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Hobby Forum Index » Arts - Books - Reviews » Book Review - A Introduction to Old English
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| Danny Yee |
 Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2003 2:29 am |
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An Introduction to Old English
Richard Hogg
Edinburgh University Press 2002
163 pages, index
A book review by Danny Yee
http://dannyreviews.com/h/Old_English.html
A copy of Sweet's _Anglo-Saxon Primer_ has sat unread on my shelves for
twenty years now -- at some point my willingness to plough through raw
grammar and unglossed texts waned. Hogg's _Introduction to Old English_
takes a completely different approach, emphasizing history and context
rather than philology and grammar. It can be read by those curious about
the history of English but without any desire to attain proficiency in
Old English. (Some linguistic background is assumed -- the reader is
expected to know what a phoneme is, for example -- although concepts of
gender, case, and number are explained.)
Hogg does present a basic outline of Old English grammar and syntax, but
discursively, with tables of forms kept to a minimum and with translations
provided throughout for examples. There are brief exercises at the
end of each chapter, but these are mostly passages from actual texts,
which can be read quickly for sense and a general feel for the language,
or worked through more thoroughly by those who want to learn the grammar.
I found _An Introduction to Old English_ a volume I could read rather than
study, with only the details of strong verb forms a little overwhelming.
Throughout Hogg emphasizes connections with present day English and with
the broader history of Germanic and Indo-European languages. He tries
to give some feel for the literary and cultural context of the texts,
and for the regional variety of Old English and the problems of taking
Late West Saxon as a "standard". And he looks at the future of Old
English, in particular at changes already underway at the time of the
Norman Conquest, such as the loss of noun declensions and the move to
verb-second word order.
--
%T An Introduction to Old English
%A Hogg, Richard
%I Edinburgh University Press
%C Edinburgh
%D 2002
%O paperback, index
%G ISBN 0-7486-1328-5
%P 163pp
%K linguistics, Britain, medieval literature
%Z a historical account, setting the language in context
28 July 2003
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Copyright (c) 2003 Danny Yee http://danny.oz.au/
Danny Yee's Book Reviews http://dannyreviews.com/
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