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Tue 9 Jun, 2015 05:39 am
Context:
[kjv] Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.
[bbe] And Peter made answer and said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if you will let me, I will make here three tents, one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
@McTag,
Is wilt the past tense in Ancient English?
@oristarA,
That's 17th-century English. I think "if thou wilt" in this context could be like, "if you will it" or "if you will allow it."
Jeeze . . . it's the second person singular. It hasn't changed, and it's not "ancient." We just no longer use the second person singular.
To an oak tree, the yearling is still a babe, but to a head of cabbage, it's ancient.
(I just made that up. Couldn't find the original proverb.)
@oristarA,
There is (or was) no such language.
@FBM,
The second person singular was in use in isolated parts of the United States and in parts of Yorkshire and Cumbria in England well into the last century. Patterns of speech common less than a hundred years ago hardly qualify as "ancient."
@Setanta,
I know people in Appalachia who still use 'fit' for 'fought.'
And appropo of nothing: I used to work with an elderly-ish Penn. Dutch lady who said things like 'Outen the light' for 'turn off the light.'
During FDR's first two administrations, battalions of ethnographers and linguistists were sent out into the remote areas of the United States to record speech patterns and to assess literacy. They found people in the Appalachians who could not read the New Yoirk Times, but who could read aloud from the King James Bible or Pilgrim's Progess with ease and fluency. They found residents of the littoral islands of the Carolinas and Geergia who spoke an English which they characterized in their reports as Elizabethan. Their usages persisted into the 1960s.
@Setanta,
It's still used in Lancashire dialect now, tha knows.
@McTag,
Thou doth what thou liketh best.
Sorry, Walter . . .
Thou dost what thou likest best.
"Doth" (and "doeth") and "liketh" are third person singular conjugations.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
Sorry, Walter . . .
Thou dost what thou likest best.
"Doth" (and "doeth") and "liketh" are third person singular conjugations.
Pronunciations of the words like liketh, doth, dost... are problems to be resolved. Is there such pronunciation dictionary online that can be of help?
@oristarA,
Two comments
1. They sound like they look
2. I wouldn't bother
@McTag,
McTag wrote:
Two comments
1. They sound like they look
2. I wouldn't bother
Good idea.
Do you bother to pronounce Latin, the dead language?
@oristarA,
oristarA wrote: Do you bother to pronounce Latin, the dead language?
Those who learn/have learnt Latin certainly can pronounce it ... but most certainly not how it was pronounced 2000 years ago but more the way as it developed over the centuries to Vulgar Latin and (today's) Church Latin.
@Walter Hinteler,
Thou Walt art right on the money.
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