The Reading Room

11:28 AM

I don't really understand that description, I don't understand what you mean by "avatar" here.

BESW

The story doesn't define the concept, and I'm pretty sure that's not the word it uses. The characters are manifestations or gods or expressions of particular physical landscape concepts like Ocean, Cloud, or Wind. The story's about a last-ditch effort by the local manifestations, involving the creation of a dual being, the goddess of a liminal space: the beach.

Q: Do you have any advice to start learning English (british) literature by yourself?

ah, that makes more sense

4 hours later…

Bookworm

3:32 PM

-2

I am Veronica, an Italian girl with a great passion and a great interest in English Literature. Unfortunately, in my University and in my country it is not much studied, or at least in a very general way. I would like to ask you if you have any advice on how I can start learning English by myself...

history-of-literature

4:08 PM

@BESW Hi!! Long time no see :-)

4:24 PM

Your description isn't ringing any bells for me, but might be enough for an identification-request on the site?

4:44 PM

@GarethRees The joke quoted in your question about the Great Vowel Shift reminds me of a joke about Middle English dialects, which I believe I heard in the Teaching Company's "History of the English Language" course by Dr. Seth Lehrer:

Some sailors from northern England were shipwrecked on the coast of Kent. Finding their way to a farmhouse, they asked the housewife if she could spare them some eggs. She couldn't understand what they were asking and assumed they were French! Turns out they should have asked for "eyren." "Egg" is a northernism, ultimately borrowed from Old Norse.

That makes sense as the word "egg" is exactly the same in Scandinavian languages.

And the modern Dutch "ei" (plural "eieren") is very similar to the original Middle English word.

5:21 PM

@DLosc That's a great story! It's from William Caxton's preface to his 1490 Eneydos

> And certaynly qur langage now used varyeth ferre from that whiche was used and spoken whan I was borne, for we Englysshemen ben borne under the domynacyon of the mone, which is never stedfaste, but ever waverynge, wexynge one season, and waneth and dyscreaseth another season; and that comyn Englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from another,

> insomoche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchaunts were in a shippe in Tamyse for to have sayled over the see into Zelande, and for lacke of wynde, thei taryed atte Forland, and wente to lande for to refreshe them.

> And one of theym, named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam into an hows and axed for mete, and specyally he axyd after eggys; and the goode wyf answerde that she coude speke no Frenshe, and the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges and she understode hym not; and then at laste another sayd that he would have eyren.

> Then the good wyf said that she understod hym wel. Loo, what shold a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges or eyren? Certaynly it is harde to playse every man, bycause of dyversite and chaunge of langage.

5:33 PM

Aha! I thought I might be misremembering a few details.

5:53 PM

I also love the use of "axed" for "asked"--another example of a recently proscribed usage that's a lot older than you'd think.

6:19 PM

@GarethRees Would "Forland" be one of these two places? And is "Tamyse" the Thames?

For some reason I like the phrase "chaunge of langage".

Compared with modern English, it observes the principle of conservation of 'U's.

@DLosc "Tamyse" is indeed the River Thames. I guess "Forland" means the coast of Kent between the North and South Forelands. Since the prevailing wind is from the south-west, sailing ships had trouble getting round the South Foreland and into the English Channel, and would find themselves "wind-bound" in this area.

There is a sheltered area of sea between the coast of Kent and the Goodwin Sands, known as "The Downs" in which, during the age of sail, it was common to find hundreds of ships anchored and waiting for the wind to change.

6:43 PM

Tolkien has a harbor in Middle-Earth called Forlond; I wonder if there's any connection (maybe subconscious).

7:18 PM

@GarethRees I was confused by the word "qur". Turns out, your quote has typos, it says "our" in the book that you linked to. "Englysshemen" to "englysshe men" in the book; "which is never" to "whiche is never"; "from another" to "from a nother"; "insomoche" to "in so moche"; "marchaunts" to "marchauntes"; "Forland" to "forlond";

"into an hows" to "in-to an hows"; "and then at laste another" to "and thenne at laste a nother"; "would have eyren" to "wolde have eyren"; "said" to "sayd"; "what shold" to "what sholde"; "bycause" to "by cause".

Maybe you were quoting a later edition or something

Q: Do we want to accept "how do I start?" type questions?

@b_jonas I copied the text from a different source, since the Caxton reprint is inconvenient for copy-pasting because of the marginal material

I'm kind of sorry that I did it now :(

Librarian

I recently encountered this question, which is basically asking for general advice on how to start learning about British Literature on her own (possibly with a goal of improving English skills). As written, it is overly broad and opinion-based (because its lack of constraints would likely make a...

discussion scope specific-question

(There's probably more differences than I found, I'm not good at proofreading English that old.)

I don't think it's worth proof-reading chat since it can't be edited

7:47 PM

@Tsundoku So I tried to look at whether Weöres Sándor's translation volume has a poem or two from Rudaki, because it sounded like that's possible. Guess what! Turns out I only photographed the table of contents of two of the four volumes, so I don't know the answer.

@b_jonas Thanks for checking. The English Wikipedia article isn't much help with regard to translations.

@Tsundoku I haven't even seen any original text by the way. Not that it would help me, I couldn't read it, it's just weird if he's supposed to be famous and old, even if most of his poetry is lost.

8:08 PM

At least there's a late 15th-century German translation of Kalīla wa-Dimna.

And the French Wikipedia article has some references to translations.

@Tsundoku But is any of them through Rudaki's persian verse translation?

ooh! election nominations are open

for Lit SE diamond moderator that is

@b_jonas Perhaps we would need to widen that specific topic challenge then.

Q: 2023 Community Moderator Election

I'm not convinced we even need topic challenges anymore on Lit, or at least not one every month.

Librarian

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But yes, also that.

1 hour later…