hu sliþen bið sorg to geferan þam þe him lyt hafað leofra geholena |
'how cruel is sorrow as a companion to the one who has few beloved friends' |
(The Wanderer, lines 29-31, from a late 10th century manuscript) |
The latest Old-Engli.sh News |
January 2022 | |
![]() Logo of the DOE's Adopt-a-Word funding campaign with the Old English for "We thank you." | |
The Dictionary of Old English (DOE) 2020 progress report has been published. It showcases the DOE's achievments, which are all the more impressive given the challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Notable updates concern words starting with the letter L as well as new staff members and funding. | |
February 2021 | |
![]() Manuscript Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 7965-73, f. 165r - a seventeenth century transcript of Old English charters now included in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus | |
As a dead language, Old English has a finite number of text sources its native speakers wrote while they were alive. The only way to enlarge the Old English corpus is therefore to discover new manuscripts of previously unknown texts. Such discoveries are extremely rare and noteworthy events. Yet, the DOE’s Corpus of Old English has just accomplished such a feat – several new texts comprising thousands of words were added to their database in 2019. | |
Old English Trivia of the Day |
Article for Wednesday 22 March 2023 | |
![]() Apollonius returns to Tarsis (from a 15th c. manuscript, ÖNB 2886, f. 9r) | |
Apollonius of Tyre is the first fictional prose text of the English language. Why this fictional text was translated from Latin into the Anglo-Saxon vernacular remains a mystery. | |
Study Anglo-Saxon! |
Old English Language | |
![]() An Old English dictionary that's easy to use and accurate | |
Old-Engli.sh offers its own dictionary page. This online Old to Modern English glossary is simple, comprehensive and ideally suited for the translation of original Old English texts. | |
Old English Documentaries |
Produced in 2012 | |
![]() The Staffordshire Anglo-Saxon Gold Hoard found in 2009 | |
A 2012 BBC2 documentary on one of the largest treasures ever found: the Staffordshire Anglo-Saxon gold hoard. | |
Today's Featured Link |
Old English Dictionaries | |
Dictionary of Old English (DOE) The Dictionary of Old English (DOE) defines the vocabulary of the first six centuries (600-1150 A.D.) of the English language, using twenty-first century technology. It has published letters A-G and offers various paid and free services, such as the "word of the week" or the "variant phrase search". http://tir.doe.utoronto.ca/index.html (homepage) http://tir.doe.utoronto.ca/pages/wofw.html (word of the week) http://tir.doe.utoronto.ca/pages/pub/web-corpus.html (webcorpus, paid) http://tir.doe.utoronto.ca/pages/tools/varphrase.html (variant phrase searches) | ![]() |