanto name for English, I hoped to show that even Esperanto, which was being upheld as an example of a language with a universal name, does not use the native names of languages but creates an Esperanto name for them.--Jr mints 20:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, "Old English" is more accessible because more scholars refer to the language as such. Therefor, someone is more likely to see "Old English" in a text and look it up than "Anglo-Saxon".--Jr mints 21:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason Anglo-Saxon is an easier term, is confusion. Old English is by far the most popular term for Middle English (by common people, not Anglo-Saxon scholars), when a person hears "Old English", they think "Canterbury Tales" not "Beowolf". Most the people don't know what Old English really is. It would be a lot easier to change the title of the article to something else, not necessarily Anglo-Saxon, and create an Old English disambiguation page: one will have the option of going to this article, or going to the Middle English page.--68.63.182.49 03:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Avoiding potential confusion by people who don't know anything about the subject should not be our basis for naming articles. We can put a disambiguator at the top of the article, sure, but we shouldn't change the correct name just because some people don't know any better. An example is Immaculate Conception: lots of people think this refers to the conception of Christ, which is wrong. The article is correct, but addresses the misconception though a disambiguation notice in the intro. --Saforrest 23:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

In that case you would have to distinguish between "Old English" and "old English." The layman in your example is simply recognising that parts of the language used are old or archaic, while still being somewhat familiar in its connection to Modern English. This much is addressed in the misconceptions section of the article (though granted it may come off sounding rather prescriptivist). --Chroniclev 04:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry Chroniclev, your passage was a little too "abstract" for me to understand. Can you clear things up a bit? Thank you. However, what I believe are saying is, it has already been addressed that Middle English is often reffered to as Old English, the problem is: when someone is reasearching something on Wikipedia, that person does not read the entire article; only part of it. Don't you agree? Usually, a person doesn't include in a report about the misconceptions of Middle English and he would just skip the misconceptions section of the article. I remember earlier this year that a professeur of mine had me write a report about Victorian English (which he wrongly called Old English: stupid proffesseur) I was a bit confused until I finally figured it out after a long time.--68.63.182.49 19:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Someone should change the articles name, should I do it?--Spobmur 00:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

No. The article's name is correct as it stands. AJD 01:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

No, no one should change the name: it is correct as is. --Saforrest 23:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I can't believe your English professor actually said that! However, even were we to change the title of "Old English" to "Anglo Saxon", it wouldn't help people who were looking for dated Modern English under the name "Old English". Shakespear's English is clearly Modern English, merely spoken in a dialect obscured by time. There is certainly no reason to classify it as a different language.--Jr mints 03:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Shakespeare's english is modern english however, a lot of words are different today: art-are hath-has mine-often used as my thine-your anyway, you get the idea. I personally think it is closer to Middle English than Late Modern English but that does not matter. I propose that typing in Old English brings you to a disambiguation page that lists all the different forms of English and notes that they are misconceptions and are not accurite. I still think Old English should be changed to something else.--eskimospy^(talk) 18:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Definitely keep it as Old English, because that's the name that linguists use, and it's closer to what the people themselves called it (they didn't call it "old" of course, just "English", which they spelt Englisc). TharkunColl 18:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

If you compare Chaucer, Shakespeare, and a modern text of standard English, it should be objectively apparent that the modern text will be closer to Shakespeare than will the Chaucerian. And then there is the fact that Chaucer's English is only one of the active dialects of Middle English: more northern varieties, such as that used in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, will be further still from Shakespeare. --Saforrest 23:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

This conversation is pointless. It is accepted practice amongst anyone who deals in any depth with these languages to use "Old English" and "Anglo-Saxon" as synonyms, as far as languages are concerned. This is not a point that needs debating. --Saforrest 23:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong (why try to prevent the inevitable?) but as far as I can tell none of what anyone is saying here is particularly relevant to the question. What I wish to know is why the officially accepted academic term for this language is not being used. As far as I can tell from the responses the current title is used because it's popular with authors of books on the subject, particularly those that the people who wrote the article enjoyed reading. Nothing said so far disputes the fact that the term "Anglo-Saxon" is still the official academic term for this language. I accept however the argument that the more popular term is perfectly acceptable since this makes the article easier to find. It would be nice if some of those above, you can find out who by reading it, would not quote text out of books as if the universe gives a damn what some guy wrote down about it. I find, when sourcing, it best to remeber that authors are human beings too. Anyway - thank you all for your responses, I think I'm going to go discuss something less stressfull, like religion :D Waffle247 12:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

(de-indent) Please look back at my response to your initial question. The accepted academic term for this language is Old English, which is what is being used. As a name for the language, "Anglo-Saxon" is outdated. —Angr 13:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Forgive me if I've missed something in my re-re-re-reading of the disscussion but I cannot see any official source specified for this apparent change in the academic world. I can see that a handful of sited authors books is being equated to meaning that the term is official but I thought that the official term meant more than just that which authors preferred. If this is the case then I stand corrected. If not, can you please link to the site of a well known academic establishment or official body which stipulates Old English is the accepted term and not Anglo-Saxon? Perhaps with more detail on dates of when this change came about? Waffle247 14:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I've added a footnote with a reference which discusses the topic. I hope that will suffice. --Chroniclev 19:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Waffle247, what sort of "official" source are you looking for? There is no official body that governs international scholarship. The evidence that modern scholarship calls the language "Old English" comes from the fact that virtually all (if not absolutely all) relevant scholarly books and articles published in the past 75 years or so call the language "Old English". —Angr 20:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for both the reference and the politeness! It's most pleasing to find kind intellectuals ready to help those with questions, thank you very much Chroniclev. @ Angr It sounds like my understanding of the academic world was lacking, I was indeed under the impression that universities and such organisations kept track of this sort of thing in some kind of official manner. I'm not convinced of the accuracy in the ammount of usage though (also I'm not going to argue about it as it's probably down to my own personal perception, or lack of), I wouldn't have thought the official word to be Anglo-Saxon if I didn't remember being taught about it in that fashion. Thankyou for the information though Angr. Waffle247 15:42, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

In general, convention in the academic world is a matter of common practice, rather than formal standardization. If it's at all relevant to the discussion, my limited experience with the OE academic world was two undergraduate courses (taken in 2000 and 2002) called "Old English 1" and "Old English 2". The language was always described as "Old English", and the instructor indicated the current scholarly community preferred this term over "Anglo-Saxon" in order to emphasize the continuity of the language from the Dark Ages to modern times. --Saforrest 09:49, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for your responses. Waffle247 15:30, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

pronunciation of Old English names at their respective articles.

I think phonic pronunciation needs to be added with a lot of Old English figures names at their article pages; many readers may not know how to pronounce names like Heorogar, Hygelac, Ecgþeow, Modþryð. We have nonstandard notes to pronunciation at articles like Wealhþeow that need to be changed as well. Someone with a good working knowledge of OE pronunciation needs to get on this. Nagelfar 06:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)