Cædmon's Hymn - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 04-13-2003, 06:31 AM

I must admit to being at sea to a certain extent with linguistics, but I love it! Which is why I'm in my cup instead of in my pipe. hee hee. Anyway, and I don't know if this affects your analysis at all, Annunfuniniel, but Anglo-Saxon (aka Old English) was still at least a partially inflected language, in which case word order mattered about as much as it did in Latin. So the genitive is critical and the order in which the words fell is rendered (almost) unimportant. Okay, I have to do this myself in order to understand it. So bear with me, please. Thankyew [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Nu | scylun | hergan | hefaenricaes | uard
Now |let us (?) | praise | heavenkingdom's | keeper

tha | middungeard | moncynnæs | uard
then | middle-earth | mankind's | keeper

Hmmm. Shows what I know, eh? Yup, the whole thing is a praise to the creator, with a repetition of the theme by giving the Creator different "titles", so to speak. Which gives it a more song-like feel, and almost an incantatory poetic touch. Just goes to show what fine poets they were back then, no?

04-13-2003, 06:31 AM	#9
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	I must admit to being at sea to a certain extent with linguistics, but I love it! Which is why I'm in my cup instead of in my pipe. hee hee. Anyway, and I don't know if this affects your analysis at all, Annunfuniniel, but Anglo-Saxon (aka Old English) was still at least a partially inflected language, in which case word order mattered about as much as it did in Latin. So the genitive is critical and the order in which the words fell is rendered (almost) unimportant. Okay, I have to do this myself in order to understand it. So bear with me, please. Thankyew [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Nu \| scylun \| hergan \| hefaenricaes \| uard Now \|let us (?) \| praise \| heavenkingdom's \| keeper tha \| middungeard \| moncynnæs \| uard then \| middle-earth \| mankind's \| keeper Hmmm. Shows what I know, eh? Yup, the whole thing is a praise to the creator, with a repetition of the theme by giving the Creator different "titles", so to speak. Which gives it a more song-like feel, and almost an incantatory poetic touch. Just goes to show what fine poets they were back then, no?