‘5th Friday’ – Playing Around with History and Languages

Okay, so it is no longer the 5th Friday, and won’t even be the 1st Saturday much longer, but I’ve finally got your new links for you.

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First a quick mention of a couple I put up on my other blog this week, just FYI:  In addition to my reputable vendors list, I’ve gone and sneaked on a small ‘prayer on the internet’ category of links over at the other blog.  Look if you like, but the one you should know about yesterday is:  NaPraMoGo 2008 – Pray 15 More Minutes a Day, led by the Ironic Catholic. Who observes, “The Ironic Catholic blog is silly and satire, but praying is not. This is for real.”

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And now for this site, putting up a few of what I think of as history links, though most of them aren’t going into the ‘history’ folder:

The Society for Creative Ananchronism – A bunch of goofy history buffs having too much fun — but also doing a little bit of historical research in the process. Oh come on, you know you want to dress up in funny clothes, adopt a medieval name, and bash someone on the helm with a wooden sword.  You know you do, don’t deny it.

The Web Gallery of Art – What it sounds like.  Searchable art gallery covering European Art from 1100 to 1850. Kind of like going to the Louvre, only instead of sore feet you can get carpal tunnel (and, if you live any distance from Paris, save a little time and money while you’re at it).

The Lexique d’Ancien Français is a searchable database of old French, but you need to know the new french in order to use it.  Stuck it into a new folder called, generically, ‘Foreign Languages’.  What with having so few links in the category yet, it didn’t seem right to specialize into “Languages People Only Spoke Very Briefly”, tempting though it was.  I would observe that these transitory languages can be quite fun, because if you know the before-and-after languages, you can quickly get a dose of the in-between language without a whole lot of work.

While I’m at it, here’s a handy Wikipedia article on the topic (again, you need to know new french to read about the old).

Chantez-Vous Français? Is more of the same.  If the subtitle, <<Remarques curieuses sur le français chanté du Moyen Age à la période baroque>> means anything to you, go check it out.

And at long last, if you desperately wanted to learn about Old French but had hoped to do so in English, Old French Online, courtesy of the Linguistics Research Center at UT – Austin has come to your rescue.

If you wish to test your Old-ish French reading skills, the project Gutenberg has a copy of Le Chevalier Deliberé posted.  Circa 1500, so beginning to be quite manageable for the junior linguist.

And to finish, something that isn’t history at all is the fun (but with a maddeningly busy intro page) Les langues de France en chanson, specializing in music of the various languages spoken in France today.  (If you were under the impression that “French” was the language of France, there’s something we need to tell you . . .)

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That will do it for today.  Happy All Souls Day, and thanks for your patience this round.

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