The Adventure of English

The Adventure of English – Birth of a Language

21-22.30 m.

The harp is called gleobeam, the glee beam, the happy wood, or else the joy wood, I think gumanwudu. Swords or shields. The shield is the war board, wig bord. That is a specific poetic energy that’s in the language, the ability to make compounds which is still in German, I guess, that gives it great beauty.

• How extensive is the vocabulary?

I think there are 40,000 words recorded in «Beowulf». But a lot of the words repeat themselves in. now, probably this is poetry more than in prose. If we heard an Anglo-Saxon speaker speaking under his companion, we probably hear a quicker, a different, less elaborate language from «Beowulf».

• Would you say it is very clearly written to be read aloud?

Its certainly written to be read aloud. The question that agitates some scholars is whether it was written, you know. But I think the general consensus now is that by the time you get to «Beowulf», you have a writer dealing with a traditional oral language.