one thing interesting is the way that ?Protestantism? has narrowed the meanings of pray and worship in modern English to an exclusively one-way cultic function, such that to speak of praying to or worshipping something less than God has the sting of blasphemy & shirk.
but in elder medieval English pray refered to any beseeching. and not only might one speak of worshipping a king, but of a king worshipping his thane, and even of God worshipping his followers, as in the Morte Arthure- 'All-wieldend God that worships us all.'
the corruption of worship in particular shows a move away from an older IE reciprocal notion of god & lover, state & subject, to a modern absolutist one.
Gender, Cymraeg, and force-femming your dad's favourite films
Today in my Welsh lesson, we started talking about masculine and feminine nouns. I vaguely remember this from French classes in school, and how utterly perplexing I found it. How does a noun have gender, and by criteria is it decided?
Now as a trans adult, I can’t stop thinking about how gender is a social construct, and how language is one of the many tools we use to create it. So I asked if there was a rule of thumb for masculine and feminine nouns, but there isn’t. The teacher even admitted that she doesn’t always know, and has to look it up.
I immediately started thinking I would default to the gender neutral nhw'n instead of masculine e’n or feminine hi’n. I am, after all, insufferably contrarian (I know it’s annoying, I’m sorry).
One of the examples given was boxing, which is a masculine noun. This felt so gender essentialist to me for reasons that should be obvious.
But then my teacher pointed out that films are feminine, even if it's some macho war film about manly men doing manly things, it’s still feminine. Gladiator? That’s a girl. The Godfather? Another girl. Saving Private Ryan and Die Hard? A cute lesbian couple.
It made me think that Cymraeg actually fucks with gender rather than reinforcing it. I’m sure it does both to a greater or lesser extent. But I loved this example and it got me wondering about how it informs a first language speaker’s perception on gender. Are there other examples like this, where the language force-femmes something macho?
I do this all the time in Saesneg. I have a tendency to personify inanimate objects, and nearly all of them are feminine. My laptop, my favourite pen, my car, the house plants. They are all she/her. The only he/him I have is Blahaj because he has such “just a little guy” energy.
Anyway, if you speak Cymreag as a first-language, or any other language which uses lots of masculine and feminine nouns, I wanna know if that informs how you think about gender.
that said I think the best thing to do to gain a modern alliterative style is, however, not to translate Old English (which creates constant tension & pettiness because You Have English Right There), but to english Homer or Virgil in such a manner, and see what words you actually use.
Weyland, by worms, wist his wracks;
the onthinking earl orphandoms dragged.
Had he his sithes: sorrow, and longing,
wintercold wracks, woes oft he found,
sithen on him Nithod a need did lay:
searing sinewbinds on the sely man.
But that overran- this so may too.
For Bedhild it wasn't her brothers' death
on her soul so sore so as herself's thing:
what she so grossly ongotten had:
that she eken was; ever nor might she
thrustly ythink how thole it she should.
But that overran- this so may too.
We, of Mathild, many have heard,
how groundless fell Geat's sad frie,
that all of his sleep the sorrowlove bynam.
But that overran- this so may too.
Thederick had ought for thirty winters
the Maringsburg- it was to many couth.
But that overran- this so may too.
We askeden oft of Ermenrich's
wylfen ythoughts; he walded wide folk,
his Gothenriche- a grim king was that.
Sat many a sedge in sorrows bounden,
waiting on woes, wished oft enough
that that kinriche overcome would be.
And that overran- this so may too.
Sitteth one sorrow-carey, his sele dealt away,
swarthens his soul; himself it thinketh
that endless shall be orphandom's deal.
But may then he think that in this yond world
witty Drighten wends oft new ways.
To earls many honours are shown,
the wisely bloom, to some woes are dealt.
This, I myself, to say I will:
that I whiles was the Hedenings' shoop,
dear to my drighten, and Dear was my name.
Ought I fele winters a following til,
a hold heretoch, until that Herrend now,
liedcrafty man, the landright ytook,
that to me my earllee ere had ysold.
But those overran- this so may too.
Original Anglo-Saxon text
Glosses & Anastasies
I tried to be as close to the original as possible, and if a word is regularly used in old poetry, it's much nobler to bring it back than to persist in awkwardly translating it over & again. though, some of these old words are not ones in the original.
orphandom: (not a gloss but this is actually the Greek cognate of the Anglo-Saxon word and it matches the style so I accepted it, idk)
sithe: companion
sithen: since
sely: fortunate, blessed (doublet of silly)
onget: like beget, but for the woman
eken: with child
thole: suffer, endure
frie: love, the gyden-name is the same word
(by)nim: take, steal (nehmen)
ought: owned
couth: known, the proper sense
wald: rule
sedge: wer, warrior
kinriche: kin-riche, nation-state
sele: fortune, like sely above
drighten: lord
shoop: bard, poet
fele: many (viel)
following: i.e. a position of following, a job
til: good
hold: gracious
heretoch: army-leader, duke (herzog) (the original actually says hláford but you can't alliterate that with a name like Herrend nowadays)
liedcrafty: song-crafty, but I spelled it lied because...
earllee: this is a kenning, eorla hléo, earls' shelter, I just modernised it as is
sell: in the old sense it just means give, without requiring pecuniary transaction. the shoop had a position with his lord who gave him lands, but a rival stole his lord's favour away...
there's like a deliberate malign policy to condition persons into learned helplessness with older English.
it's especially odd given how many Japanese, Avey, &c. words persons straightly have no issue drinking up, how they get bombarded with !languages!CHANGE! such that the cannonballs leave gapes in their flesh, but they act like this can only ever go the one way.
even seeing a thou invokes some sort of mkultra panick in many quite literate persons. and many a scholar aids & abets this for wicked whispering reasons.
I assure thee that thou canst learn wye and min and thede and many other such lovely old words of our own tongue, just as well as thou learnst the words of foreignmen.
it wasn't until Ixvy sent me this image that it hit me that which are boy names and which are girl names is just based on the gender of the second name theme!!!!!
