I’m getting better at understanding them

But damn sometimes I spend more time searching for definitions to understand it than it actually takes to read it

  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
    5·
    2 months ago

    i mean it’s a bit unfair to show it in a different font, if i wrote this in wingdings you wouldn’t understand shit either.

    Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning. ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned, geong in geardum, þone god sende folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat þe hie ær drugon aldorlease lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea, wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf; Beowulf wæs breme blæd wide sprang, Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.

      • pmk@lemmy.sdf.org
        5·
        2 months ago

        He/she probably meant hand, not font. Most people don’t know the terminology regarding letterforms.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
        3·
        2 months ago

        yeah, and as you can very obviously see it does not look like modern text, the average person would struggle to identify most letters.

        My point is that using a text written in what is effectively a completely different writing system isn’t a fair comparison, of course it’s going to be impossible to understand when you can’t tell what the letters are! That doesn’t tell you anything about how different the actual language is.

        • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
          5·
          2 months ago

          yeah, and as you can very obviously see it does not look like modern text

          Because it’s not; that was the point. It’s still English, but is unrecognizable as such. It literally looks like “some kind of elvish.”

          • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
            2·
            2 months ago

            except the major difference is just that it uses funny letters, which you can do with any language and that doesn’t mean the actual language itself is different!

            You’re effectively taking dutch, writing it in cyrillic script, and going “look at how different the languages are” when in fact dutch is generally easier to comprehend than a thick scottish dialect.

          • DillyDaily@lemmy.world
            1·
            2 months ago

            I never really understood at what point a language evolves enough to be an entirely new language.

            Old English feels so far removed from even middle English, let alone modern English.

            We have “new” and “old” to differentiate them, but with how many Latin words alone entered English between Old English and Modern English, It’s something I’ve never found a comprehensive answer to.

            I guess, what is it about proto-indo European that we acknowledge as a distinct language from the hundreds of thousands of languages that evolved from it, other than time scale and global impact.