[rob74]

As a native German speaker, I can at least say that knowing both German and English doesn't really help in understanding the text. Not even the most "dumbed down" version - ok, he's apparently saying something about his wife, but no idea what exactly. And when I read "shyne (Modern English "sheen" but German cognate is closer)", I was even more confused. "Sheen" is the property of an object that is shiny, which in German would be "Schein", but because it is applied to a woman, I assume that the "cognate" he refers to is "schön" (beautiful)?

[LAC-Tech]

Words to do with light are so subtle between German and English. Like Kraftwerk tells me neon lights are "schimmerndes" in German, which I will take their word on, but they also say they are "shimmering" in English which is definitely not true.

scyn/schön/sheen are a different root from schein/shine, for what its worth.

Also I realise now "forlet" is very archaic in modern english whereas "verlassen" is very common in modern german, which would have helped.

[FarmerPotato]

What I just learned is that OE scīnan, to shine, gives OE scimrian, "to shine fitfully" [1]. Fascinating: Gothic skeima - torch, lantern.

[1] Eric Partridge: _Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. sᴄᴇɴᴇ paragraphs 8,9.

Also fascinating: "prob from Old Norse skaerr" "is English sheer, bright, hence pure, hence sole, hence also transparent, perpendicular" under paragraph 10.

and further down the rabbit-hole, OHG filu-berht, full bright. Name of St. Philibert, "whose day falls on August 22 early in the nutting season". Norman French noix de filbert.

[yobbo]

Also knowing (archaic?) Scandinavian helps a little more.

"swa" is like a contraction of german "so wie". sindon is probably like german "sind": is/were.

soþ - sweet? gefeohte - past-tense born/nurtured/raised. ƿælfæst - wellfed. sƿylce - equivalent to modern "swole"? andƿlite - cognate with "anlete" which means face. ƿynsum - "finesome". searocræftum: specially-forceful (fantasy modern swedish cognate "särkraftigt"). "for þy" - since/because ("fördi"). forlætan: forgive.

ƿifode - wifed (strangely modern)

ofslean: probably closer to modern "avslå or "Abschlagen" than "slain". Defeat?

Ac - maybe like "ach"?

naƿiht: antonym to "evig"?

geƿitan - go/leave/escape/flee? (Scandinavian "vidd" means expansive landscape, cognate with "width" and "weit")

Nefne - negation of efne: "not even"?

stede - meaning is probably "farms" or "smallholdings"

gebunden - cognate with "bound", but the meaning is probably closer to "enserfed".

gefultumige - feels like past-tense of a verb that means "filled with"?

Squinting:

"And what she said was all sweet. I wifed her, and she was fully? beautiful wife, wise and wellfed . Not met I ever "swoler" woman. She was born so bold as any man, and though-whatis her face was fine and fair.

"Alas we never free were, since we never might from Wulfsfleet left, and never that Hlaford find and him defeat. That Hlaford had these places with such force bound, that no man may him forgive. We are here like birds in net, like fishes in weir.

"And we him secaþ git, both together, man and wife, through the dark strife this grim place. Whathere God us filled-with!"

[canjobear]

Knowing German would mostly be helpful for understanding the grammar of Old English. The three genders and four cases, participles prefixed with ge-, verbs like sindon (=sind). There are tons of cognates with German (like þurh = durch) but they're hard to recognize immediately unless you know the kinds of sound changes that are common.

[LAC-Tech]

I guess the concepts and some of the vocab are important (though I feel compelled to point out that þurh is cognate with through as well).

But Old English inflecting nouns, rather than relying on indefinite and definite articles, gives the language a very different quality to German. Also stuff like negative concord.

[FarmerPotato]

I, too, find it confusing. The "German cognate is closer" is not helpful!

I think the ö is significant. It could correspond to English ē, but not ei, -ine.

Under sʜᴇᴇɴ, Partridge [1] states that OE scēne, scȳne are related to G schön, from PIE *skauniz "Ultimately, to E sʜᴏᴡ."

I think we have two compartments here:

1. ö/ē words - schön, E shown, shewn. Under Partridge [1] sʜᴇᴇɴ

2. ei words - G schein and E shine. OE scīnan, under Partridge [1] sᴄᴇɴᴇ

[1] My favorite reference: Eric Partridge: _Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of English_. More concise than the OED, and you can carry it.

As an English speaker, I'm delighted by the borrowing "ser schön". It is the highest grade in English catalogs of ancient coins. "Shiny" is not a good quality in ancient coins!

[inkyoto]

> The "German cognate is closer" is not helpful!

It is not helpful because comparing English from 1000 AD with Modern High German is the wrong premise to start off with.

The correct and more interesting comparison would be with Old High German from around the same time although it did not indicate the umlaut in the spelling at the time (which would happen 400-500 years later) – even though the i-umlaut had already developed.

So «schön» was «scōni» (or «sconi») in OHG. Also, ö and ü developed from /o/ and /u/, so juxtaposing them with English ē is likely incorrect.

[Sharlin]

Another Modern English cognate even closer to shyne than "sheen" is "shine" (and obviously the German "schein"). The words for "beautiful", "fair", "bright", "shining", "well-reputed", "righteous" have a long history of being related:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schinen#Middle_English (to shine, to appear)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skyr#Middle_English (clear-coloured, pale, light, luminous, radiant)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sciene#Old_English (beautiful, fair, brilliant, shining)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic... *skīnaną (to shine, to appear)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic... *skīriz (pure, clear, sheer)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic... *skauniz (beautiful, shining)

and ultimately the PIE

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur... *(s)ḱeh₁y- (to shine)

There are cognates absolutely everywhere in modern Germanic languages:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sk%C3%ADr#Icelandic skír (bright, clear, pure)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skir#Swedish (sheer, delicate, shining)

And even in Slavic languages:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/s... *sijati (to shine, to illuminate)

Skauniz was even borrowed to Proto-Finnic and highly conserved in modern Finnish, Estonian, Ingrian, etc. which all have kaunis meaning "beautiful"!

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Finnic/k... *kaunis

[schoen]

I resemble that remark!

For a modern semantic parallel, we might point to the phrase "she's quite a looker".

It's also interesting to see the words related to hearing and reputation; I'm thinking of Greek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleos and Slavic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs#Ethnonym where there's a whole thing about having people talk about you loudly (or, alternatively, being able to produce intelligible speech at all).

[thaumasiotes]

> The words for "beautiful", "fair", "bright", "shining", "well-reputed", "righteous" have a long history of being related

Compare modern Mandarin 漂亮 ["beautiful", in most of the English senses of the word] and 亮 ["shine"].

[ChrisGreenHeur]

One way to say it that is understandable in modern English and Swedish: She shines with beauty/ Hon skiner av skönhet

[readthenotes1]

This makes sense in the Firefly universe, too. Shiny!