English prior to about 1100

It was in the Old English translation of this Latin biography that we first get the word bitter.

后来，这部原文为拉丁语的传记有了古英语译本——从中，我们头一次碰到了单词bitter。

In the oldest forms of Old English there was no word woman.

在古英语最早期的词汇里，压根就没有woman这个单词。

The Germanic pronunciations of Old English broke a bunch of rules that the alphabet was supposed to observe in Latin and so Old English speakers decided they needed a new letter to make the W sound.

古英语的日耳曼用户（在使用这套字母时）打翻了一堆的拉丁语对字母发音的规则，于是古英语的使用者们决定他们需要一个新的字母来发W的音。

It turns out that in Old English there was another word for 「duck」 that does sound more like the scientific Latin, that Old English word was ende.

后来我又在古英语中找到有一个词ende，它的意思也是指鸭子，但是读起来和那个拉丁学名十分相像。

Weird was a noun in Old English (「 fate, destiny 」), as still seen in the archaic phrase to dree one「s weird 「to suffer one」s fate.」

weird是古英语时期的一个名词(表示命运)，现在仍能在过时的短语todreeone 「 sweird(承担某人的命运)中看见这个词。

In Old English the word weird meant 「fate」 so calling the witches the weird sisters was equivalent to calling them prophetic.

在古英语中，weird是命运的意思，所以把女巫们叫做weirdsisters就好比称她们为预言者。

The Mercians were aggressive border raiders-mercia takes its name from the Old English mierce, meaning 「frontier people」 -which may account for the apparent range of regional styles in the hoard.

莫西亚人是边界上极具攻击性的掠夺者——莫西亚名字的由来是古英语中的mierce，意思是「拓荒者」——这很能够证明此次出土窖藏的地域属性。

But to be fair, I looked it up and it seems that a better translation from the Old English would be 「You can」t eat your cake and have it too.

但是，为了言之成理，我去查阅了相关资料，从古英语中找到了一个比较靠谱的解释：你无法在吃掉蛋糕后还拥有这块儿蛋糕。

The sound b occurs after m in the Old English form and in all its Germanic and more distant cognates.

声音b在m后发声，在古英语的形式里是这样，在其它所有日耳曼和更遥远的同源词里也是一样。

No one has ever pronounced b in it, and it is absent from the word’s Old English form and from its cognates, such as Dutch duim and German Daumen.

它中间的b从来就没有发过音，并且b在古英语的形式中，及其它同源词如荷兰语duim和德语Daumen里都没有。

But human nature being what it is you can be sure that people who spoke Old English swore when they hit their thumb with a hammer or when they wanted to say something rude.

不过人类本性如此，你可以确信，讲古英语的那些人也会骂娘，比如说，当他们被锤子敲到手指，或者想讲些粗话的时候。

In Old English there was even a word for servant that had etymological roots meaning 「bread eater.」

在古英语中，甚至还专门有一个对应于仆人的单词，它的词根就有“食面包者」(breadeater)的意思。

It, as most Old English words, came from Germanic and like the modern German word for squirrel essentially means 「oak horn.」

正如大部分古英语词，它来自于日耳曼语，跟现代德语中松鼠这个词一样，实际上是「橡树喇叭」的意思。

The word was already being used in Old English and shows up in the written record about the year 1000.

这个词在古英语中已经存在，最早的文字记录在公元1000年左右。

This was from Old English and Germanic roots.

「道路」、「路径」的词根来自古英语和日耳曼语。

While the wise Old English had ditched w, the French had adopted it, particularly the French with some kind of Germanic roots.

而聪明的古英语抛弃了W时，法国人却把它拿来用了，特别有是有德国血统的法国人。

Our English word comes from Germanic stock because it appears in Old English pretty early, back before the year 700.

这个英语词汇源于日耳曼语系，因为它出现在古英语的早期，可追溯到公元700年。

It definitely didn’t come to English through French since the Old English citations predate the Norman Conquest.

但是可以肯定的是它绝非来源于法语，因为在古英语尚在是有时，诺曼征服的时代还未到来呢。

For reasons unknown, sometime later in Old English people seemed to feel the need to combine their words for 「female human being」 into one word.

出于不为人所知的原因，在之后的古英语中，似乎人们觉得有必要把表示「女性人类」(female human being)的词组合并为一个单词。

Old English did not sound or look like English today.

古英语的发音与书写与现在的英语并不一样。

At that time in Old English it was called not walrus but horschwael which we today might pronounce 「horse whale.」

在古英语的那个时代它不被称为海象，而是叫「horschwael」，今天我们也许应该发音为「豪斯维尔(horsewhale的音译)。」