[Ansteorra] Pronunciation was Re: "Ansteorran: of or pertaining to the Kingdom of Ansteorra"

[HerrDetlef]

Lord Wihtric,

What exactly is "this regard" that you are talking about? Old English "an"
is cognate with ModHG "ein", which doubles as the indefinite singular
article and as the number one.

I didn't locate the construction "an steorra' or the words "sterra" or
"stiorra" in the ASX. To be fair, there were several editions, and I'm sure
I haven't exhausted every edition in its entirety.

In "The Wanderer," I found the word "eardstapa" in the sixth line, but I
didn't see the word "anstapa". What line is that?

When it comes to stress, I have never heard anybody pronounce the name of
the kingdom as "an-STAY-o-rah", but as "an-stay-O-rah", or even
"an-sta-YO-rah". "an-STAY-o-rah" would come closer to traditional OE
pronunciation rules. Stressing the "e" rather than the "o" approximates the
diphthong sound closer than stressing the "o" does.

Who says "an-STAY-o-rah"? I want to meet whoever this is and shake his/her
hand.

DT+LF

On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 8:31 PM, Richard Culver <rbculver at sbcglobal.net>wrote:

>
> ________________________________
>
> From: HerrDetlef <herrdetlef at gmail.com>
>
>
> [Wihtric]  That is not the case in this regard.  The "An-" element in this
> name is NOT being used as an indefinite article as in your example.  Instead
> it is follow the construction from the Wanderer of "anstapa",
> lone=stepper/wanderer- lone being the critical modern idiom to get the
> context of the poem as it was a society in which being alone was, if not
> physically at least emotionally and spiritual, a death sentence.
>
> It would be much easier to remember if we pronounced the name in line with
> rules for OE pronunciation; namely, stressing the "E" and not the "O". "eo"
> is an Old English dipthong, and it should be pronounced like the "eo" in
> "Beowulf" and not like the "eo" in "geometry".
>
>
> [Wihtric]  There is contention, which I share, on that.  There are a few
> different camps on how breaking affected the vowels in early Old English
> lexicon. Jeremy Smith in _Sound Change and the History of English_ mention
> as such in the footnote on pg. 94 [http://tinyurl.com/ygpeqbm
> ]. Part of the problem is complicated that orthography was not always
> consistant, even within the manuscript at the time, f. ex. -eo- is often
> interchangeable with -io-.  This is further harder to study these days as
> most texts for study and teaching are reduced to "Standardized West Saxon."
> I personally hold that there is some distinction, however nuanced, in the
> diphthong and that the e acts as a glide into the o which might become more
> of a schwa sound.  The glide element would be similar to ModE effect in
> certain words with "u" such as music or cute (and depending on dialect,
> stupid or cupid) where the glide is heard, though not written proceeding the
> vowel, [myoozic] and [kyoot]- though for -steorra it would not be as heavy.
>
> Of course another issue with it is the stress of the name.  Most people
> tend to stress it as so: an-STAY-or-a.  However as it is a compound word the
> "an-" and "-steor-" get the same stress, much the same way we say "answer"-
> AN-STYOR-ra.
>
> With all due respect,
>
> Wihtric
> For what it's worth, "an steorra" is Old English simply for "a star", or
> "one star".
> _______________________________________________
> Ansteorra mailing list
> Ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org
> In order to make changes and manage your account please go to:
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/ansteorra-ansteorra.org
>



-- 
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
--Micah 6:8