domenica 26 aprile 2009
lunedì 20 aprile 2009
BEOWULF' S HISTORY
After scyld's death the Danes prosper under his
descendants.
Beowulf and Hrothgar follow her to her lair in a digusting lake, where Beowulf fights Grendel's mother in her hall at the bottom of the lake. Beowulf almost loses, but with the aid of God is eventually victorious.
The dragon is killed, but mortally wounds Beowulf in the battle, and the old king passes away while gazing on the cursed treasure.
Beowulf in trailer
"Beowulf" it is an epic poem, in Anglo-Saxon language and, it is hypothesized, going up again to the eighth century A.D.It narrates of a fierce hero of the Germanic tribe of the Geatis, that is called by the king Danish Hrothgar to free his/her people and his/her splendid real palace Heorot (The Buck), from the raids of the monster Grendel, that kills and it devastates. But Beowulf is forced, after having killed Grendel, to face its his/her mother, looking for revenge.Victorious also on this, the hero becomes king of the Geatis and reigns in the peace up to the arrival of a third monster: a winged dragon. The final struggle brings to the death of both (the image of Thor and his/her struggle with the snake of water).Grendel is not never illustrated in his/her horrible reality of monster, but figured to lines and ideas, perhaps a Troll of the northern mythology and Beowulf doesn't even appear in clarity. This "Beowulf & Grendel", it stays faithful alone partially to the poem:are introduced three new characters, the father of Grendel, the witch Selma and the child of Grendel, on a narrative scenery enriched of stories properly realized for the film.
by ANDREA COLLI
"Beowulf" it is an epic poem, in Anglo-Saxon language and, it is hypothesized, going up again to the eighth century A.D.It narrates of a fierce hero of the Germanic tribe of the Geatis, that is called by the king Danish Hrothgar to free his/her people and his/her splendid real palace Heorot (The Buck), from the raids of the monster Grendel, that kills and it devastates. But Beowulf is forced, after having killed Grendel, to face its his/her mother, looking for revenge.Victorious also on this, the hero becomes king of the Geatis and reigns in the peace up to the arrival of a third monster: a winged dragon. The final struggle brings to the death of both (the image of Thor and his/her struggle with the snake of water).Grendel is not never illustrated in his/her horrible reality of monster, but figured to lines and ideas, perhaps a Troll of the northern mythology and Beowulf doesn't even appear in clarity. This "Beowulf & Grendel", it stays faithful alone partially to the poem:are introduced three new characters, the father of Grendel, the witch Selma and the child of Grendel, on a narrative scenery enriched of stories properly realized for the film.
by ANDREA COLLI
Dialects
Map of Danish dialects
Standard Danish (rigsdansk) is the language based on dialects spoken in and around the capital of Copenhagen. Unlike Swedish and Norwegian, Danish does not have more than one regional speech norm. More than 25% of all Danish speakers live in the metropolitan area of the capital and most government agencies, institutions and major businesses keep their main offices in Copenhagen, something that has resulted in a very homogeneous national speech norm. In contrast, though Oslo (Norway) and Stockholm (Sweden) are quite dominant in terms of speech standards, cities like Bergen, Gothenburg and the Malmö-Lund region are large and influential enough to create secondary regional norms, making the standard language more varied than is the case with Danish. The general agreement is that Standard Danish is based on a form of Copenhagen dialect, but the specific norm is, as with most language norms, difficult to pinpoint for both laypeople and scholars. Historically Standard Danish emerged as a compromise between the dialect of Zealand and Scania. The first layers of it can be seen in east Danish provincial law texts such as Skånske Lov, just as we can recognize west Danish in laws from the same ages in Jyske Lov.
Despite the relative cultural monopoly of the capital and the centralised government, the divided geography of the country allowed distinct rural dialects to flourish during the centuries. Such "genuine" dialects were formerly spoken by a vast majority of the population, but have declined much since the 1960s. They still exist in communities out on the countryside, but most speakers in these areas generally speak a regionalized form of Standard Danish, when speaking with one who speaks to them in that same standard. Usually an adaptation of the local dialect to rigsdansk is spoken, though code-switching between the standard-like norm and a distinct dialect is common.
The distribution of one, two, and three grammatical genders in Danish dialects. In Zealand the transition from three to two genders has happened fairly recently. West of the red line the definite article goes before the word as in English or German; east of the line it takes the form of a suffix.
Danish is divided into three distinct dialect groups:
Eastern Danish (østdansk), including the Bornholm, Scanian and Halland dialects
Island Danish (ømål or ødansk), including dialects of Zealand, Funen, Lolland, Falster, and Møn
Jutlandic (jysk), further divided in North, East, West and South Jutlandic
Historically, Eastern Danish includes what are occasionally considered Southern Swedish dialects. The background for this lies in the loss of the originally Danish provinces Blekinge, Halland and Scania to Sweden in 1658. The island Bornholm in the Baltic also belongs to this group, but remained Danish. A few generations ago, the classical dialects spoken in the southern Swedish provinces could still be argued to be more Eastern Danish than Swedish, being similar to the dialect of Bornholm. Today influx of Standard Swedish vocabulary has generally meant that Scanian and Bornholmish are closer to the modern national standards than to each other. The Bornholm dialect has also maintained to this day many ancient features, such as a distinction between three grammatical genders, which the central Island Danish dialects gave up during the 20th century. Standard Danish has two genders, and Western Jutlandic only one, similar to English.
Today, Standard Danish is most similar to the Island Danish dialect group.
Map of Danish dialects
Standard Danish (rigsdansk) is the language based on dialects spoken in and around the capital of Copenhagen. Unlike Swedish and Norwegian, Danish does not have more than one regional speech norm. More than 25% of all Danish speakers live in the metropolitan area of the capital and most government agencies, institutions and major businesses keep their main offices in Copenhagen, something that has resulted in a very homogeneous national speech norm. In contrast, though Oslo (Norway) and Stockholm (Sweden) are quite dominant in terms of speech standards, cities like Bergen, Gothenburg and the Malmö-Lund region are large and influential enough to create secondary regional norms, making the standard language more varied than is the case with Danish. The general agreement is that Standard Danish is based on a form of Copenhagen dialect, but the specific norm is, as with most language norms, difficult to pinpoint for both laypeople and scholars. Historically Standard Danish emerged as a compromise between the dialect of Zealand and Scania. The first layers of it can be seen in east Danish provincial law texts such as Skånske Lov, just as we can recognize west Danish in laws from the same ages in Jyske Lov.
Despite the relative cultural monopoly of the capital and the centralised government, the divided geography of the country allowed distinct rural dialects to flourish during the centuries. Such "genuine" dialects were formerly spoken by a vast majority of the population, but have declined much since the 1960s. They still exist in communities out on the countryside, but most speakers in these areas generally speak a regionalized form of Standard Danish, when speaking with one who speaks to them in that same standard. Usually an adaptation of the local dialect to rigsdansk is spoken, though code-switching between the standard-like norm and a distinct dialect is common.
The distribution of one, two, and three grammatical genders in Danish dialects. In Zealand the transition from three to two genders has happened fairly recently. West of the red line the definite article goes before the word as in English or German; east of the line it takes the form of a suffix.
Danish is divided into three distinct dialect groups:
Eastern Danish (østdansk), including the Bornholm, Scanian and Halland dialects
Island Danish (ømål or ødansk), including dialects of Zealand, Funen, Lolland, Falster, and Møn
Jutlandic (jysk), further divided in North, East, West and South Jutlandic
Historically, Eastern Danish includes what are occasionally considered Southern Swedish dialects. The background for this lies in the loss of the originally Danish provinces Blekinge, Halland and Scania to Sweden in 1658. The island Bornholm in the Baltic also belongs to this group, but remained Danish. A few generations ago, the classical dialects spoken in the southern Swedish provinces could still be argued to be more Eastern Danish than Swedish, being similar to the dialect of Bornholm. Today influx of Standard Swedish vocabulary has generally meant that Scanian and Bornholmish are closer to the modern national standards than to each other. The Bornholm dialect has also maintained to this day many ancient features, such as a distinction between three grammatical genders, which the central Island Danish dialects gave up during the 20th century. Standard Danish has two genders, and Western Jutlandic only one, similar to English.
Today, Standard Danish is most similar to the Island Danish dialect group.
History
Main article: History of Danish
The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century: Old West Norse dialect Old East Norse dialect Old Gutnish dialect Crimean Gothic Old English Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
Old East Norse is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in east Denmark Runic Danish, but until the 12th century, the dialect was roughly the same in the two countries. The dialects are called runic due to the fact that the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Due to the limited number of runes, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei) to the monophthong e, as in stæin to sten. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for "island".
Some famous authors of works in Danish are existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, and playwright Ludvig Holberg. Three 20th century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize laureates in Literature: Karl Adolph Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (awarded 1944).
Danish was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England. Many Danish derived words, such as "gate" (gade) for street, still survive in Yorkshire and other parts of eastern England colonized by Danish Vikings. The city of York was once the Danish settlement of Jorvik.
The first printed book in Danish dates from 1495. The first complete translation of the Bible in Danish was published in 1550.
Main article: History of Danish
The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century: Old West Norse dialect Old East Norse dialect Old Gutnish dialect Crimean Gothic Old English Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
Old East Norse is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in east Denmark Runic Danish, but until the 12th century, the dialect was roughly the same in the two countries. The dialects are called runic due to the fact that the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Due to the limited number of runes, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei) to the monophthong e, as in stæin to sten. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for "island".
Some famous authors of works in Danish are existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, and playwright Ludvig Holberg. Three 20th century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize laureates in Literature: Karl Adolph Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (awarded 1944).
Danish was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England. Many Danish derived words, such as "gate" (gade) for street, still survive in Yorkshire and other parts of eastern England colonized by Danish Vikings. The city of York was once the Danish settlement of Jorvik.
The first printed book in Danish dates from 1495. The first complete translation of the Bible in Danish was published in 1550.
In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists: Grendel, who has been attacking the mead hall in Denmark called Heorot and its inhabitants; Grendel's mother; and an unnamed dragon. The last battle takes place later in life, after returning to Geatland ,where Beowulf has become king. In the final battle, Beowulf is fatally wounded. After his death he is buried in a barrow in Geatland by his retainers.
Iscriviti a:
Post (Atom)