Old English I

Catalog description

The main purpose of this course is to teach students to read Old English ("Anglo-Saxon"), chiefly but not exclusively for research in linguistics. Grammar will be heavily emphasized; there will also be lectures on the immediate prehistory of the language, since the morphology of Old English was made unusually complex by interacting sound changes. In the first eight weeks we will work through Moore and Knott's "Elements of Grammar" and learn the grammar; the remainder of the term will be devoted to reading texts.