Old English: Grammar and Reader

by Robert E. Diamond (Author)

28 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0814315101

ISBN-10: 0814315100

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This book makes learning Old English easy. It contains a simplified grammar, a minimum of phonology, well-chosen selections from Old English prose, and rich selections from Old English poetry. The texts are in regularized spelling, based on Early West Saxon, so that beginners will not have to wrestle with a shifting orthography. All texts come with facing-page literal translations.

The prose selections include: "The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan"; "The Story of King Cynewulf of Wessex"; "The Wars of King Alfred against the Vikings"; and King Alfred's Preface to Cura Pastoralis. The poetry includes: Caedmon's "Hymn" from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People; The Battle of Brunanburg; The Battle of Maldon; The Dream of Rood from the Vercelli Book; The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife's Lament, The Storm Riddles, The Panther, and The Whale from The Exeter Book.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

An excellent introduction Old English. The reader is complete with excellent translations; and the grammar part is clear and suitable for an undergraduate or graduate student. The anthology is well selected. (Choice)

Book Description

An excellent introduction to learning Old English.

Publisher : Wayne State University Press (January 1, 1970)
Language : English
Paperback : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 0814315100
ISBN-13 : 978-0814315101
Item Weight : 11.5 ounces
Dimensions : 5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,069,943 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,241 in Linguistics (Books)
- #1,591 in Grammar Reference (Books)
- #2,969 in Linguistics Reference

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28 ratings

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4 star		10%
3 star		17%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star		3%

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Christopher R. Travers

Pretty good introduction but a few complaints

Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2010

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This is a very good introductory grammar for those who know nothing about Old English, but I preferred Peter Baker's work( Introduction to Old English ) there. I suspect a lot of people would find this easier to use though and so I think the grammar section (as a real introduction) deserves 5 stars.

My only real complaint comes from the reader, which uses a facing page translation format so there is a substantial urge to "cheat" and look over at the other page when stuck. If the English translations are to be offered at all, I think they should be separated from the OE texts to reduce this problem. I'd actually take off 2 stars for this, meaning that the reader gets 3 stars and is better for advanced students than beginners.

So the grammar gets 5 stars and the reader 3. I guess that means I will rate it at 4 then.

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

A great start for beginners!

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2015

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This book is just fantastic for the self taught beginner like myself who needs a lot of help with pronunciation. I have tried a number of other books but I was often mystified when reading passages as to which form of pronunciation should be used when I encountered the letters "g" and "c" and so I was often left guessing which was frustrating at the very least. This is not an issue with Diamonds' book and for that I am really grateful to him for making this language so accessible to a beginner like myself. I highly recommend this book to anyone starting out in this language. Old English: Grammar and Reader

2 people found this helpful

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T. Thomas

Mainly a Reader

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2012

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This book is very nice as an Old English reader, having a variety of excerpts from different text and an English translation on the opposite page which is very helpful. I would not, however suggest that one buys this book for it's grammar though. The grammar sections is very brief, and not well organized for my liking, doing things like introducing a verb form, then shifting to a noun form, then back to some other verb forms, then a few more noun forms. Mind you, this is not chapterized like a Wheelock's latin, but just a simple heading maybe half way down the page. Also, no discussion of anything to do with things such as syntax.

Over all, this is great as a reader, but you will need to get another book for something more than the most cursory grammar.

8 people found this helpful

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thomas

I found this extremely useful and used it in conjunction with an original Beowulf ...

Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2015

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I found this extremely useful and used it in conjunction with an original Beowulf text. I also bought this for a friend, so I do completely reccommend this to others. I am someone who believes it is always best to avoid translations and value the need to learn a language for the purpose of authentic reading in the original language. Don't limit yourself to your native language. If you speak English, you can easily learn Old and Middle English.

2 people found this helpful

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Jasper

Good for the beginner

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2010

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This book is good for the beginner, even if he is learning Old English on his own and is a lazy student. I memorized the pronouns and articles, glanced over the nouns and verbs, and went on to the readings, which I read over and over again. The readings are interesting and with the parallel English text not too taxing, so even if you are studying while pushing your sleeping baby in his stroller you cannot help but begin to learn in a surprisingly short amount of time.

I give the book 5 stars because the author does exactly what he says he will in the introduction.

2 people found this helpful

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Andrew W. Bush

Does what it says

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2012

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This book is a great primer for Old English, but other resources will be needed in order to progress in the language. The readings have translations to modern English so it is much easier to get what the story is about. Search for the "magic sheet of Old English grammar" on Google for a good summary of the grammar of Old English

One person found this helpful

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Russell

Nice try

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2014

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This thin volume does not do much to help an interested student of Old English to understand the pronunciation or grammar of Saxon English. More time should have been spent on pronunciation and grammar. On the other hand, any student of Old English will benefit from owning this book because it contains valuable examples of Saxon literature. Only for the most serious student.

4 people found this helpful

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John Smith

A Great Saxon Grammar

Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2012

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This book is complete and easy to read. If you want to jump into Old Saxon, here is your key.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

FrKurt Messick

Old English Made Easy...

Reviewed in Canada on February 24, 2006

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This is the first Old English grammar I studied, nearly 25 years ago, and it remains perhaps the best one-volume introduction to Old English around. Concise, simple, and accessible, this text has both a reader and a grammar in one cover, containing selections from the major Old English poems and prose works.
The prose works include 'The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan', selections from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the preface by Alfred the Great to the medieval work on Pastoral Care by Pope Gregory. There are relatively few Old English prose works that have survived into the present day; there are even fewer authentically Old English pieces, as many Old English prose works are in fact translations of Latin pieces, and for some reason adapted their grammar to the Latin original rather than the Old English natural pattern.
The poetry exhibits the paired-verse pattern (although the translations accompanying them do not strive to keep the metrical pattern). The poetry include majors works such as Caedmon's Hymn, The Battle of Brunanburg, The Battle of Maldon, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, maxims, riddles, and other poems. There is no Beowulf contained here, nor any other heroic poems (such as Deor), as Diamond states that these are the most likely follow-up readings after one gains a grounding in Old English, and the poems contained here are often overlooked by students save for the most dedicated of scholars.
The texts here are normalised to Early West Saxon dialect, with a grammar very simplified; concepts are introduced that are directly useful for the texts contained herein. The glossary is similarly normalised, and cross-referenced for various verb forms and other vocabulary links such as prefixes and alternatives. In a remarkable insight on how students use texts, Diamond states that, for the purposes of this introductory text, notes have been eliminated, as students rarely refer to them anyway. The section on metrics introduces the five principle types of verses, as well as some minor variations.
Diamond includes a brief bibliography with dictionaries, grammars, commentaries and more; this is now somewhat out of date, but also shows the slow pace at which some aspects of Old English scholarship proceed, with references going back to volumes published in the late 1800s.
A very useful and fun text from which to learn!

16 people found this helpful

pete

Book revue

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 21, 2015

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Excellent book in good clean condition.

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