[ravana2]

can I always put " ye " instead " the " ?


the question = ye question

the beatles = ye beatles


a second question is about " hath " . What is a difference between " hath " and " has " ?

[Curlyben]

You are confusing OLD English with NEW English.
These terms are not interchangeable, as you have suggested, although their means are broadly similar.

[ravana2]

I think that difference between singular and plural is more clear with :

Thou / you

Thy / your


Doest thou agree ?

OK . In the case of multiple personality disorder " you " is acceptable . :P

[Blackkdark]

OOOOOOOOOkay, there's some strange things going on here.

First of all, it's not really ye=the.
It was really þe which sounds like the, save the letter began to look like a y, and they started spelling it that way. It was a mistake. And that is from MIDDLE ENGLISH, not Old english.

Now, Has and Hath mean the same thing and in fact are the same word, except that Has was part of the London dialect that started them shifting out replacing all the th endings with s endings.

And Thou and You have two different meanings originally.

Thou was singular, and later singular and informal like french tu.
You was plural, and later formal singular, and later still singular and plural, formal or informal.

And it´s DOST not Doest.

[ravana2]

Thak you very much!! Or thee :) .

Where can I find the whole grammar for thou ?

[Clough]

Hi, ravana2!

I think that Blackkdark is on to something here and most likely correct.

I just have one comment to make, and that would be, that it's my understanding that the word "thee" was used in a much more endearing sense as compared to "thou". This would be like they were in the King James version of the Holy Bible.

Thanks!

[Blackkdark]

Clough, I have to tell you NO. Not at all. And I'll get to why that is in a moment. (Also I'm not just on to something, this is my primary field of research)

First, let's go over Thou and Thee. They are nominative and dative/accusative forms of the same pronoun. The Old English forms were ðú (or þú) and ðé (or þé). In Old English the word for "the" was never þe so do not mix it up with the above mentioned Middle English forms. Now, in Old English, ðú meant the singular form of you, neither formal or informal, exactly like Latin tu.

ðú was used, if it were a subject, and ðé if it were the object. Compare:
Ðú hæfst mé lufod. You have loved me. (Thou hast loved me)
Ic hæbbe ðé lufod. I have loved you. (I have loved thee)

Okay, well in Middle English, it was spelt sixty-five different ways, (that was an hyperbole, but most words were spelt different ways). Because the spelling ou, ow, and u had similar pronunciations, and ð, þ, and th also had similar pronunciations, ðú often became ðu, þu, thu, ðou, þou, ðou, thou, ðow, þow, thow amongst other possible ways. Now ðé also had different variations, depending on if the author wanted to indicate length by doubling the e or not, so that leaves ðee, þee, thee, ðe, þe, and the (yes just like the Middle English word for the).

This is also the era in which the French rules of formality, which started during the age of knights and peasants who began addressing each other different depending on their rank. The French passed it on to the rest of Europe, and is why modern German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Dutch, Low German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Czech, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Greek, Albanian, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish, etc have these formality rules. (in fact the Spanish word Usted meant Lord, and the portuguese formal for of You is senhor, meaning sir, lord, like Spanish señor or Italian Signore.)
The point here is, LATER it became used in informal sense and by the Early Modern English era, which Shakespeare wrote in, and the King James bible, Thou and Thee were just forms of the same pronoun, which is why your statement, Clough, is a bit off. That is like saying Me is more about the person that the word I is. That makes no sense.

Any more questions?

[ravana2]

Oh I have a lot of questions for you .

Lets start with first two :

You mentioned that has was used by londoners . Who used hath ?

What is more correct ? Or is that just a " rule of the capitol " ?

The second question is about - ess .

Can I use ess in friendess or doctoress like in actress or princess ?

Can I say : art thou my friendess ?

Of course if you are a girl :) .

[Blackkdark]

Okay, Well, there are two things about the London dialectal changes. In Old English, the common ending for the 3rd person (like modern English -s) was instead -ð/-þ. In the North, in say Northumbria, which was a dialect that was heavily influenced by the Danes and the other Viking invaders, that had different changes, including the shift from -ð/-þ to -s. That quickly spread to London. London being the dialectal "standard" for English in the Middle English era. Chaucer, for example, could use either, as could Shakespeare, because the endings remained well past the age of its "death." Remember that s is easier to pronounce than ð/þ, so it quickly passed to s or in pronunciation /s/ or /z/.

-ess, often spelt -esse in the Middle English era, is actually a French suffix, not a native English one. Usually during the Middle English era, the French endings would usually go only on French words (not always the opposite). Friend is an English word, whereas prince (from Latin Princeps meaning Emperor), and actor (from Latin actor meaning agent, doer). Doctor might be able to take the ending, since it comes from Latin, but since there were no female doctors in the Medieval era, I cannot say if such a word was ever used. It is also unlikely, since some words that are one gender in languages like Spanish or French place no importance on the gender of the person. Doctor is like that in French so it is unlikely that Doctress would have even existed.

So, no, you cannot say that. And no I am not a girl.

Keep the questions coming.

[simoneaugie]

When did Gaelic come to be? Where did it come from? Are there different (profoundly) dialects of it?

[Blackkdark]

Well, that is a question that's a wee bit out of left field, but I can answer it.

Okay, Gaelic is part of the larger family Celtic. The Celts were a tribe that lived in modern France (formally Gaul) and they had even encountered the ancient Greeks.
The people of Gaul expanded and had gone throughout England, and even into Spain. The language they spoke is Gaul was Gaulic (which sounds a bit like Gaelic, doesn't it? That's not an coincidence). Later the Romans under Caesar pushed the Celts back into the British Isles and north from there. When the Roman Empire fell apart, other groups invaded England like the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, etc and later the Vikings. They fought for years, but the Anglo-Saxons pushed the Celtic groups back to Cornwall, Wales, and Pictland (later Scotland). Some actually went back to France and started the county of Brittany, which has a Celtic language too. Now the Irish at that point spoke Old Irish, and later as the English began conquering Ireland (this is during the Middle English era). Also Irish settlers took the Picts out in Pictland, and that later became Scotland. And those evolved into Modern Irish, Scottish, Cornish (not widely spoken but it's not dead yet), and Welsh as the modern Celtic languages.

Now, Two languages today are given the title Gaelic: Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic. Both have various dialects, but I think Irish Gaelic dialects are more pronounced, and books often have to give differences between large county segments.

Also the Irish originally had a different alphabet, because the English wouldn't let them speak Irish. This was an old alphabet, probably newer than the runes though. It's called Ogham.

[Clough]

Clough, I have to tell you NO. Not at all. And I'll get to why that is in a moment. (Also I'm not just on to something, this is my primary field of research)

First, let's go over Thou and Thee. They are nominative and dative/accusative forms of the same pronoun. The Old English forms were ðú (or þú) and ðé (or þé). In Old English the word for "the" was never þe so do not mix it up with the above mentioned Middle English forms. Now, in Old English, ðú meant the singular form of you, neither formal or informal, exactly like Latin tu.

ðú was used, if it were a subject, and ðé if it were the object. Compare:
Ðú hæfst mé lufod. You have loved me. (Thou hast loved me)
Ic hæbbe ðé lufod. I have loved you. (I have loved thee)

Okay, well in Middle English, it was spelt sixty-five different ways, (that was an hyperbole, but most words were spelt different ways). Because the spelling ou, ow, and u had similar pronunciations, and ð, þ, and th also had similar pronunciations, ðú often became ðu, þu, thu, ðou, þou, ðou, thou, ðow, þow, thow amongst other possible ways. Now ðé also had different variations, depending on if the author wanted to indicate length by doubling the e or not, so that leaves ðee, þee, thee, ðe, þe, and the (yes just like the Middle English word for the).

This is also the era in which the French rules of formality, which started during the age of knights and peasants who began addressing each other different depending on their rank. The French passed it on to the rest of Europe, and is why modern German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Dutch, Low German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Czech, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Greek, Albanian, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish, etc have these formality rules. (in fact the Spanish word Usted meant Lord, and the portuguese formal for of You is senhor, meaning sir, lord, like Spanish senor or Italian Signore.)
The point here is, LATER it became used in informal sense and by the Early Modern English era, which Shakespeare wrote in, and the King James bible, Thou and Thee were just forms of the same pronoun, which is why your statement, Clough, is a bit off. That is like saying Me is more about the person that the word I is. That makes no sense.

Any more questions?

Okay, it looks like you know your stuff! Are you into the arts like music, theater, dance and the visual arts at all, like painting, drawing, calligraphy, etc.

Thanks!

[Blackkdark]

Okay, it looks like you know your stuff! Are you into the arts like music, theater, dance and the visual arts at all, like painting, drawing, calligraphy, etc.?

Thanks!

Um, well, I am into music, I play like 7 instruments.

[Clough]

What instruments do you play, please?

Thanks!

[Blackkdark]

Piano, guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, tin whistle. I also know music theory and can sing.

[Clough]

That's cool, Blackkdark!

It looks like you and I have quite a bit in common!

Are you into the composition of music at all, like composing pieces and/or songs?

Thanks!

[ravana2]

You started discussion about alphabet . I shell like to continuo it .

English has a very difficult orthography or at least lets say it is not phonetic .

My question is :

What is your opinion about shavian alphabet . Was that a good idea ?

I know for an experiment called desert alphabet but it did not succeed ?

So shavian or latin alphabet ?

Then we can go back to " olde " english .

[Blackkdark]

Latin. For many reasons. One, it is the most widely used alphabet in the world. Two, because our language actually was once phonetic. It's actually not the Latin alphabet's fault, it's the sound shifts of the English language, such as the Great Vowel Shift. Three, because never have constructed alphabets work as a permanent alphabet system.

I myself even created an alphabet, based with the Latin Alphabet, useful for having a more phonetic form for English. You can see it here: Tower Orthography or Tower Orthography - FrathWiki

Ultimately, you have to stick with the alphabet you know. We'd need another language shift in order for that to work, and probably a language council like in France or Germany.

And just say Old English, or Anglo-Saxon

[ravana2]

What about shell , will , shalt in shakespearean time ?

Is was shell just for the 1 st person singular and plural .

[Blackkdark]

Um, I don't know what you mean by Shell. I'm not sure if you mean she'll, shell, or SHALL. The latter is the most likely case so I'll just go with that one.

Shall comes from Old English sculan, 1st and 3rd person singular sceal. It mean more of a sign of obligation, not future. (there was no future tense in Old English). In fact it's past tense was scolde, which becomes should in modern english. The 2nd person version was scealt, which is the origin of shalt. The German cognate is Sollen, meaning should, ought to, must
Will, on the other hand comes from the Old English verb willan (related to the German Willen), both meaning to want, or to will.

Later when they were both used for the future tense, the difference was whether the speaker wanted it to happen. So if I said, "I will go there," that means I will in the future go there because I want to. The opposite being, "I shall go there," meaning I will in the future go there because I am obligated to, or whether I want to or not.

There was a joke about a scotsman who didn't get the difference and whilst drowning, he yelled, "I will drown and no one shall help me," which indicated that he wanted to drown, he really meant, "I shall drown, and no one will help me?"