The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1961, Side 19

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
17
guages as much so, for example as Lat-
in and Spanish.” (Opus. Cit. p. o87.)
The best way to illustrate the dif-
ference between Anglo-Saxon and
Modern English is to quote from
‘‘Beowulf”, the oldest English epic.
The following are the first five and
the last five lines, quoted from
“Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry”, ed-
ited by Harrison and Sharp (Ginn &
Company, Publishers)
TJWAT! we Gfli-Dena in ge&r-dagtim
-L*- )>c6d-cyninga |>rym gcfnmon,
lift pA aSelingas cllen frcmedon.
Oft Scyld ScOfing sceaSena |>redtum,
monegnm miegiSuin meodo-setla oftedh.
Swd begnornodon Gedta leOcie
hldfordes hryre, hcorS-genedtas,
cwtedon ]>;it he waere woruld-cyning
mannum mildust and mon-j>w:en.jst,
leddum liiiost and lof-geornost.
The following is a translation (Beo-
wulf, Oxford University Press 1940)
by Charles W. Kennedy, then Murray
Professor of English Literature in
Princeton University.
Lo! we have listened to many a lay
Of the Spear-Danes’ fame,
their splendor of old,
Their mighty princes, and martial
deeds!
Many a mead-hall Scyld, son of Sceaf,
Snatched from the forces of savage foes.
So the folk of the Geats, the friends
of his hearth,
Bemoaned the fall of their mighty lord;
Said he was kindest of worldly kings,
Mildest, most gentle, most eager for
fame.
Care must be taken to distinguish
between the four ancestor languages
or dialects and words subsequently
added. English has a multitude of
words from the Celtic languages and
Norman French. Most new words
added in modern times are Greek or
Latin derivatives. They all are valuable
additions, but only additions. English
is a Nordic not a Celtic or a Roman
language. If a country can have a
soul so a language can have a soul.
The soul of modern English is to be
found in Old English or Anglo-Saxon,
using those words in the wider sense
to include the four Nordic elements
already mentioned.
2. The Common Origin and the
Intertwining in Development of Eng-
lish and Icelandic
Both these present day languages
are descended from a language or a
dialect of a language spoken in North
Central Europe and the Scandinavian
peninsula about two thousand years
ago. But there is a philological kin-
ship between these two languages
which arose through something much
closer and more tangible than a mere
common origin. During the centuries
of Norse migrations to the Western
Islands, and to Iceland, and the fol-
lowing centuries down to the Norman
conquest the impact of Norse on the
spoken language of the north af Scot-
land and of Ireland, and of northern
and central England was very marked
—much more than the addition of for-
eign words. It was the spoken language
in the areas occupied by the Norsemen
and spread out as these people moved
in different directions. For instance,
the people of the earlier Norse migra-
tion to the north of Scotland and Ire-
land did not all settle there permanent-
ly. After a generation or two some of