7 ms·

I think the examples you mention would fall into the sphere of "acquaintances" or "family friends" or "connections" or "not enemies" today (in the business or s

I think the examples you mention would fall into the sphere of "acquaintances" or "family friends" or "connections" or "not enemies" today (in the business or strategic sense). We are talking about actual close friends, comrades, (BFFs if u want) here.

einhverfr 14y ago
I don't think that's all though. Case in point, read the Old English poem "The Wanderer" (ideally in Old English but if necessary in translation) and remember that the relationship the narrator is lamenting is this sort of relationship. The point is that gifts tie us together. As one person said, "obligations unite us, debts drive us apart." The idea that you give money and there is some sort of a moral obligation to reciprocate in some way (but not a quantified debt) creates the bond. The way gift economies work is that you give gifts out and therefore obtain communal esteem, and people reciprocate to get that esteem by giving you gifts.
- digitalsushi 14y ago
  Making the claim it's better in Old English is just a transparent way of bragging you know Old English. And it's subjective how best to enjoy something. It's like telling someone they need an ice cube in their scotch.
  - corin_ 14y ago
    Irrelevant and pedantic point here, but I would suggest it's more like telling someone they need to not have an ice cube in their scotch, very few scotch snobs would argue pro-ice :)
    - dcotter 14y ago
      Just a transparent way of telling me you know how to drink Scotch. Damn knowledge snobs!
      - corin_ 14y ago
        Actually despite being a scotch snob who spends a lot of his money on really nice bottles... I do enjoy it chilled sometimes (though a friend got me "whiskey stones" for Christmas, so I use them instead of ice!) I'm a snob to what I consider bad whiskey, not to what might be considered a bad whiskey drinker :)
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    The issue is that in translation, something is always lost. There are a few phrases[1] in the poem that are darned hard to translate adequately although knowing Old English well enough to read the poem is not a guarantee by itself of getting more out of it than in Modern English. In general, if you can, reading a work in the language it was composed in is better than reading it in translation. It is generally hard to disagree with that. The fact is that translation into contemporary English from Old English and Old Norse is deceptively difficult. [1] wyrd bið ful aræd is probably the best example. It's usually translated as "Fate is wholely inexorable" which is not a good translation. "The turn of events is fully complete" is better, as would be "My fate has now been decreed" depending on how you want to look at wyrd (fate, but literally "that which has turned" and often personified as a woman) and araed (decreed, established, spoken). Edit Changed the above OE to proper characters, and adding this: While I am bragging, as you put it, about my understanding of languages I will point out that the structure there of wyrd becoming established through the spoken word is also found in parallel Old Norse traditions, where we have the description of the Norns in Voluspa ending with: þær lög lögðu, þær líf kuru alda börnum, örlög seggja. This is again difficult to translate because of the variety of things lög could mean. "They laid laws" or They laid layers" or "They allotted lots" are all viable translations. My overall translation would be: They allotted lots, They chose lives for the sons of men, They uttered fate.
- saraid216 14y ago
  If we're going to be Old English, there'a a damn more about the nature of hospitality and guest-right that's important to know. Back then, these things were evidence that the other guy wasn't going to knife you in your sleep.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    This is reasonably true. But there is also some likelihood that the hospitality and guest-right system was not only very old (since it is found across many other Indo-European branches as well) and part of this. Isn't there an episode in one of Homer's poems or something (I don't have my library with me in Indonesia :-( ) where two people are fighting on the battlefield and discover that one of their ancestors gave hospitality to the ancestor of the other and so they have to quit fighting?
    - saraid216 14y ago
      Oh yes. Hospitality is the central theme of Genesis 19, for instance, which definitely predates The Wanderer. I feel a little bad now, because I can't provide you with a solid set of sources, but every culture all the way back to the earliest stories we have will give references to the obligation of a host, the duties of a guest, and how gift-giving plays into that. The whole point of the Trojan War wasn't precisely that property had been stolen, but more importantly that it had been done by a guest to his host. (As modern readers, we recognize a breach of private property more clearly than we recognize a breach of hospitality.) It's the earliest form of debt-as-community-glue, really. It only survives today in the habit of bringing a bottle of wine to a dinner party, and in the handshake. We mostly rely on codified laws of hospitality instead (which govern restaurants and hotels).

einhverfr 14y ago

I don't think that's all though. Case in point, read the Old English poem "The Wanderer" (ideally in Old English but if necessary in translation) and remember that the relationship the narrator is lamenting is this sort of relationship. The point is that gifts tie us together. As one person said, "obligations unite us, debts drive us apart." The idea that you give money and there is some sort of a moral obligation to reciprocate in some way (but not a quantified debt) creates the bond. The way gift economies work is that you give gifts out and therefore obtain communal esteem, and people reciprocate to get that esteem by giving you gifts.

digitalsushi 14y ago
Making the claim it's better in Old English is just a transparent way of bragging you know Old English. And it's subjective how best to enjoy something. It's like telling someone they need an ice cube in their scotch.
- corin_ 14y ago
  Irrelevant and pedantic point here, but I would suggest it's more like telling someone they need to not have an ice cube in their scotch, very few scotch snobs would argue pro-ice :)
  - dcotter 14y ago
    Just a transparent way of telling me you know how to drink Scotch. Damn knowledge snobs!
    - corin_ 14y ago
      Actually despite being a scotch snob who spends a lot of his money on really nice bottles... I do enjoy it chilled sometimes (though a friend got me "whiskey stones" for Christmas, so I use them instead of ice!) I'm a snob to what I consider bad whiskey, not to what might be considered a bad whiskey drinker :)
- einhverfr 14y ago
  The issue is that in translation, something is always lost. There are a few phrases[1] in the poem that are darned hard to translate adequately although knowing Old English well enough to read the poem is not a guarantee by itself of getting more out of it than in Modern English. In general, if you can, reading a work in the language it was composed in is better than reading it in translation. It is generally hard to disagree with that. The fact is that translation into contemporary English from Old English and Old Norse is deceptively difficult. [1] wyrd bið ful aræd is probably the best example. It's usually translated as "Fate is wholely inexorable" which is not a good translation. "The turn of events is fully complete" is better, as would be "My fate has now been decreed" depending on how you want to look at wyrd (fate, but literally "that which has turned" and often personified as a woman) and araed (decreed, established, spoken). Edit Changed the above OE to proper characters, and adding this: While I am bragging, as you put it, about my understanding of languages I will point out that the structure there of wyrd becoming established through the spoken word is also found in parallel Old Norse traditions, where we have the description of the Norns in Voluspa ending with: þær lög lögðu, þær líf kuru alda börnum, örlög seggja. This is again difficult to translate because of the variety of things lög could mean. "They laid laws" or They laid layers" or "They allotted lots" are all viable translations. My overall translation would be: They allotted lots, They chose lives for the sons of men, They uttered fate.
saraid216 14y ago
If we're going to be Old English, there'a a damn more about the nature of hospitality and guest-right that's important to know. Back then, these things were evidence that the other guy wasn't going to knife you in your sleep.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  This is reasonably true. But there is also some likelihood that the hospitality and guest-right system was not only very old (since it is found across many other Indo-European branches as well) and part of this. Isn't there an episode in one of Homer's poems or something (I don't have my library with me in Indonesia :-( ) where two people are fighting on the battlefield and discover that one of their ancestors gave hospitality to the ancestor of the other and so they have to quit fighting?
  - saraid216 14y ago
    Oh yes. Hospitality is the central theme of Genesis 19, for instance, which definitely predates The Wanderer. I feel a little bad now, because I can't provide you with a solid set of sources, but every culture all the way back to the earliest stories we have will give references to the obligation of a host, the duties of a guest, and how gift-giving plays into that. The whole point of the Trojan War wasn't precisely that property had been stolen, but more importantly that it had been done by a guest to his host. (As modern readers, we recognize a breach of private property more clearly than we recognize a breach of hospitality.) It's the earliest form of debt-as-community-glue, really. It only survives today in the habit of bringing a bottle of wine to a dinner party, and in the handshake. We mostly rely on codified laws of hospitality instead (which govern restaurants and hotels).