Posts Tagged ‘languages’

Xhosa

Posted: 4 January 2008 in Uncategorized
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Some random trivia here. In the Masterpiece Theatre version of Jane Eyre, St. John hands Jane a couple books and tells her to begin learning a new language. This was his typically controlling way of telling her she was going to become a missionary with him as well as his wife. Curious about which language she was to be learning, I paused the DVD and found the title was A Dictionary of English to Shosa. Shosa is spelt Xhosa in modern times, and is one of the official languages of South Africa (and spoken by 7.9 million people). In the movie, it is indeed “the Cape” that they would be travelling to and I think South Africa is mentioned elsewhere. I was unable to find any mention of this book on Google.

If anyone knows of any good resources for searching for books from the 19th Century, I’d love for you to leave me a comment with your suggestions. Even more so if you actually find the book.

Old English Translator

Posted: 8 November 2007 in Uncategorized
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Phil Barthram recently announced on the ENGLISC mailing list a new Old English translator. For those unfamiliar with Old English, this is not the really cheap malt liquor. This is the grandmother of Modern English (by way of its mother, Middle English and a few others, chiefly Norman French). Whereas an Olde English (the malt liquor) translator might look like this:

“You look pretty.”
“I’m trashed on cheap swill.”

an Old English (Anglo-Saxon) translator looks more like:

Nu sculon herigean heofonrıces weard
Now we should praise the guardian of the kingdom of heaven

This is the first line of Cædmon’s Hymn. Check out the wikipedia page for Cædmon to read the whole nine lines.

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