Old English?

What exactly was different in Old english? I mean, I know the 2nd person pronoun was different (thou and thee and thy and thine), and about the conjugations -st and -eth, but it seems like there was a lot more to it?

Sorry, it's just always been one of those vague interests that I never got around to looking up :p
 
That's not Old English. That's early modern English. Modern English refers to the language spoken in England after the Normans stopped speaking French.

This is a sample of Old English, spoken in England before the Normans arrived:

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum
Si þin nama gehalgod
to becume þin rice
gewurþe ðin willa
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge
ac alys us of yfele soþlice

That right there was the Lord's Prayer!
 
That's not Old English. That's early modern English. Modern English refers to the language spoken in England after the Normans stopped speaking French.

This is a sample of Old English, spoken in England before the Normans arrived:

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum
Si þin nama gehalgod
to becume þin rice
gewurþe ðin willa
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge
ac alys us of yfele soþlice

That right there was the Lord's Prayer!

I think I meant early modern then :p
 
Here's the beginning of the Canterbury Tales...

Chaucer said:
Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury.
Chaucer said:
Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende

You can read em all here (of course, being 700-some years old, they're in the public domain) http://www.canterburytales.org/canterbury_tales.html

Though you might need a middle english dictionary...

Back in high school I read a big part of Beowulf in Old English with a dictionary. The grammar is more or less the same, it's just the words you gotta get used to.

EDIT: It's broken into two quote blocks for some fucking reason... who cares.
 
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