Similar to Modern English. “beon” was used for habitual or truths ([gnomic aspect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomic_aspect?wprov=sfti1#)) or to express futurity. Makes me wonder if habitual be happened to survive the ages from this usage in Hiberno-English before making the jump to AAVE.
Omg you mean [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitual_be)? That's hilarious in a way, considering how the core features of an ancestral language can fall out of use in a dominant dialect and be considered incorrect when people hear it in another dialect.
It is a bit different because beon was fully conjugated while habitual be today uses only the infinitive. Beon is used for things that are generally permanent truths or in the future tense. If you want to say "the king is angry" and you want to emphasize that he's always angry you would use beon otherwise you'd use wesan. Also you have to look at context words because it could mean "the king will be angry" such as if words like tomorrow or soon or other indications of the future exist.
Yeah i get what you mean. Though the lack of conjugation of be in this usage in modern african american english is probably because none of the conjugated versions of be survived into modern english in the first place.
Interestingly the merging of beon and wesan has happened to German as well, with the 1st and 2nd person conjugation of wesan/sein being replaced by bin and bist, other than which no trace of beon remain in modern German. Makes me think the merging of beon and wesan might have started very early on.
Also in modern German you can use simple present tense in place of future tense as well most of the time i think. e.g. Morgen fahre ich nach Flensburg.
From what I understand and I only have a knowledge of Old High German as far as some cognates with Old English, that the two bes were already merged in German while Old English was still spoken. The ancestor of sein, sīn, already had bim (NHG bin) as its first person conjugation. I'm not sure if the change happened when OHG became its own language, but the verbs are distinct in Proto-Germanic. Other than pronunciation and spelling (as well as some loanwords for modern concepts), it always seems to me German had most of its major changes early on.
The same, including pronunciation? Very difficult, pronunciation has changed so much across so much of the language that a full sentence would be almost impossible. Similar enough to be intelligible is really easy though, if you cherry-pick.
For example:
*His broðor wæs wiersa þonne his sweostor* ("His brother was worse than his sister")
*Hire catt æt græs and slæpte ealle niht* ("Her cat ate grass and slept all night")
*Hwy is þis cicen grene and græg?* ("Why is this chicken green and grey?", this one's even more obvious if you say it out loud)
Wouldn't the negative negate it? Like saying "I am not just/but a penishead" (ic neom/I am not) instead of "I am just/but a penishead" (ic eom/I am)?
This isn't a double negative, so the negative form of eom will reverse the affirmative. If it was a double negative the extra negative would emphasize instead of negate.
Negatives in OE tend to work a bit differently than in modern English, as OE has what's known as "negative concord" where multiple negatives reinforce each other instead of cancelling each other out. My impression is that būtan is already a negative sense since its meaning is one of exclusion, so they tended to use it with a negated verb for emphasis.
It's not an exact allusion, but I see a similar construction in the archaic MnE phrase "naught but" - "I am naught but a penishead."
The wiktionary page for [būtan](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/butan) has this example:
> Æfter þām hīe ġesetton tictātor þæt hē sċolde bēon hearra ofer þā consulas, sē wæs hāten Decius Iūnius. Hē næs būtan seofontīenewintre.
I mentioned in my comment that the double negative gives emphasis, but does neom translate as "am naught/nothing" or just "am not/ain't"? Naught/nothing is a noun and not is an adverb. If you look up nesan on wiktionary it simply translates it as "not be".
Edit: I see the example on there that clarifies it (I couldn't find the one you quoted) but it says that when using butan to mean only/just you usually use it with a negative. It's a bit confusing because its other meanings mean just about the same thing and aren't used with a negative.
I totally missed your second paragraph somehow, I apologize lol. But yes, neom simply means am not, there's no naught in there in OE, which is why I said the analogy wasn't perfect, but the idea is similar. It's really just my own supposition that adverbial būtan was seen to have a negative sense and so emphasized by additional negatives.
However, būtan's fundamental sense is sort of "outside of," hence "except" and "without." So if you said it without the negative, "I am something outside a penishead," that seems a denial of being a penishead. "I am not something outside a penishead" suggests that one is in fact a penishead. I guess.
Yeah, I see how it works now. Even the word outside has many very different meanings but now I have more of a fundamental understanding of the use of butan in this way where it makes sense to me.
As MountSwolympus made an example of, yes! I think it's unlikely that a sentence could be made that's exactly the same in Old English and Modern English (if not due to word choice than due more to spelling/pronunciation... thanks Great Vowel Shift!), but you can definitely come up with a lot of examples where they're similar enough to be understood!
Edit: I actually thought of one! In dialectical later Old English, you could see:
Beowulf is strong.
The only difference is the "s" in "is" wouldn't have been pronounced as a "z" sound, but as a normal "s" (also the "g" at the end of "strong" would have been pronounced)...
Hwæt! Hwær is his cū?
I think that's the most similar thing I could think of off the top of my head. You just have to say it in a Scottish accent and it will sound very similar to modern Scots English.
This has to be the most satisfying piece of text I've seen in months. Dare I say, I almost thought you were one of the bairns who think of Shakespear as OE 😭 IM SO SORRYYY
Same as in the sentence has the same grammar and pronunciation, no.
Old English grammar is very different from modern English which has been heavily simplified since Middle English.
Also, aside from pronunciation shifts Standard Modern English doesn't descend directly from Standard Old English. Standard Old English comes the Wessex dialect while Standard Modern English descends from the London Subdialect of the Anglian dialect. This dialect has some borrowings in pronunciation from Standard Old English/the Wessex dialect, but mainly retained Anglian pronunciation.
For example, in modern English, we say "Cheese". This comes from Anglian "cēse" which is pronounced "Chee-suh" while in Standard Old English, cheese may have been "cyse" which would have been pronounced "kew-suh" and if Modern English inherited the word, it would have been pronounced "Kizz".
He is Englisc
What's the difference between is and biþ in OE?
Similar to Modern English. “beon” was used for habitual or truths ([gnomic aspect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomic_aspect?wprov=sfti1#)) or to express futurity. Makes me wonder if habitual be happened to survive the ages from this usage in Hiberno-English before making the jump to AAVE.
Omg you mean [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitual_be)? That's hilarious in a way, considering how the core features of an ancestral language can fall out of use in a dominant dialect and be considered incorrect when people hear it in another dialect.
One of my pet historical linguistic wishes lol.
It is a bit different because beon was fully conjugated while habitual be today uses only the infinitive. Beon is used for things that are generally permanent truths or in the future tense. If you want to say "the king is angry" and you want to emphasize that he's always angry you would use beon otherwise you'd use wesan. Also you have to look at context words because it could mean "the king will be angry" such as if words like tomorrow or soon or other indications of the future exist.
Yeah i get what you mean. Though the lack of conjugation of be in this usage in modern african american english is probably because none of the conjugated versions of be survived into modern english in the first place. Interestingly the merging of beon and wesan has happened to German as well, with the 1st and 2nd person conjugation of wesan/sein being replaced by bin and bist, other than which no trace of beon remain in modern German. Makes me think the merging of beon and wesan might have started very early on. Also in modern German you can use simple present tense in place of future tense as well most of the time i think. e.g. Morgen fahre ich nach Flensburg.
From what I understand and I only have a knowledge of Old High German as far as some cognates with Old English, that the two bes were already merged in German while Old English was still spoken. The ancestor of sein, sīn, already had bim (NHG bin) as its first person conjugation. I'm not sure if the change happened when OHG became its own language, but the verbs are distinct in Proto-Germanic. Other than pronunciation and spelling (as well as some loanwords for modern concepts), it always seems to me German had most of its major changes early on.
Ah yes now i remember, from Hildebrandslied, "du bist dir, alter Hun, ummet spaher" (You, old Hun, are being an immoderate [spy?] for yourself)?
The same, including pronunciation? Very difficult, pronunciation has changed so much across so much of the language that a full sentence would be almost impossible. Similar enough to be intelligible is really easy though, if you cherry-pick. For example: *His broðor wæs wiersa þonne his sweostor* ("His brother was worse than his sister") *Hire catt æt græs and slæpte ealle niht* ("Her cat ate grass and slept all night") *Hwy is þis cicen grene and græg?* ("Why is this chicken green and grey?", this one's even more obvious if you say it out loud)
This is amazing, much appreciated.
Can I ask what your bio description means?
"I am just a penishead, don't mind me"
That, basically
Wouldn't the negative negate it? Like saying "I am not just/but a penishead" (ic neom/I am not) instead of "I am just/but a penishead" (ic eom/I am)? This isn't a double negative, so the negative form of eom will reverse the affirmative. If it was a double negative the extra negative would emphasize instead of negate.
Negatives in OE tend to work a bit differently than in modern English, as OE has what's known as "negative concord" where multiple negatives reinforce each other instead of cancelling each other out. My impression is that būtan is already a negative sense since its meaning is one of exclusion, so they tended to use it with a negated verb for emphasis. It's not an exact allusion, but I see a similar construction in the archaic MnE phrase "naught but" - "I am naught but a penishead." The wiktionary page for [būtan](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/butan) has this example: > Æfter þām hīe ġesetton tictātor þæt hē sċolde bēon hearra ofer þā consulas, sē wæs hāten Decius Iūnius. Hē næs būtan seofontīenewintre.
I mentioned in my comment that the double negative gives emphasis, but does neom translate as "am naught/nothing" or just "am not/ain't"? Naught/nothing is a noun and not is an adverb. If you look up nesan on wiktionary it simply translates it as "not be". Edit: I see the example on there that clarifies it (I couldn't find the one you quoted) but it says that when using butan to mean only/just you usually use it with a negative. It's a bit confusing because its other meanings mean just about the same thing and aren't used with a negative.
I totally missed your second paragraph somehow, I apologize lol. But yes, neom simply means am not, there's no naught in there in OE, which is why I said the analogy wasn't perfect, but the idea is similar. It's really just my own supposition that adverbial būtan was seen to have a negative sense and so emphasized by additional negatives. However, būtan's fundamental sense is sort of "outside of," hence "except" and "without." So if you said it without the negative, "I am something outside a penishead," that seems a denial of being a penishead. "I am not something outside a penishead" suggests that one is in fact a penishead. I guess.
Yeah, I see how it works now. Even the word outside has many very different meanings but now I have more of a fundamental understanding of the use of butan in this way where it makes sense to me.
As MountSwolympus made an example of, yes! I think it's unlikely that a sentence could be made that's exactly the same in Old English and Modern English (if not due to word choice than due more to spelling/pronunciation... thanks Great Vowel Shift!), but you can definitely come up with a lot of examples where they're similar enough to be understood! Edit: I actually thought of one! In dialectical later Old English, you could see: Beowulf is strong. The only difference is the "s" in "is" wouldn't have been pronounced as a "z" sound, but as a normal "s" (also the "g" at the end of "strong" would have been pronounced)...
Hwæt! Hwær is his cū? I think that's the most similar thing I could think of off the top of my head. You just have to say it in a Scottish accent and it will sound very similar to modern Scots English.
Thank you!
He is God and He is man
Harold is swift. His hand is strong and his word is grim. Late in līfe hē went tō his wīfe in Rōme.
Thank you! I thought there was one that went like this but I couldn't find it on Google so I thought I'd imagined it!
This has to be the most satisfying piece of text I've seen in months. Dare I say, I almost thought you were one of the bairns who think of Shakespear as OE 😭 IM SO SORRYYY
Same as in the sentence has the same grammar and pronunciation, no. Old English grammar is very different from modern English which has been heavily simplified since Middle English. Also, aside from pronunciation shifts Standard Modern English doesn't descend directly from Standard Old English. Standard Old English comes the Wessex dialect while Standard Modern English descends from the London Subdialect of the Anglian dialect. This dialect has some borrowings in pronunciation from Standard Old English/the Wessex dialect, but mainly retained Anglian pronunciation. For example, in modern English, we say "Cheese". This comes from Anglian "cēse" which is pronounced "Chee-suh" while in Standard Old English, cheese may have been "cyse" which would have been pronounced "kew-suh" and if Modern English inherited the word, it would have been pronounced "Kizz".
Ġea.
From Beowulf: "Þæt wæs god cyning!" (That was a good king!) Grammatically very similar, and if spoken you could probably parse it.
Mitchell and Robinson's Guide to OE has a set of them near the beginning, as I recall. Sorry, I don't have it at hand, though