Old English Terminology essays

Old English Terminology essays Present days English language has changed in many ways in the past 350 to 1600 years. The way words are pronounciated and written have changed the most. I have chosen the subjects of sports and games because both have altered in both of these manners. By looking at the words I am going to describe, you will able to see how modern people have came up with our own way of saying the same item. Sports are now being called different names then when they were originated, but the games have almost stayed the same. For example, what we call two chickens fighting to the death is a cockfight. During old England, the called the same fight a Shrove Tuesday(www.regia.org/games). There were slight differentials though, in where kids would bring these angry chickens to school and the schoolmaster would control the fights. Some minor changes in the language were words like billiard, which was spelled billard (Hendrickson, page 23), or javelin, which was known as gafeluc(www.mun.ca/ansaxdat/vocab). Board games were also a favorite pastime of children and adults alike. The most played games were tafl (www.regia.org/games), which was virtually checkers with a few special pieces that had more options on the board. Tafl literally meant table. Brannantafl, hnefatafl, and hraeotafl were all variations of the special game of checkers, except there were a few variations of the rules de pending on where you were in the country. Chess, however, was by far the most popular game of the time. In the 1200s, it was spelled hchestafl(www.mun.ca/ansaxdat/) but it had the same rules that we use today. Other pastimes of the era included knatteleik, kingy-bats, and skofuleik, which were all violent versions of hockey and hurling combined (www.regia.org/images/Tiberius/). Some less violent sports played in about 1000 were swimm ...