is there like a modern to old English dictionary or something?

Question

Hi there, I was just wondering if there's something that would help me translate everyday English into old English (by old English I don't mean Old English, but rather the English they spoke around the peak of the Witch Craze, etc). I just read the edited-to-look-like -the-original-version-probably-did edition of the Scarlet Letter, and I'm just obsessed with the English they speak.
I write sentences like "'Tis but a vilest of lies," but sometimes I get the feeling that they don't make sense in either modern English or old one. Or in any sort of language, for that matter.
Uh, and before you tell me to study "Structures of the English language in pre-Revolutionary times" at an online university for "just 9.99 per hour", I don't have credit card, am under eighteen and my monthly income is about two hundred bucks. I live with my dad and a ***** he got off some dumpster (we believe in recycling by re-using instead of throwing away), and do not own a car. Nor plan to

This moronic system ereased my super hilarious (I know) adjective and placed suspension periods istead. That should read "...the EDITED TO LOOK LIKE THE ORIGINAL VERSION PROBABLY DID edition..." What is wrong with this program??!!!

I was looking for the ez way out, like a translating program or something, but I guess since nobody is going to answer anything else, I'll go for the first answer I got.

Answer 1

If you wish to write in what is called an "archaic," or out-of-date, style, then you must understand the language as it was used at the time. It helps a great deal, by the way, to develop a solid grasp of good usage and form in modern English, as well. There is a linear relationship between the two. Sometimes, this means checking on things that look a little odd after you write them, or when you read them.

Thus - your "PS" to the original post mentions "suspension periods" - as a former newspaper editor, professional writer and language geek, I have encounted most descriptions of punctuation marks but never this one. But I went to the Oxford English dictionary and found it to be correct. So thank you and congratulations.

To achieve your primary goal, begin by collecting writing from the same period. Make a list of words, phrases, and structures. There are typically two main variations in use in "contemporary" writing - formal usage which looks amazingly unlike the way we speak and write at this time, and "slang," or idiomatic usage that is the era's version of teen-speak.

Inasmuchas you mentioned "the 'Witch Craze'," I believe you are speaking of the early and mid-1600's in the British isles and her colonies. Be aware that forms of English used in Scotland, Wales and Ireland in those years were very, very different indeed - and those are the places where you are more likely to encounter witch-burnings outside of France and New England.

There are several guides to language as used in that period. The principal writing convention of the mid-17th century was a style known as "thorne," in which certain words were abbreviated. I have labored many a miserable hour over pages of handwritten text in "thorne" and you should look it up. If you become skilled at the glorious style of penmanship used in that time, and at the use of "thorne," it can become a secret language you and your friends can use amongst yourselves.

Most of the principal writers of the time were the members of the brand-new Royal Society, inflamed and inflammatory partisans of Protestant and Catholic churches, and playwrights. English opera was born at the end of this period under the pen of Henry Purcell. You might look for a collection of the letters of young Isaac Newton, Richard Hooke, John Boyle, and others in the RS. Alternatively read the letters, speeches and statements of Oliver Cromwell or his enemies, particularly Stafford. Of course, the ULTIMATE writer in English of this time, to me anyhow, is John Donne.

Now, are you ready?

There's a cheat for this process. Haunt a used bookstore and obtain the three-volume "Baroque Cycle" series by Neal Stephenson - "Quicksilver," "The Confusion," and "The System of the World." This stuff is EXACTLY what you want. Stephenson writes in pseudo-archaic; that is, he is doing the kind of writing you wish to do. And he tells wonderful tales about real people as well as fairy-tale critters. Oh, by the way, at the end of it all you have acquired a most valuable and unique education in the basics of 17th and early 18th-century Western European history.

Answer 2

ask Demi Moore