"english" is hard to understand AD 1136. HALP (NICK KER AND CO)

ok. i got here a piece of text from 1136. and it shall be a kind of english ^^ but i only understand "a" and "of" ^^
i know that german of the 12th century is very hard to understand for me, but maybe someone of you can help me out. so here comes the text:

A stalleworthe young bachiler in this lond was tho,
Caraus was yclepud, that couthe of much wo.
For tho he had in werre y be, & do gret maistrie,
And him much yfond, he thougte do tricherie.
He went and bed leve tho of the empeour of Rome,
And bi het hym, that, gef ther of avaunced he wer,
To gelde mor god of Rome, than al Breteyne thider bere.

oh. and if anyone of our british guys here ever heard of Caurausius, please let me know. you dont need to tell me what he did... only if you heard of him.

ty!

xaso this old english, it sounds somewhat shakespearian. But its possible even dated prior to that. Most of us english do not understand it.

For those who have heard of william shakespear, he is a celebrated and revered play writer. (im not even certain which century he is from) In his day, everybody used to talk in this fashion, english was weird back then.

When we learned about shakespear in school, the teachers have to decifer everything for the class, because we simply could not understand. (shakespear my be irrivant here as the txt is likey to be no where near his time, but it gives you an understanding of the difficulty even english people have, of understanding 'old english'.

all i know is: Young bachiler (young bachelor) would be a young man prior to his marrage, basically it means he is a young man who is not married yet.

Ive never heard of carausuis as such (pronounced ka|rak|us ,i think...could be wrong), but he was a roman millitary commander.

Caraus was yclepud, that couthe of much wo. This makes little sense, but assume 'much wo' means much woe. Which means regret/misery or misfortune.

3rd line makes no sense at all, although to me it reads: For though he had in were why be & go great.....(fook knows what that last word is)

And him much yfond, he thougte do tricherie. 'Him much yfond', also is incoherent to me, but thoughte do tricherie could be: thought to do trickery. Which is basically where u swindle and doublecross somebody.

Then next like appears to say something about going to bed, and after that its complete and utter nonsense. Dont take my word for the translations i have dont either xaso, its very hazy stuff, im practically guessing.....

EDIT: In fact xaso, ive just read the dates, this txt is over 4 centries prior to shakespear, so its even older english than that (bearing in mind that the shakespear was hard enough to understand).

To be frank, i see absolutley no benifts, even from an english person, to learn to understand this type of language, its almost 1000 years old, most artifacts from this era are likely to be decomposed/already discovered/illegable.

It beats me my your learning about it, i know i dont care about it, and have no desire to learn it.

yes, i know shakespeare. he lived around 1600. and his english is far easier to understand ^^

i think tricherie is treachery.

knowing how the y is pronounced ^^ would help loads.

but thx, maybe we can puzzle that text together, when nick and kernow help out ^^

Nick isnt from england xD

@ bdl no $$$$ :/


@ Phoe

Quote :

To be or Not to be, that is the question.

Battledroidlover wrote:

Nick isnt from england xD

but he <3 english

@Xaso I know but americans use diffrent words for english words like Pants instead of Trousers or Tamato instead of Tomato Cookie instead of Biscuit etc.

so they wont understand if i am saying i have biscuits and tomatos in my trousers?
nick is freak. he knows things ^^

lol BDl no Americans also say cookie a buiscuit is a complete different thing xD


Hmmm maybe this language lived around 1800 sounds a bit like old pirate talk ore old Boston British^^

I NEED HALP TRANSLATING THAT! BACK TO THE TOPIC!!!

@bdl Tamato doesn't exist in the American vocabulary lol.

Hmm...this is certainly...interesting "English"...I'll wrap my head around it for a while...or until nick posts here and figures it out in two seconds.

Well, this involves a lot of guesswork, but upon settling on this attempt at translation I read up on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carausius">Carausius</a> and it seems to contain some accuracy:

A stalwart young bachelor in this land was he,
Caraus he was called, that spread much woe.
For though he had been in the war, & did meet mastery,
And him much YFOND, he planned treachery.
He went and bid leave of the emperor of Rome,
And upon granting his request, proclaimed himself hero,
To worship more than the god of Rome, the Breton whither BERE.

I never settled on a guess for the red words.

But then, I found a Google Books entry that is one man's translation of a book called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_Regum_Britanniae">Historia Regum Britanniae</a>, which was written circa 1136 , and it has a much longer translation. My guess is that it's not as direct a translation but intended to do some explaining; nevertheless, it differs in significant ways from what I came up with. Hope it helps:

http://books.google.com/books?id=FUoMAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=geoffrey+of+monmouth&as_brr=3#v=onepage&q=Carausius%20&f=false

It should automatically bring up a search for the guy's name with Page 86 being a hit. Click Page 86 and it's the first few sentences under "CHAPTER III":

"At that time there was in Britain one Carausius, a young man of mean birth, who, having given proof of his bravery in many engagements, went to Rome, and solicited the senate for leave to defend with a fleet the maritime coasts of Britain, from the incursions of barbarians; which if they would grant him, he promised to do more for the honour and service of the Commonwealth, than by delivering up to them the kingdom of Britain."

Well I know a little victorian speak but i will have to get my Horrible Histories books out for this :O

OMG NICK ... YOU ARE MY HERO !

fly a kite you kernow, cant a guy make a mistake around here?

Besides i didnt say it was shakespearian, i said it sounded shakespearian and used shakespeare to give an example to xaso to how old english differs from the modern day.

tyvm nick!!! and yes, like you can see in my post 1136 is completely right, and you even found the right book! and yes, i was too lazy to google ^^ but you guys helped me alot tyvvvvvm!!!!

the thing with the treachery is such a thing. because the further get towards newer ages the more glorified caurausius got and there is no word of treachery coming from him towards anybody. but he was betrayed by allectus, who "assassinated" him. and in the end he was even killing carausius while he slept ^^.
i needed this text as the connection between the roman and latin sources and the british sources written in an english i understand to see the transformation in the opinions about carausius.

and still its interesting to see that he proves himself as hero and then comits treachery. hero has something to do with fame and special epic achievements. latin sources only provide him, if they are nicer than the most, as a good admiral, who climed military ladder, and thats all. just a pawn in the game, who became a rebel and pirate as soon as the emperor wanted to get rid of the pawn.

yet, in sight of british ppl fastly became a local hero, betraying (maybe even kind of "evil") roman empire. and in the end he was a local martyr. the one who founded the british navy tradition and was irish or welsh fellow, though he was born somewhere in belgium. and his successor, Allectus, who first only was a faceless beneficiary of the death of carausius, barely even named in latin sources, over a phase of total neglect, he was rediscovered as a viperish assassin, enemy of carausius and an example for non-britishness, instead of just another british local usurper.

^^
so ty nick, ty phoe, ty ker and all. helped me alot ^^ (the link nick is ftw!)

@ bdl
see, nick <3 english and owns. ^^

GUYS. I'M A FRIGGIN FRESHMAN. I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE FIRST PART OF THIS SHIT. I HAVE NO BEARINGS ON OLD ENGLISH, SO I'M GONNA STAY OUTTA THIS. lol.

lol blue, read my last post. we got it already ^^ lazy boy xD but still thx for looking on it

just to update you guys
i got back the work today. and guess what: its a 1,0 (for kernow: 1.0)
which is the very best mark possible

so tyvm for this help