Month: April 2010

The Lasting Words of the Anglo-Saxons

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April 20, 2010

6:30 pm

4 Comments on The Lasting Words of the Anglo-Saxons

Class Work

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Ros cartoon with tissue box (sick)I’m sorry I can’t be at school to see you today. I can barely speak. Luckily Ms Taylor can use her melodious and completely functional voice instead.

Anyway, I don’t need to be there to speak to you. I have the written word, that invention of the Sumerians that changed the world and created the study and recording of history. I also have this little blog, which receives the words I type and then flings them into cyberspace for you to find. Magic, isn’t it?

Of course, the Anglo-Saxons did not have the blogging option. Their communication was mostly oral. When they did write, they ripped their words into wood or stone, using the angular runic letters most suited to writing with a knife. Our verb to write is related to the German verb, reiβen or reissen, meaning to rip or to tear.

Beowulf_firstpage pd wikimedia commonsYet here’s the remarkable thing: across the gulf of time between those people 1500 years ago and the world today, their words have come to us. Their words became the language known by dictionary writers as Old English. Those long-ago farmers with their warlike stories and their riddles rich with metaphor gave us the building blocks of modern English, which has now become a world language. Who would have thought it?

There’s a resource that allows you to trace the history of our language from way back then. The wonderful BBC website has “The Ages of English Timeline”, which allows you to discover the history of English for yourselves. Judging from your startling, fluent and witty assignments on ancient Egypt, you love your language already. This timeline takes you back to its origins.

I have to warn you that it’s a little spooky to listen to a passage of Old English being spoken. It sounds oddly familiar and yet quite foreign.

medieval face from http retrokat.com medievalRead a scholarly account of the Anglo-Saxon contributions to English here. Don’t be put off by the word scholarly. It’s very interesting to find out how Old English was written. This will help you to read the Old English in Act 1 of the Timeline (link below this).

medieval face from http retrokat.com medievalLaunch the Ages of English Timeline from the BBC Website

The ? symbol on the top right tells you how to use the Timeline in the most productive way. Try to click on and read every detail for each of the first three acts. Listen to the spoken versions of Old English; for instance, the Anchor Riddle and the excerpt from Beowulf.

Map of Britain in Anglo-Saxon times from Wikimedia CommonsYou’ll notice that the language sounds a little bit like German. There’s a reason for that. The Anglo-Saxons spoke a Germanic language. Many of the words of Old English are very similar to modern German words as well as to modern English. The words that are similar in English and German are often the words that come from Old English: house (Haus), sheep (Schaf), brother (Bruder), sister (Schwester), midday (Mittag), hound (Hund), swine (Schwein), hundred (Hundert), etc. They are the common, everyday words, although now we use “dog” and “pig” more than hound and swine.

Anglo-Saxon furniture of about the tenth century from an old manuscript in the British MuseumAfter you have spent some time reading and listening to the first three acts of this timeline, leave a comment describing something that you found out about the history of English. Try to make it clear and informative for the benefit of others.

Legacies of Ancient Egypt – and 7X

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April 11, 2010

7:23 pm

15 Comments on Legacies of Ancient Egypt – and 7X

Class Work

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A legacy in this context means a special contribution that a civilisation leaves behind. It might include:

Clipart kindly provided by www.phillipmartin.info A famous piece of ancient architecture. Can you think of other arenas based on this concept?

  • a memorable idea such as a special way of organising a society or dealing with a problem;

  • some kind of scientific knowledge;

  • an invention;

  • a monument;

  • a skill;

  • an impressive achievement in art, government, literature, etc;

  • something that later societies have admired and sought to emulate.

For instance, ancient Sumerians are believed to have been the first to create a writing system. They pressed wedge-shaped marks into clay tablets. Many historians believe that this is what gave the Egyptians the idea of developing hieroglyphs.

Here’s a quotation from an article about the 20-year history of the internet, by Guy Rundle in The Age on Sunday 15 March:

“Five thousand years ago, the invention of writing in Mesopotamia [Sumer] separated information from presence – a few strokes of cuneiform on a clay tablet established that meaning, intent, communication could be separated and transmitted without a person there to present it.

“From this event flows every modern institution of the state…”

That’s some legacy!

Cuneiform – clipart kindly provided by www.phillipmartin.info I always think that it would be wonderful if the first writing was created to write love poems or great literature. But no – someone wanted a receipt. Sigh. This is a material world.

The ancient Egyptians had many achievements over the course of their long history. Their beautiful tomb paintings, for example, show us all about their lives on the Nile River. They drew figures in a way that changed little over the years. Can you think of other great and inspiring achievements that others might have built upon?

Egyptian peasants during harvest – note the side-on presentation of the bodies in classic Egyptian style
Image in public domain from wikimedia.commons

See what you can find out about the legacies of the ancient Egyptians at these sites.

****************************************************************Mathematics:

http://math.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_mathematics_of_ancient_egypt

Ancient Egyptian ideas about pi:

http://ualr.edu/lasmoller/pi.html

Ancient Egyptian art:

http://www.aldokkan.com/art/art.htm

Ancient Egyptian water engineering and inventions: http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/nile/t1.html

(You’ll need to scroll down to read the vital information.)

Managing time – calendars and clocks: http://library.thinkquest.org/J002046F/technology.htm

Ancient Egyptian writing:

http://www.ancientscripts.com/egyptian.html

Your task: Leave a comment describing the ancient Egyptian legacy you consider most interesting, significant or worthwhile.

Then answer this question: What legacy would you as an individual like to leave behind? Another way to put this could be: How do you intend to leave the world a better place than you found it?

My legacy…