7 ms·

There's a wikipedia incubator site for middle english. It's pretty entertaining to read: A frogge biþ a smol beaste wiþ foure leggys, whyche liueþ booþ in waty

There's a wikipedia incubator site for middle english. It's pretty entertaining to read: A frogge biþ a smol beaste wiþ foure leggys, whyche liueþ booþ in watyre and on londe. It cuoþ bee broune or grene or yelowe, or be it tropyckal, he may haue dyuers coloures. It haþ longys and guilles booþe. Eet haccheþ from an ey and it þan ys a tadpolle. It groweþ to ben a frogge, if it þan ne be noght aetoen. https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/enm/Frogge https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/enm/Frogge

gerdesj 6y ago
According to Caxton there was a controversy between egges and "eyren".
- stevesimmons 6y ago
  Very interesting! The Dutch for eggs is "eiren" (plural of "ei" pronounced "ey")
  - schrijver 6y ago
    Nitpicking, the plural is eieren, with three distinct syllables :) IIRC, there used to both words with -er and -en as plural, but over time the norm became -en so it was tacked onto the -er. Like kind/kinderen. In German Kinder and Eier are still the plural.
- empath75 6y ago
  Regional differences.
- stevula 6y ago
  egge being derived from Norse, while eye/eai/etc from Anglo-Saxon æg. The final g eventually came to be pronounced like a y in that environment, a development that apparently did not affect the Old Norse word -- probably due to being borrowed after the sound shift had already occurred, though the doubled gg could have prevented it anyways (not sure about this latter part). From https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=egg https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=egg: """ This Norse-derived northern word vied in Middle English with native cognates eye, eai, from Old English æg, until finally displacing the others after c. 1500. Caxton (15c.) writes of a merchant (probably a north-country man) in a public house on the Thames who asked for eggs: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges, and she understode hym not. """
agentwiggles 6y ago
Approximately, following the advice from the article: _ A frog beeth a small beast with four legs, which liveth both in water and on land. It could be brown or green or yellow, or be it tropical, it may have diverse colors. It hath lungs and gills both. It hatcheth from an egg, and it then is a tadpole. It groweth to be a frog, if it then be not eaten._
stevula 6y ago
There's something very charming about Middle English to me. Here's my overly etymological translation to point out the vocabulary correspondence to Modern English (minus the archaic -th endings): "A frog is a small beast with four legs, which lives both in water and on land. It could be brown or green or yellow, or be it tropical, he may have diverse colors. It has lungs and gills both. It hatches from an egg and it then is a tadpole. It grows to be a frog, if it by then be not eaten."
- rolleiflex 6y ago
  If you like this kind of phrasing, try some German. German is English that is not molested by the French of the Normans, and one of the results of this is that the language is more consistent. (This is not exactly correct, but it’s a more humane way of saying German and English share some roots in Proto Indo-European.) That allows for a wide variety of phrasings or ‘turns of the word’ that are all dead in English since Norman words do not carry inflections German words do about their location in a sentence, which gives German its flexibility to jumble almost any combination of words into a valid sentence. As a mitigation, English instead calcified a few ways to structure a sentence and called it a day - one of the things that make it easier to learn, but also much more boring. Here is a free course that only focuses on reading German, I found it quite fun to play with. https://courses.dcs.wisc.edu/wp/readinggerman/ https://courses.dcs.wisc.edu/wp/readinggerman/
  - philwelch 6y ago
    > German is English that is not molested by the French of the Normans, and one of the results of this is that the language is more consistent. There’s a constructed dialect called “Anglish” that attempts to be this more literally.
    - wirrbel 6y ago
      wasn't Tolkien trying to not use French roots in the Lord of the Rings?
  - diffrinse 6y ago
mc32 6y ago
Wouldn’t beaste be “deer” back then? Maybe it depended on distance from London? Edit: I mean wouldn’t they have used “deer” rather than “beaste” for modern “animal”.
- stevula 6y ago
  There's probably some semantic overlap between "beaste" and "dere" (various spellings) in the Middle English period. "dere" could refer to small animals (possibly frogs?) or specifically to deer in the modern sense (i.e. Cervidae). Old English "deor" actually meant "beast/animal" in the broader sense (cognates include German "Tier") but began to specialize after being pushed out by Norman French "beste" (sp?) during the Middle English period.
  - jacobush 6y ago
    Swedish cognate djur
  - saghm 6y ago
    The Dutch word for "animals" is "dieren". When I first heard of the Dutch animal rights/welfare focused political party Partij voor de Dieren, I wondered why there was a political party focused just on deer. (Some people might also find it strange to have a party focused on animal welfare, but it certainly makes more sense than if it were just focused on deer!)

gerdesj 6y ago

According to Caxton there was a controversy between egges and "eyren".

stevesimmons 6y ago
Very interesting! The Dutch for eggs is "eiren" (plural of "ei" pronounced "ey")
- schrijver 6y ago
  Nitpicking, the plural is eieren, with three distinct syllables :) IIRC, there used to both words with -er and -en as plural, but over time the norm became -en so it was tacked onto the -er. Like kind/kinderen. In German Kinder and Eier are still the plural.
empath75 6y ago
Regional differences.
stevula 6y ago
egge being derived from Norse, while eye/eai/etc from Anglo-Saxon æg. The final g eventually came to be pronounced like a y in that environment, a development that apparently did not affect the Old Norse word -- probably due to being borrowed after the sound shift had already occurred, though the doubled gg could have prevented it anyways (not sure about this latter part). From https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=egg https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=egg: """ This Norse-derived northern word vied in Middle English with native cognates eye, eai, from Old English æg, until finally displacing the others after c. 1500. Caxton (15c.) writes of a merchant (probably a north-country man) in a public house on the Thames who asked for eggs: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges, and she understode hym not. """

agentwiggles 6y ago

Approximately, following the advice from the article: _ A frog beeth a small beast with four legs, which liveth both in water and on land. It could be brown or green or yellow, or be it tropical, it may have diverse colors. It hath lungs and gills both. It hatcheth from an egg, and it then is a tadpole. It groweth to be a frog, if it then be not eaten._

stevula 6y ago

There's something very charming about Middle English to me. Here's my overly etymological translation to point out the vocabulary correspondence to Modern English (minus the archaic -th endings): "A frog is a small beast with four legs, which lives both in water and on land. It could be brown or green or yellow, or be it tropical, he may have diverse colors. It has lungs and gills both. It hatches from an egg and it then is a tadpole. It grows to be a frog, if it by then be not eaten."

rolleiflex 6y ago
If you like this kind of phrasing, try some German. German is English that is not molested by the French of the Normans, and one of the results of this is that the language is more consistent. (This is not exactly correct, but it’s a more humane way of saying German and English share some roots in Proto Indo-European.) That allows for a wide variety of phrasings or ‘turns of the word’ that are all dead in English since Norman words do not carry inflections German words do about their location in a sentence, which gives German its flexibility to jumble almost any combination of words into a valid sentence. As a mitigation, English instead calcified a few ways to structure a sentence and called it a day - one of the things that make it easier to learn, but also much more boring. Here is a free course that only focuses on reading German, I found it quite fun to play with. https://courses.dcs.wisc.edu/wp/readinggerman/ https://courses.dcs.wisc.edu/wp/readinggerman/
- philwelch 6y ago
  > German is English that is not molested by the French of the Normans, and one of the results of this is that the language is more consistent. There’s a constructed dialect called “Anglish” that attempts to be this more literally.
  - wirrbel 6y ago
    wasn't Tolkien trying to not use French roots in the Lord of the Rings?
- diffrinse 6y ago

mc32 6y ago

Wouldn’t beaste be “deer” back then? Maybe it depended on distance from London? Edit: I mean wouldn’t they have used “deer” rather than “beaste” for modern “animal”.

stevula 6y ago
There's probably some semantic overlap between "beaste" and "dere" (various spellings) in the Middle English period. "dere" could refer to small animals (possibly frogs?) or specifically to deer in the modern sense (i.e. Cervidae). Old English "deor" actually meant "beast/animal" in the broader sense (cognates include German "Tier") but began to specialize after being pushed out by Norman French "beste" (sp?) during the Middle English period.
- jacobush 6y ago
  Swedish cognate djur
- saghm 6y ago
  The Dutch word for "animals" is "dieren". When I first heard of the Dutch animal rights/welfare focused political party Partij voor de Dieren, I wondered why there was a political party focused just on deer. (Some people might also find it strange to have a party focused on animal welfare, but it certainly makes more sense than if it were just focused on deer!)