New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome (tcd.ie)

Article could benefit from some editing: the poem is from variously the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries! After reading a few times I get that one date is the supposed composition date, the second is the publication date of Beade, and the last is the date of transcription for the copy in Rome.

Of course the article is about the archaeological discovery, but if you're curious (as I was) what the poem is, it's "Caedmon’s Hymn":

"Now we must praise the protector of the heavenly kingdom the might of the measurer and his mind’s purpose, the work of the father of glory, as he for each of his wonders, the eternal Lord, established a beginning. He shaped first for the sons of the earth heaven as a roof, the holy maker; then the middle-world, mankind’s guardian, the eternal Lord, made afterwards, solid ground for men, the almighty Lord."

via https://imagejournal.org/article/caedmons-hymn-the-first-eng...

1,3k years ago is such a weird way to write it. Makes sense if we are talking millions of years, but why not write "in 700" or just "1300 years ago"

My degree is in Celtic Studies. This kind of discovery may be surprising to those not versed in it but not those who have studied these languages. Some of the best preserved Old Irish, for instance, is in St. Gallen in what is now Austria and Milan.

There is still an entire Medieval European world out there in the archives still waiting to be discovered. Sadly, there are not many of us who have the skills to do this and we are not paid very well or often not at all.

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This is the text in Old English for anyone looking: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47296/caedmons-hymn-5...

Actually, here is the full text with the modern English inserted:

  Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard
  Now let us praise Heaven-Kingdom's guardian,

  metudæs mehti and his modgithanc
  the Maker's might and his mind's thoughts,

  uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuæs
  the work of the glory-father—of every wonder,

  eci dryctin or astelidæ.
  eternal Lord. He established a beginning.

  he ærist scop ældu barnum
  He first shaped for men's sons

  hefen to hrofæ halig sceppend
  Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator;

  tha middingard moncynnæs uard
  then middle-earth mankind's guardian,

  eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
  eternal Lord, afterwards prepared

  firum foldu frea allmehtig
  the earth for men, the Lord almighty.

For those interested in learning old English, I’ve been going through Oswald Bera by Colin Gorrie -

https://colingorrie.com/books/osweald-bera/

Basically it’s a full blown story/graded reader with no modern English apart from vocabulary. You build an understanding of the language as you read the book and what is initially gibberish becomes quite clear as you progress . It does help if you’ve had a lot of exposure to German ( vocab and grammar), or barring this any case inflected language.

What’s noticeable is that it’s about 200 pages long, so the story gets quite sophisticated , and rather unexpectedly the book is a bit of a page-turner !

I bet it starts "Roses are red, violets are blue..."

Here is the translation from the article. Which is slightly different from what is listed below in the comments.

Now let us praise Heaven-Kingdom's guardian, the Maker's might and his mind's thoughts, the work of the glory-father—of every wonder, eternal Lord. He established a beginning. He first shaped for men's sons Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator; then middle-earth mankind's guardian, eternal Lord, afterwards prepared the earth for men, the Lord almighty.

Here's the old English poem! https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47296/caedmons-hymn-5... Should be in the public domain by now eh?

  Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard
  metudæs mehti and his modgithanc
  uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuæs
  eci dryctin or astelidæ.
  he ærist scop ældu barnum
  hefen to hrofæ halig sceppend
  tha middingard moncynnæs uard
  eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
  firum foldu frea allmehtig

I couldn't make hide nor hair of it without the translation, but with the translation I see quite a few more words than just "and his" that have stayed around:

  hefen: heaven
  uerc: work
  uard: guard/ward
  hrofæ: roof
  æfter: after
  middingard: Earth, to Marvel
  allmehtig: almighty

It really baffles (and amazes) me that Old English is practically unintelligible to modern day English speakers.

I absolutely love post-Roman, pre-Norman British writing because it's so rare it gives the era a sense of mystery. This is of course the time when King Arthur is supposed to have lived. In the absence of contemporary records, the impulse to fill it with wizards and dragons is understandable.

I wonder if it starts "There once was a man from Londinium..."

- I'll get my coat...

It's absolutely amazing to me that we're still discovering things that are held by major libraries. This wasn't discovered in a limestone tomb, accidentally preserved. It wasn't in the basement of some hoary building that was once the personal library of the Medici.

This was in a modern library that was built recently (1975), by historical standards. This book would have been, at minimum, catalogued, packed, and unpacked to verify it made the trip. It was't missing. It wasn't unearthed. It was just never read.

https://www.cenl.org/library/the-central-national-library-of...

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This is the sort of discovery that makes digitization projects feel genuinely magical

Not sure why they classified this language as 'old English'. It's so far removed (from all perspectives including a fundamentally different grammatical system) from modern or even early modern English, it's a completely different language altogether. I find "old English" to be a highly a misleading name as it implies continuity that simply isn't there in the same way it exists in say German.

Roman here. We have a joke that we cannot dig a hole in the ground without finding a piece of our past, and that makes us hard to progress. Now we are also finding pieces of someone else's past. We are doomed.