Our Father In Old English

Sometimes a stream-of-consciousness link following yields a bit of treasure.  I started with the Anchoress' blog about whether you say "thee" or "the" before a word with a vowel; wandered over to a discussion of the Great Vowel Shift; slid right into a discussion of Middle and Old English poetry; dallied over a few videos of Beowulf, and finally ended up with several recitations of the Lord's Prayer in Old English.

I picked this one simply because it has translations, not because it had the best OE pronunciation. Still, it's pretty cool. I give you the Lords Prayer in "English".




This is how it looks in Old English:

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum
si þin nama gehalgod
tobecume þin rice
gewurþe þin willa
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge
ac alys us of yfele soþlice.





This is how it looks in Middle English:

Middle English/Inglés medieval:

Oure fadir that art in heuenes,
Halwid be thi name
Thi kyngdoom cumme to
Be thi wille don,
in erthe as in heuene.

Gif to vs this dai oure breed
And forgyue to vs oure dettis,
as we foryyue to oure dettours;
And leede vs not in to temptacioun,
but delyuere vs fro yuel.
(Wycllife, 1398)