Readings in Old and Middle English

MIT 21L.705 Major Authors: Old English and Beowulf, Spring 2014
Instructor: Arthur Bahr

MIT associate professor Arthur Bahr reads a short excerpt of Beowulf in Old English and Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight in Middle English.

License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

[miloelite]

Who knew that at my English proficiency level (native speaker) there's still a chance for me to learn English as a second language?!

[Cyortonic]

Middle English sounds like I should know what it means, but I don't.

[paris]

I love how Old Spanish is actually really understandable, and Old French is also more or less deduceable, and then Old English is like “wo vesq fksbeev”

Help I repeated after him and now all my furniture are floating

[WillaLamour]

Could mostly understand the Middle English, but I had ZERO chance understanding a single word in the old English.

This is great, thanks to you, Arthur.

[mattlm]

The only issue is that this is all very nice and poetic. I wonder how people would have spoke day to day.

[ecuadorhaszeroboxers]

old English is a whole another language

[sadcommunity]

is he speaking English for real or casting a spell ?

[MakeSushi]

*WOW!* that is indeed a very different language!

[obrianite]

I love how much he looks like he's enjoying the readings!

[DiaboloMootopia]

Interesting. Old English sounds far more Scandinavian than German.

[TechBearSeattle]

Also, thank you very much for captioning the video, AND for captioning the Old and Middle English parts in Old and Middle English, with all the letters and ligatures that have since been lost. Much appreciated.

[TheDillberto]

IS HE 15 OR 50 YEARS OLD I CANT FIGURE IT OUT.

[Myjacob]

1:15 “The Borg”
Me: oh my god it’s the borg “we are the borg lower your shields and surrender your ships•

[friattmoooo]

The Middle English is 75% understood..

[initialdluvr]

As a Korean-American born and raised in California, this is freaking interesting. Old English sounds kind of German. Middle English is sounds English with a lot of gibberish. I can tell it's English if I pay attention.

[eleazarrodriguez]

Wow! You can really tell how more smooth the language gets with the influence of the normans. Both sounds great!

[desmondd]

Middle English sounds Iike I SHOULD be able to understand it, yet still only catch bits and pieces.

[DoctorAlright]

Midevil times: how art thou

2019: sup dawg how u been

[BoredPanda]

It’s time to learn English as a second language. English is my native tongue