Old English wisdom enters Twitter-verse

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-33566782

Version 0 of 1.

An Old English expert is sharing the wisdom of our ancestors on Twitter. But can we learn anything from 1,000-year-old thinking?

Each day for the past few weeks Dr Eleanor Parker has tweeted.

Nothing too unusual in that, except her tweets come from the 10th and 11th Century.

And they are Old English, the Germanic language used by the Anglo-Saxons before the Norman invasion.

The researcher and teacher has unearthed a vast amount of wisdom-related medieval literature and is keen to share it with others, much like the poets and monks who wrote it down in the first place.

And many are still relevant today:

"This got a good reaction from people on Twitter, many said it should be nailed to the wall of every politician's office," said Dr Parker, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford.

"The sayings talk about the importance of acting thoughtfully and with moderation, choosing your words carefully.

"There is also the importance of friendship and maintaining relationships with friends, family and the people you know.

"And treating people well and being just and fair. These are universal truths."

Some of the proverbs, however, have arguably become a tad dated:

"I found another one which says if your friend is murdered you must exact vengeance," said Dr Parker.

Other proverbs are at best thought-provoking, at worst unfathomable:

Dr Parker said: "The pig one sparked a big debate, my theory is that it means when you undertake to do something you are not totally in control of it and you have to accept the consequences of your actions.

"The reaction on Twitter has been really positive, it's interesting to see how people take these sayings and apply them to the modern world and their own lives."

Parallels could even be drawn with the historical purpose of proverbs and the modern use of Twitter.

Dr Parker said: "It is a way of passing on wisdom.

"You gain it through experience and then share it with others, you don't just hoard your wisdom for yourself."

One big query is why Old English wisdom largely died out, confined to the dusty pages of old books, while in other cultures, for example China, ancestral wisdom remains in use today.

The Chinese use thousands of old proverbs, sayings and idioms to express thoughts and advice, the most common form of which is a chengyu, a four-character phrase that conveys the moral of the story.

One answer is that the Chinese simply care more about what their ancient ancestors said.

History is of great importance to them according to Dr Bart van Malssen, a lecturer in Chinese history at Durham University.

"One aspect of their culture that the Chinese respect the most is the past, their history and the wisdom of their ancestors, this is why so many of the old expressions are still used today."

Like Old English the Chinese proverbs can appear quite ambiguous, but unlike with English speakers and the Anglicised sayings the Chinese still know what theirs mean.

One old Chinese proverb translates as "a frog in the well", which means a person has limited vision (like the trapped amphibian).

Another is "when the old man from the border lost his horse", which means a setback that goes on to be a blessing in disguise.

And one of Dr van Malssen's favourites is "when the cart gets in front of the mountain there is a way", which means there is always a way to overcome an obstacle and there is no point worrying about it until you are confronted by it.

"A foreigner can use the right words to discuss a situation, but the Chinese would have an expression that did the same thing, and for the Chinese the more characters and sayings you know then the more cultured you are considered to be."

England probably was not helped by a change in its main language when the Normans arrived in 1066, although the loss of Old English was far from sudden, said Dr Parker.

"Some of these texts actually remained in use for a long time after the Norman Conquest - they were still being copied in manuscripts well into the 12th Century, and later medieval England also had a strong tradition of wisdom and proverb literature which partly drew on the Anglo-Saxon tradition.

"But eventually cultural and linguistic change meant that the language of these texts became harder to understand, and some of the cultural beliefs they transmitted, for example, about the proper behaviour of warriors or kings, came to seem less relevant."

So where has Dr Parker found her Old English wisdom?

"There are collections of proverbs as well as whole poems which are just a collection of statements about behaviour and maxims about the world and how we belong and behave in it.

"You also find wisdom in poems like Beowulf, the characters often speak in proverbs.

"It struck me that there is so much of it and it is so interesting, it would be a nice thing to tweet.

"And actually they are a very good length for Twitter."

And she says there is plenty of Old English work out there, much of it thanks to Alfred the Great who she says would have been the "patron saint of Anglo-Saxon wisdom if there was one".

While ruler of Wessex in the 9th Century, he arranged for translations of older literature into Anglo-Saxon - and may well have translated it himself.

In his preface to the translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, Alfred said learning in England had gone into serious decline and to restore it would repair the kingdom's wealth and wisdom.

Dr Parker said: "It just shows that people have always been interested in good questions, how to live a good life, share with other people and be happy.

"Society changes but the way we want to live doesn't."