@Yet One More Idiot
They were sundered at least a hundred eighty generations ago, possibly two hundred. The Celtic languages are closer to the Italic; two thousand years ago, Proto-Brythonic and Latin may have been no further removed from each other than Romanian and Spanish are today.
@Amethyst_Crystal
That is interesting, considering that Old English and Welsh share almost nothing in common afaik. :) It should be basically German and Norse. :)
@Yet_One_More_Idiot
In Old English, the prefix ge-, among other things, formed past participles from verbs: sprecan (“to speak”) -> gesprecen (“spoken”). It survived in Middle English as y- before all but disappearing in Modern English, but remains in use in other West Germanic languages like German (sprechen -> gesprochen) and Dutch (spreken -> gesproken)
perfective prefix, in yclept, etc.; a deliberate archaism, introduced by Spenser and his imitators, representing an authentic Middle English prefix y~~, earlier i~~, from Old English ge~~, originally meaning “with, together” but later a completive or perfective element, from Proto-Germanic *ga~~ “together, with” (also a collective and intensive prefix), from PIE *kom “beside, near, by, with” (cognate with Sanskrit ja~~, Latin com~~, cum~~; see com~~). It is still living in German and Dutch ge-, and survives, disguised, in some English words (such as alike, aware, handiwork).
Among hundreds of Middle English words it formed are yfallen, yhacked (“completely hacked,” probably now again useful), yknow, ymarried, ywrought.
They were sundered at least a hundred eighty generations ago, possibly two hundred. The Celtic languages are closer to the Italic; two thousand years ago, Proto-Brythonic and Latin may have been no further removed from each other than Romanian and Spanish are today.
I have not, no. I only have Tolkien’s - but I haven’t read that either. xD
Have you ever read the Seamus Heaney translation; and if so, what do you think of it?
That is interesting, considering that Old English and Welsh share almost nothing in common afaik. :) It should be basically German and Norse. :)
@Yet_One_More_Idiot
In Old English, the prefix ge-, among other things, formed past participles from verbs: sprecan (“to speak”) -> gesprecen (“spoken”). It survived in Middle English as y- before all but disappearing in Modern English, but remains in use in other West Germanic languages like German (sprechen -> gesprochen) and Dutch (spreken -> gesproken)
_From etymonline.com
I have a copy of that on my bookshelf, it’s a translation that was made by Tolkien. :)
Just you wait until I break out the Anglo-Saxon runescript… :P
I don’t know quite what the “ge-” prefix means, but the rest of the word very literally translates as “twofolded”. :)