Listen! Beowulf opening line misinterpreted for 200 years

Walkden's translation doesn't seem that revolutionary. The OED lists Beowulf's hwæt under B1: "Used to introduce or call attention to a statement: Lo; now; well." I'm not sure exactly how "now" or "well" is different from what Walkden is saying.

quote:

According to the historical linguist, rather than reading: “Listen! We have heard of the might of the kings” the Old English of “Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!” should instead be understood as: “How we have heard of the might of the kings.”

I suppose there is a subtle difference, but for me that's it.

But what about "Now, we have heard of the might of kings" or "Well, we have heard of the might of kings", which is how the OED might translate it. To me it seems that both of those "informs the wider exclamatory nature of the sentence" which is what Walkden argues.

I had read this article earlier, but I would have to read the lecturer's original paper to get a better idea of what he's on about. These little leftover particles (in this case sentence-introducing ones) have a whole bunch of meaning packed into them. Ancient Greek uses them a lot. I have two books on them: one in Greek and the other in Old Hittite.

Oh, and nice use of the wynn in the subject line, Goofy.

[Corrected Walkden's title.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd, November 06, 2013 05:51

I have the citation here:

Walkden, George. “The status of hwæt in Old English.” English Language and Linguistics, 17:3: 465–88 (link).

Thanks z. So he's saying the sentence is exclamatory, but that the hwæt shouldn't be translated as an interjection, because it changes the clause structure.

I haven't finished it yet, but, yes, Goofy, his argument is a syntactic one. I noticed that his PhD dissertation was in historical syntax. I had not heard of exclamatives before but googling them turns up some interesting material.

Were you able to access his PhD dissertation? Sometimes the best data are available in them.

Were you able to access his PhD dissertation?

I did look, but it was a download for pay thing and so I skipped. One of the few reasons not have a PDF of the old dissertation is usually a sign that a book of some kind may be forthcoming based on it. There are plenty of other papers to get an idea of what he's on about.

Makes sense. I know this is a rookie question, but I just wondered about the æ. Did that used to be a letter? I know, we've probably discussed it, but I wasn't sure how to search for it.

æ (ash) used to be a letter, as well as ƿ (wynn) and þ (thorn) and ð (eth).

They also used the Tironian et sign (⁊). (Instead of ampersand) for ond 'and'.)