Game of Thrones and old english

[Jacob]

Then you'd probably do alright with written Danish also.

[viper37]

Ever read Cartier's journal in original french?

Nope, only Montcalm's journal.  Did read other stuff in old French, though I can't remember what it was.

Won't differ. It's all unreadable.

not if you had latin class

[Josquius]

See you [on] the morrow isn't even archaic, people in much of Britain say that. Pretty common around my way (well..."see y th'morra" is....)

Break his fast...yeah, I think it might have been with Martin or maybe Cromwell that I first read that. It was a nice little bit of learning, makes logical sense.

[Agelastus]

This is how I was taught it:

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Yep, that's how I was taught it to; having only a limited religious impulse, I didn't even realise that that wasn't the modern version until I read your post.

It certainly sounds much better than the truly "modern" version when recited, in my opinion.

[Maximus]

That would be Shakespearean English I guess. It's from the King James version of the bible.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think Martin is going for something that sounds "vaguely Early Modern English." People are typically incredibly uneducated about the differences between historical versions of English and just throw terms together interchangeably.

Common things I've heard:

-Shakespearean English = Old English - No, Shakespeare wrote in Modern English, but it was 400 years ago and different from our English that we speak. But any decently literate speaker of English can read Shakespeare as originally written. (Some call English of that era "Early Modern.")
-Referring to the slightly quirky ways of writing in the 19th century along with the slightly different vocabulary as "Elizabethan English." I've heard people refer to works of Dickens as "Elizabethan English." That's probably one of the dumbest things ever, writings from the 19th century are sometimes a bit tortuous if you are offended by quirky vocabulary and use of words we stopped using (I like both of those things, myself) but it's totally the same language as we write in today so to think it is anything other than modern English is stupid. To refer to it as "Elizabethan English" is even dumber because Elizabethan English is itself also Modern English but from the age of Queen Elizabeth I, so obviously has nothing to do with the 19th century.

Genuine Old English is essentially a foreign language and unless you have studied it like a foreign language a modern English speaker will have about as much luck reading it as a modern German speaker (maybe even slightly less.) Middle English if you read the Canterbury Tales a few times you get used to the differences in how their consonants and words work and it is fairly intelligible. I actually would guess that while it'd be hard to understand because of the different accent and speech patterns, I think the "sound" of Middle English words is actually fairly close to modern English, but the spelling is far different.

[OttoVonBismarck]

That would be Shakespearean English I guess. It's from the King James version of the bible.

Pretty much, the KJV was written not long after Shakespeare and is basically written in Early Modern English. You'll hear people refer to it as "Shakespearean" because of Shakespeare being by far the most famous person to have spoke/written this form of English, and you also hear "Elizabethan English" because it was used in the Elizabethan Age. Neither is totally accurate because in the early 17th century when King James actually had the bible written they still spoke/wrote that way but obviously Shakespeare had passed as had Elizabeth.

The KJV of the Lord's Prayer is an example of how this type of English truly is modern English. It uses slightly archaic sentence structure and one truly archaic word (art) and one probably archaic word (thy), but other than that it is essentially as intelligible as anything you'd read on CNN.com.

[Siege]

This thread is boring.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It also hadn't been posted to in over 24 hours and wasn't anywhere near the top post. So one wonders why you even bothered to post about it, you ignorant arab.

[Siege]

Why? I was reading it.
It is very boring, all about some old languages and stuff.
I thought it was gonna be about Jon and Stannis fighting it out.

And I ain't arab!

[Habbaku]

Why would Jon fight Stannis?

[Caliga]

You want to hear a weird American accent/dialect?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXs9cf2YWwg

[OttoVonBismarck]

Why? I was reading it.
It is very boring, all about some old languages and stuff.
I thought it was gonna be about Jon and Stannis fighting it out.

And I ain't arab!

Yes, you are.

[viper37]

People are typically incredibly uneducated about the differences between historical versions of English and just throw terms together interchangeably.

It tends to happen for people not raised in anglo-saxon education system.

Genuine Old English is essentially a foreign language and unless you have studied it like a foreign language a modern English speaker will have about as much luck reading it as a modern German speaker (maybe even slightly less.) Middle English if you read the Canterbury Tales a few times you get used to the differences in how their consonants and words work and it is fairly intelligible. I actually would guess that while it'd be hard to understand because of the different accent and speech patterns, I think the "sound" of Middle English words is actually fairly close to modern English, but the spelling is far different.

that I knew, but I was asking if the way the expressions were made, the way some sentences were inverted (one-and-twenty instead of twenty one) was similar to old (medieval) english, as a way people spoke/wrote, not necessarly as it really sound.  Like in Spartacus they don't say "thank you" but "gratitude", and I know this comes from latin wich had no word specifically for "thank you" they way we use it now, yet, I'm pretty sure Romans did not speak English.

One-and-twenty or "breaking his/her fast" could have been a translation of the german language used in medieval times in many parts of England.

[viper37]

Why? I was reading it.
It is very boring, all about some old languages and stuff.
I thought it was gonna be about Jon and Stannis fighting it out.

And I ain't arab!

Look at the title: "and old english". That's a clue about the content