Grǣġhama

Check our my recent video on the new Caedmon’s Hymn here: youtu.be/X6dCx5YkV7M?si…

@ABC @StuartKells Reading and analysis for anyone interested: youtu.be/X6dCx5YkV7M?si…

Researchers in Dublin have uncovered the oldest surviving English poem in a Roman library. abcnews.link/aW45RWY

Medieval scribes would sometimes finish their work by writing: "tres digiti scribunt, totum corpusque laborat" (three fingers write, but the entire body labors) A testament to how immensely arduous and monotonous the scribal process must have been.

I had never heard of Die Minneburg before seeing its publication announced. Today, I sat down with translator Winder McConnell to ask him: what is it? The answer is a fascinating medieval allegorical epic about courtly love! Check out the interview here: youtu.be/KeRWWl7-7R0?si…

@tolkienthoughts She’s so cool!

@grahamscheper Very nice! Love that Ida Gordon book. I’ll have to get that myself

My philologist senses told me my local used bookstore had more Loebs delivered, and I was right! I immediately raided them for these four, which I didn’t have yet. Also grabbed the Oxford HOEL volume on Chaucer, and a book by Ida Gordon, whom I’ve been reading a lot lately.

@CanonRobinWard 😂😂😂

@grahamscheper ‘straw for thy Senec!’

The Greek word "λαμβάνω", meaning to take or seize, has a cognate in English that you'll never guess... It's "latch"! The sense was clearer in Old English, when læċċan also meant to grab or seize, but as that evolved into our Modern English word it lost a lot of those senses.

In the 1930s, you could have attended Tolkien's lectures even if you didn't go to Oxford; anyone was welcome to take an Oxford course as a guest, for the steep price of £3! (... this actually was not cheap. £3 in 1933 is equivalent to almost £200 nowadays (~$250).)

For the letters in which Cicero uses the word, see Atticus IV, 5 & 8 (eg. “bibliothecam mihi tui pinxerunt constructione et sittybis”)

This happened in the 15th century, when Cicero was in the process of being quasi-deified by Italian humanists. Even though no one recognized the word, no one would question Cicero, and so people started using “syllabus” in their own Latin. By the time the mistake was discovered, the word had entered common parlance, and it was too late to do anything about it.

Did you know the word “syllabus” is complete nonsense? Cicero mentions a “σιττύβας” (table of contents) in his letters to Atticus, but in one manuscript this was mispelled as <syllabos>, and readers assumed it was a rare word “syllabus”. It’s a hallucination worthy of AI!

Jared Thornton’s grammar is atrocious. If he were one of Kemble’s students he would have been caned for this

What a welcome surprise to see @ClerkofOxford ’s new book on such an interesting topic! In the past, I’ve jotted down various wisdom passages in Old English poetry and passively wondered about their significance. Very much looking forward to what Parker has to say.

We are delighted to announce that a new book from the brilliant Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford), entitled "Hoarded Gold: A Book of Old English Wisdom," will be published by Uppsala Books later this year! For more information, visit: uppsalabooks.com/hoarded-gold

@neilalexanderw1 Not all of them; some seem to have simply reversed in the Middle English period (which leads to questions of whether or not they were ever palatalized to begin with). At least “ġiċel” is spelled with a <ch> once in Middle English.

@grahamscheper Does this explain all the times there seems to be a mismatch between the affricate in Old English and the stop in Modern English?

“icicle” is a compound word: an ice + icle. But what is an “icle”? It comes from Old English ġiċel, which literally means “piece of ice” (this is where Icelandic gets “jaki”) but also icicle per se. So, funnily enough, the ancestor of icicle (īs+ġiċel) meant “icy icicle”

What is Cædmon’s Hymn, and why is the new discovery significant? In today’s video we read through the poem, interpretating the Old English and discussing the new manuscript. Check it out! youtu.be/X6dCx5YkV7M?si…

@neilalexanderw1 Fulk's theory, which I think is the likliest, is that our descendant word comes from an inflected form, which would have blocked palatalization (eg. ġicle). This is relatively common, cf. -bury from dat. byriġ (as opposed to nom. burh)

@grahamscheper Why do we have /k/ instead of /tʃ/? Does our work descend from a different dialect?

Any scholarly reading recommendations for Irish influence on the early-medieval English church? I'm specifically interested in orthography and the transmission of Latin.