myArmoury.com - transulation help

Posts: 580 Location: Pennsylvania USA

Fri 23 Jan, 2015 4:43 pm

transulation help

hi fellas, been working a an few things here and there, nothing really wonderful, just cleaning up projects. i forged a wrapped axe head this year, turned out pretty nice - not what i expected it to be, nothing spot on historical. in fact it was from a tomahawk making class.

I've since turned it into a long axe. the axe head itself is nearly 10 inches from the back of the eye to the blade and looks more like a throwing axe head. but i mounted it on a haft about 4 1/2 feet and it looks good, a name 'long hawk' came to mind. I wanted to cave the name in the haft, in old English - using an online translator I think i came up with a reasonable translation.

"langférnes hafoc"

as best I could tell, langférnes looked like the best translation of long in terms to length, but also looked like a way of saying, 'a long time' or long in reference of time.

close enough or am i missing a better term?

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Greg Bowen

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Posts: 8 Location: Indiana

Fri 23 Jan, 2015 6:19 pm

Re: transulation help

Daniel Wallace wrote:

hi fellas, been working a an few things here and there, nothing really wonderful, just cleaning up projects. i forged a wrapped axe head this year, turned out pretty nice - not what i expected it to be, nothing spot on historical. in fact it was from a tomahawk making class.

I've since turned it into a long axe. the axe head itself is nearly 10 inches from the back of the eye to the blade and looks more like a throwing axe head. but i mounted it on a haft about 4 1/2 feet and it looks good, a name 'long hawk' came to mind. I wanted to cave the name in the haft, in old English - using an online translator I think i came up with a reasonable translation.

"langférnes hafoc"

as best I could tell, langférnes looked like the best translation of long in terms to length, but also looked like a way of saying, 'a long time' or long in reference of time.

close enough or am i missing a better term?

Hi Daniel,

The problem with langfǽrness is that it's actually a noun, not an adjective. What you've got would read more like "long-time hawk." For the adjective long, the OE term was actually just lang. It's one of those words that hasn't changed much over the years. Long hawk would be lang hafoc. The long hawk would be se langa hafoc. In either case, the <g> in lang is pronounced, as it is in longer, rather than as in modern long.

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Daniel Wallace

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Posts: 580 Location: Pennsylvania USA

Fri 23 Jan, 2015 7:10 pm

thanks a lot! think I'm going to start carving tonight. I'm going to substitute letters for runes, for the carving - I would like to learn a little more about OE, but don't really know where to start at. any books on the subject for a beginners interest that's not too difficult to get ahold of?

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J. Nicolaysen

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Posts: 795 Location: Wyoming

Fri 23 Jan, 2015 9:06 pm

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any books on the subject for a beginners interest that's not too difficult to get ahold of?

Hi.

Try: Stephen Pollington First Steps in Old English.
Then: Robert Diamond Old English Grammar and Reader

I haven't read Peter Baker Old English Aerobics in full, but parts were helpful.

Two anthologies/readers:
Elaine Trehane, ed. Old and Middle English, c. 890-1450 An Anthology.
Richard Marsden The Cambridge Old English Reader

Language books, especially anthologies as above, are great when they have the original language side by side with a translation so you can also work out your own translation and compare.

UConn has one of America's highest regarded programs. Its website is very helpful.
http://www.medievalstudies.uconn.edu/old_english.html

Good luck.

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Daniel Wallace

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Posts: 580 Location: Pennsylvania USA

Sat 24 Jan, 2015 11:58 am

thanks, I'll be giving them a look soon.

got a pic here of what the long hawk looks like so far, over on another blade forum, a fella said this more resembles a Shepard's axe due to its size. I'd love to decorate it out more but don't know how far I'm going to go with it. last night I added a leather patch to the inside of the eye as a type of bushing/gasket. wish I could tool it but its not thick enough.

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