Potential "Controversies" in Ōsweald Bera
On the trade-offs inherent in writing a graded reader
When writing a book for beginners of a language, trade-offs will inevitably need to be made. What do we prioritize? A gradual introduction of new grammatical concepts? A limited number of vocabulary items to learn? An exciting story? All of these seem desirable, but they are often in tension with each other.
One good example comes from the first chapter of Ōsweald Bera, which describes, among other things, Ōsweald’s living arrangements.
Ōsweald Bera wunaþ on holte.
‘Ōsweald Bear lives in a forest.’
Old English has a variety of words for forest. None of them is related to the word forest, which is first attested in English in the late 13th century, that is, firmly within the Middle English period.
If you’re curious, the word forest comes from Old French, and derives from a Medieval Latin expression foreste(m) silva(m) ‘the outside forest’, as opposed to the part of the forest that is fenced in (OED).
All of that means that using the word forest was out of bounds.
What words did Old English have? Wudu, holt, weald, among others. Of these, wudu is the most common, and has the benefit of being ancestral to the commonly used Modern English wood – which, then and now, could mean either a forested bit of land or the building material you get from trees.
Holt will be familiar to students of German, since German has the word Holz. But Modern English doesn’t give us much help with holt.
As an aside, Middle English does help us with holt: Chaucer begins the Canterbury Tales by setting his story in the time of year
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth // Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
‘When Zephyr too with his sweet breath // has breathed into every wood and field’.
But not everyone had an English teacher like mine, who was so passionate about Chaucer that she made us memorize the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales. (Or perhaps you did?)
Weald gives us the Modern English place name The Weald, a (formerly) forested tract in Southeastern England, where the Danes built a fortress in Alfred the Great’s day. It also gives us the relatively rare word wold, which once meant ‘forest’ but now, when it’s used at all, means elevated open country. There’s a story about deforestation to be told in these etymologies. But I digress.
Instead of either of these words, I chose to introduce the rarer term holt in the first chapter. Why? Would it not make sense to use the more common word wudu, especially given that it has such a clear modern English descendant?
As it turns out, the fact that wudu is such a common word makes it harder for me to use it in the first chapter, rather than easier. This is because, like so many high-frequency words, wudu is irregular.
More precisely, wudu is a special kind of noun which behaves differently from most other Old English nouns. It’s a u-stem, if you’re into the nitty gritty philological details, as is sunu ‘son’. These nouns pluralize differently from other nouns, and, more importantly for our first chapter, they will behave differently from other nouns in the context Ōsweald Bera wunaþ on ____.
This is a problem because part of what I’m trying to establish in Chapter 1 is what normally happens in the context Ōsweald Bera wunaþ on ____. Most nouns add an -e in these contexts, so holt becomes holte (this is the dative case, by the way). But wudu will become wuda in this context.
This isn’t the end of the world, of course, and every student of Old English will learn this before too long. But is the first chapter the right place to force the issue?
When literally everything about the language is new to the student, I’d rather spend time establishing regular patterns than focusing on the exceptions.
The holt vs wudu issue shows the kind of considerations that need to be balanced when writing a graded reader: it’s good to teach common words, it’s good to teach words that have Modern English analogues, it’s good to teach regular words. All of these things are good, but not all are achievable at once.
Later on in the book, however, the situation is different, and the equation changes. By the time the students have reached Chapter 7 (out of 28 in total), they have already become accustomed to the basic patterns of Old English grammar. By then they are able to take exceptions to rules in stride, and that’s when I introduce them to wudu.
In Chapter 7 the reader encounters a variation on what they first heard in Chapter 1, namely Wæs bera on sumum wuda ‘There was a bear in a certain wood’. But now they can appreciate that on wuda is an exception to a more general pattern of nouns ending in -e in that context.
Perhaps surprisingly, what becomes the greatest challenge for students once they have gained their footing in the language is not new grammar or unexpected endings, but the sheer amount of work that goes into learning the language’s vocabulary.
And this is where the tradeoffs return. I simultaneously want to: (i) limit the number of new words I introduce per chapter and (ii) tell a good story. These two things are often in tension. If you only get access to a limited number of new words in every chapter, you risk having to talk about the same kinds of things over and over again. If you constantly talk about the same things, you risk boring readers. Bored readers don’t finish books. A total disaster.
But there is a way out of this: it’s much easier to tell a good story without using too many words if you aren’t limited in the grammar you can use. And this is the approach I take in the book: after a certain point, which occurs roughly in chapter 7, I do not shelter readers from any of the phenomena that occur in Old English grammar, even things that are traditionally seen as “advanced”.
Isn’t there something contradictory here? Why shelter readers from wuda in Chapter 1 but unleash the past subjunctive on them in Chapter 7?
My answer: there’s a big difference between Chapter 1 and Chapter 7. In Chapter 1, the reader is seeing a new language for perhaps the first time. As I wrote above, everything is new to the reader at this point. If ever there were a time to go easy on the reader, it would be in Chapter 1.
In Chapter 7, however, the initial disorientation of reading in a new language will have worn off. The characters and setting will have been established. The reader will have grown accustomed to the author’s voice.
I recommend that readers be active participants in their reading of Ōsweald Bera. This means using the book as more than a thing you read casually once from cover to cover. It involves rereading, engaging with the comprehension questions, and spending some time with the new vocabulary lists. All of this means that the reader has already got a lot of experience in working with the language by Chapter 7.
Put another way: by Chapter 7, the reader has reached, perhaps, the end of the beginning. The initial difficulties of the new language have receded, as has the initial euphoria of having early success. Now the reader confronts the reality of what reading in Old English is like, and just how many words are to be learnt.
Here is where they need most of all to be interested in the story – and to be interested in the story they need to be able to understand it. Far less important at this stage is managing bewilderment at an unfamiliar ending. They want to know what happened to [character X], and an unexpected -um on a familiar word isn’t going to stand in the way of that!
I know great teachers who feel differently. They would have written a doubtless very different book. But here I stand, I can write no other!
If you want to naturally learn the difference between wudu and holt for yourself, you can purchase your very own copy of Ōsweald Bera today!
Beyond the Schwa
I joined the inimitable Spencer Klavan on his podcast Young Heretics. We discussed methods for learning Old English, the importance of storytelling in language acquisition, and the cultural heritage embedded in ancient and medieval languages. Have a listen here:
I also joined Fletcher Hardison on the Greeking Out podcast to go in-depth into the pedagogical aspects of constructing a text like Ōsweald:
Finally, I joined Evan Amato for an X Space, where we covered a huge amount of ground, including sources of evidence for reconstructing Old English, the reason for learning ancient languages at all, the quickest path towards reading Beowulf in the original, and what you should do rather than mourn your lost friends? (hint: it involves undying doom). You can listen to the replay here: https://twitter.com/RewiretheWest/status/1858525653567516682
I just got my copy and noticed that there is no list of the way the letters are pronounced. I found some YouTube videos that helped. That poor girl whose name is Mild-thridth!
What a fascinating post. Thank you. So glad I have just purchased Osweald. Aren't words wonderful!