Universität Koblenz - Landau, SS 2001 Abteilung Landau

Seminar: Laut- und Formenlehre des Altenglischen (Sprachwiss.)

Thema:

Table of contents

1.  How and why we dare to guess how extinct languages sounded  

2.  A Word On Bookprint In England  

3.  Sounds And Letters In Early English Writing  

3.  1) Consonants  

3.  2) Digraphs  

3.  3) Simple Vowels  

3.  4) Diphthongs  

4.  Changes In Latin Lettering  

Literaturliste   

1.  How and why we dare to guess how extinct languages sounded  1

During  the studies of extinct languages such as Latin and old  

English  , the question about the language itself is asked far too  

seldom.  Too many students see these languages as mere  

conglomerations  of grammar, forgetting that even today they  

are  full of life and tell us about their former native speakers  

and  culture.  

1  Die einleitenden Sätze waren in der Präsentation noch nicht konzipiert und wurden erst  

im  September 2001 der Ausarbeitung hinzugefügt.  

2  Zu den aufgelisteten Punkten vgl. Clark  

3

Losing the contact to language as sign of life and culture, however, often makes us forget that language means mainly spoken language which linguistics is generally supposed to deal with. This leads to the question on the methods of finding out how people spoke in former times. The most popular methods are listed below as quoted from Clark. 2