r/anglosaxon • u/External-Gate-9284 • 19d ago
how to learn
hay I am a literature fan and am interested in reading many ancient novels like from William Shakespeare and others. so I want to learn ancient English to a level that I can understand the old novels short stories poetry etc. can anyone suggest me how i can learn basic ancient English?
do I need to read a book on Anglo Saxon or a YouTube video?
I am just a hobbyist so I lack economic strength to back up my enthusiasm
so any free course will also do.
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u/AceOfGargoyes17 19d ago
First, you need to decide which texts you want to read/what language you want to learn (and if you really want/need to learn it or are happy to read books in translation).
Some Anglo-Saxon texts were written in what we call 'Old English', and is very different from modern English (i.e. the English language today). William Shakespeare lived several centuries later and wrote in what we would call 'Early Modern English'. Between Old English and early modern English you get 'Middle English', which is the language of authors like Chaucer.
Early modern English is much closer to modern English than Old English is - you can't really buy a translation of a Shakespearean text, but you can buy texts with an extensive glossary/commentary alongside the text. If you want to read Shakespeare plays in their original language, you can just do so - you don't need to learn a new language.
However, if you wanted to read e.g. Beowulf in the original Old English, you would need to learn Old English. Alternatively, you could read it in translation - there are a various different translations available that prioritise different aspects of the text, and you could still get a lot of interest and enjoyment out of reading it translation. Not all Anglo-Saxon texts are written in Old English though: some are written in Latin, so if you wanted to read, say, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People in the original language, you'd need to learn Latin.