h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'd hate to be there when you DID understand something then - word perfect. It's the earliest sentence of written English prose and, as such, should be somewhere in the British English thread. King Alfred started a lot of things in England (including English cookery). One of his brighter ideas was getting travellers who turned up at court to tell him about their wanderings and this chap Uther/Arthur kicked off by saying he lived farther north than anyone else. The only word that doesn't exist in modern English is "bude" which was the past tense of "bide"(to dwell), but we still use 'bide', 'abide', 'abode', even if less often now that Wembley is being demolished

Wand'rin, if he lived farther north than anyone else, Uther wasn't a Norman, he was Father Christmas.

There will be another stadium to sing in eventually. I mean they have to finish the new one in Manchester for next summer.

Isn't Bude in Cornwall?

How does it qualify as 'English'?

Kaeori, I assume your question is, how does Old English qualify as English? It is the original language that present day English descended from, but it is also close to the original languages that German, Dutch and Scandinavian descended from. It is very far removed from Latin and the Latin-based languages, although modern English had borrowed hugely from these languages.

You can see how close it is to English in that I who have never learnt the language was able to guess exactly what the sentence Star wrote meant just by extrapolation and a bit of guesswork.

Wembley stadium was the national footie place, but that's not your question is it?On cup final day, it is traditional to sing the hymn 'Abide with me'
Many Cornishmen do not consider themselves English and some of them are trying to revive the Cornish language, but that's not your question either is it?
See what you can find out about Aelfred tha Kyning then. He is generally considered to have been an allround good thing and by winning the battle of Ethandun ensured that ALL of us speak Anglisc rather than Norse.As I mentioned above, the sentence is the first known bit of English prose. "Arthur told his lord, King Alfred, that he lived the fathest north of all men"

Actually there's a rather good biography of Alfred the Great on the Queen's website

..there sure is - its a well known fact that Freddy Mercury and old King Alf were drinking buddies..

.... especially when he was going slightly mad....

No I don't think it was Alfred that Freddy had the thing for.
It was that silly Cnut!

who definitely was not speaking English
As always, John has provided the first laugh of the day.

I've been away (or at least tired and apathetic) for a while. Has anything much happened recently?

Indeed, Potholer, much has happened. And nothing more astonishing than the revelation that may not be stupid after all.

'The Times' notes today that have a keen intellect and can remember dozens of faces, learn complex tasks and even pine for absent friends and shepherds, according to a new study.

"They can recall at least 50 sheep faces for a period of about two years and can identify individual human beings, researchers at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge have found."

Reseachers became suspicious when they noticed reading the journal 'Nature' between grassy snacks.

Read the whole amazing story online. I've put the link on my page(http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/U40652 - that's my page, not the link).

So, to justify this posting: is 'baa' an English word, an international word, or just a word?

I seem to remember someone somewhere in the dark ages did an experiment to find out the origin of language, the mother of all languages, etc., and isolated two children from birth and let them grow up in a shack somewhere miles from anywhere. It turned out that when they tested the children at the age of about 10 or so, the only words they could say were "baa" - which they had picked up from the local sheep. No idea where I read this, but I have a vague idea that it was in France under one of the Louis.

Although it is somewhat off topic, I can tell you that French go 'me-eh'.
(See - reading all those Lucky Luke cartoons did have a use )

Kaeori, Baa is undoubtedly a sheep word, but it has also been an English word since 1586. I don't know if sheep in other countries say "baa". Often the noises that animals make in other languages are different from the normal way of spelling them in English. For example, cocks say "cocorico" in France.

Baa humbug!

Hmm, seems animals in France are a bit strange. I guess it could be just their French accent, but from what Duncan says, a in France sounds like a . I wonder what their s sound like?

I've always been fascinated by the concept that animals speak different languages around the world. Anyone care to volunteer some more?

Sorry, no animal languages, but does anyone know where "Parky" comes from?
{{}}