IE and Substrates and Time

[Thomas Heffernan]

	Although I teach Old English, I do not profess to be a practicing
linguist rather more of a textual scholar.  However, I am somewhat
skeptical of the degree of intelligibility claimed for Old Norse, Old
English and Old High German. If one looks at a very familiar text --  a
text we know was preached in the churches on Sundays in the vernacular --
like that of the Parable of the Sower and the Seed in the three languages
the differences seem considerable enough to preclude immediate
intelligibility. I would have thought in places like Yorkshire in the late
9th century and 10th centuries that long association would more likely
account for intelligibility. I have selected a line that although it shows
a number of obvious cognates would still I think present problems for the
non-native speakers.
Old Norse reads " En sumt fellr i [th]urra jor[th] ok grjotuga...;
Old English reads " Sum feoll ofer stanscyligean...;
Old High German reads: "Andaru fielun in steinahti lant...."

Yours, Tom Heffernan