Translating/Undestanding Texts.

[Kyle Watson]

Hi,

I am currently trying to read Additional Manuscript 39564 and cannot understand a thing!

Can anyone help? "Ye Olde Englyshe" is NOT my strong point.

Also if there is a glossary of terms anywhere on this website, can someone please point me in the right direction...

Thanks.

Kyle C. Watson

[Brian Hunt]

Hi Kyle,

part of the problem with these english texts is that they use terms for specific strikes, and we don't really know what they mean. If we didn't have specific instruction for how to throw a zornhaw, or any of the other german strikes, we would be in the same boat with the Lichtenaurer tradition.

The english manuals use things like a Hauke, an Awk, a Round, a Rake, etc. They don't specify what they are.

An Awk may be a downright blow, a Hauke may be any type of a blow (like a haw). While Awks are also Haukes, not all Haukes are Awks. Awks may even be a reverse blow, that is one theory anyway. A Rake may be a raking type of a cut, a Round may be a horizontal strike, etc.

Good luck, just remember that the spellings are diffrent from modern conventions. It helps to try and read the english manuscripts aloud.

hope this helps some.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[Jaron Bernstein]

Know werd everre spelld ye sme wayy twycce. <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />

[Brian Hunt]

Here are some helpful links

http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/Harleian.htm

http://www.thearma.org/essays/PoemMS3542.htm

http://www.thearma.org/terms2.htm

and this thread on sword forum has some interesting ideas about the English manuscripts.

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=&amp;threadid=40046&amp;perpage=25&amp;pagenumber=1

hope this helps.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[Jeffrey Hull]

For the reasons that BH stated, it is practically simpler to deal with the Middle High German texts than the archaic English sometimes.

But I mean that not discourage you from the English texts. Those links to the groundbreaking work that JC has done regarding the English stuff shall give you lots to fathom.

[Kyle Watson]

Thankyou all very much.

I will be sure to have a real dig thru the above links, its funny how we (Those who are english speaking) can understand the german texts but haven't a clue when it comes to our (language wise) own texts.

thanks again.

Kyle C. Watson

[Mike_McGurk]

You shouldn't look at it as archaic English, but rather as the seperate language that is, Middle English. A manual written in archaic English would likely concern foyning fencing. The main difficulty, however, in dealing with Middle English texts is that there was no standardised written language which means that one must either know most of the variation or have some pretty damn good intuition.

As for many of the variations of ME, here is a good site:

http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/med

They change their password regularly, but post it on their site.