Thaet waes god blog

Corrections: Helfen is German. I remembered that eventually. So I thought helpan must be Swedish or something. But in Swedish it's hjälpan. Turns out helpan is Old English. I knew it was something. Good thing, too, because I was going to invoke the Frisians before I admitted I'd just made up a word in one of these languages I don't actually speak. I'm not sure any of them should be used as a gerund, anyway, which was what I intended. "The people need helping."

Frisian is an interesting side note. Old Frisian was a child of Low West Germanic (Ingaevonic), like Old English and Old Low German, but Frisian today has moved close enough to Dutch that some only consider it a dialect of Dutch. See, Dutch comes from Low Franconian, itself a child of Low German, Frisian's sister tongue. It seems incestuous, and temporally problematic.

The Frisians and the Jutes, furthermore, may be the same people. Would that make Early West Saxon a pidgin of Old Frisian and Old English? I don't know. Famke Janssen is hot. I think that was my point.

Oddly enough, I've just discovered in my Tolkien language book that the language of Rohan in LotR is largely derivative of Old English. Get ready for the psychic mojo: I ended yesterday's post with "Waes thu hal" or "be you well." Last night we watched The Two Towers, in which Gandalf says the exact same thing over the grave of Rohirrim prince Theoden.

I am, like, so Gandalf. Boo ya.