Underground Writers Network Forum Challenge of the Week ~ #26

Throughout our challenges, the scope of each of them has been to help you explore your creativity and develop your technical knowledge of the language and its intrinsic tools.

Along those lines, we have created pieces inspired on pictures, on word lists, on styles and parts of speech amongst others.

Now how about crossing the timeline, and going back a little to the origins of this very rich language we are writing in.

You probably know that initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of England. The original Old English language was then influenced by two waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of the Germanic family; the second was the Normans who spoke Old French and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman. These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree arising from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who developed a hybrid tongue for basic communication.

Since the Renaissance English has continuously adopted foreign words, especially from Latin and Greek.

How about trying to combine some of these old styles into a piece of writing? Any topic, any style, no more than 1000 words so that we all have time to go through them. So put on your Old English hats and let's create playful works that delve into the roots of this fantastic language.

Here bygynneth thy inspired melodyes!

Have this piece that perchance falls into this category, slightly:

Aequitas

Hope you like it.

I am including a few resources here about Old English, so that you may read upon if you are interested. They will certainly help with the challenge, and inform you of things you might have not known :) Learning is always fun!

- World list, modern to old English
- Dictionary of Old English
- English 401 Lessons in Old English
- Old English from Answers.com

Also, you can use an Old English-Modern English translator if you can't figure out a word or expression. I think Freelang has one for download, and EOW also has a translator at this address

::cool::

I can't write Shakespearean but tried my best to put some Old English words into this poem and based the style around the poetry I have at home. I hope you like it.
Beneath a Holly Tree