It makes more sense if you understand that the “thorn” (Þ) is pronounced “th”.
Interestingly, the thorn was in pretty common use until the printing press took off because most of the presses in England were imported from France and Germany, neither of which used the thorn so their typefaces didn’t include one. For a while people used ‘y’ in place of the thorn (hence “ye olde”), but eventually it fell out of use all together
Printing press is one factor, another is French influence. Greek terms with that sound were written with <th> like in French and so <th> already competed with <þ> independent of the printing press.
I heard that y and th competed and th won in the end.
@RegalPotoo
(My understanding)
The thorn evolved as a pseudo glyph first, have you ever written a “th” really fast? Once the printing press was invented and widespread, it became less common for “th” to look like a thorn and it slowly fell out of use altogether
That’s wrong. Thorn was a runic letter before the Latin alphabet arrived in great Britain. Since the latter didn’t have a letter for this sound, they used it from the older script. “þ” writing fast looks like “y” which is why that letter was used in print. Words For Granted as a podcast episode about lost letters of the English alphabet, including þorn.
I thought this was a really secluded and niche Scots dialect before realising it was just old english.
ġīese, is eald Englisc; ac nis Eald Englisċ; hwæt ic cweþe hát Eald Englisċ.
Sé mema is on Middelenglisċ.
A frog is a wee beast with four legs which lives both in water and on land. He is brown, green, or yellow, or if he is tropical, he may be diverse colors. He has lungs and gills both. He haches from an egg and he then is a tadpole. He grows to be a frog if he is not eaten.
arguably if you’re translating then “wee beast” should be “small animal.”
That is arguable. I wouldn’t want to rob it of its flavor. ‘Wee beast’ is unusual, but it’s fine English already.
The argument - that I don’t particularly care about, just idling commenting - is would that be translation or transliteration.
“Hatches from an egg” caught me up a bit but I could read this otherwise
You don’t care but I was excited
I just know it from Schnappy das kleine Krokodil we learned in German class haha
you NEED to hear the voice actor reading this
https://youtu.be/HguKPVgIZL8Little bit of a shame that he reads the thorn as b :-(
Otherwise pretty funny
May we all be nat eton.
If anyone is having trouble reading this, it might help to know that “þ” is the same as “th”. That’s more widely known than it used to be, but it’s still pretty niche.
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Oh no did this mean frogge is just a wee lil beast 🥺
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I read this all in a broad Scots accent. Which is possibly a pretty accurate choice.
Old EnglishEarly middle English and lowland Scots are very, very similar as languages.It is early Middle English not Old English.
Ah, how right you are! Sorry, I’ll edit.
This is like Frisian and English mixed together. As a Dutch man I could stil read this. Except had to figure out that ſ is an s
Fun Fact: Old English and Old Frisian are closely related.
This is probably Middle English. Old English is harder to read https://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frogga
it really just looks like someone who speaks english, german, and swedish got a severe head injury
Lots of head injuries going around back then
as evidenced by the existence of france
I can hear the YouTube video done about this.
Thought I was reading Dutch there at first. But it was just idiot
No, can confirm.
Actually early Middle English and Dutch were not that far apart. More French, of course, but a lot of Germanic verbs and vocabulary that matched up with Dutch.
Read this in Swedish Chef’s voice.
Where can I find more descriptions like this?
It’s from the proposed Middle English Wikipedia. Here’s the frogge article, here are all articles that have been written. But the no-fun-allowed Wikimedia killed it off.
They allow conlangs but not historical languages?? What the actual fuck
its weird and lame middle english was killed off, particularly as theres old english available
There’s a lot of articles written in middle English that make sense on that list, like languages, locations, historical events, historical figures, etc.
Then there’s also brainfuck, genshin, and this beauty.
Ghhp - h’just . . . hang on . . .
*fwhoooooooh* . . . . snif . . . ooohhh . . . . ahh. dang. oh man. whew!
Okay. Next one.
What?
Who makes up such funny words?
This is just how English used to be.
