How does one into good dialogue that sounds vaguely like Old English?

You don't mean Old English.

Shakespeare is Modern English.

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For old English, Icelandic is rather close. I actually just picked up this book from a used book store yesterday. Pretty excited.

My dad actually studied Old English as part of his degree, so there is definitely a lot of material for it if you are interested.

>>9431143
>Shakespeare is Modern English.

>"thee wouldst thine thee thou mine wouldst"
>Modern

>>9431156
Early Modern you dolt

>>9431156
Mate, at least do some preliminary research before posting.

A quick browse of the Wikipedia page would tell you that you're quite wrong.

>>9431143
I've always hear it referred to as middle English, could be wrong though

>>9431156
Why don't you just use google to see how wrong you are? No need to embarrass yourself like this.

>>9431156

It's Early Modern English, yes. Basically, it is grammatically/lexically close enough to Modern English to be essentially as easy to understand as other Modern dialects of English. Once you get to Middle English like Chaucer, the average literate person no longer has the ability to figure it out without training or serious help. It's Modern in the sense that it is linguistically continuous with the language as it is still spoken today. These barriers are fuzzy, obviously, but I think the fact that high schoolers can read Shakespeare with no training means it's merely a form of the same language as they speak today.

>>9431168
Nope. Middle English is a little after the Norman invasion to about 1500.

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>>9431168
Yes, you are wrong.

>>9431175
>high schoolers can read Shakespeare with no training

That's not true at all. No one knew the fuck what he was saying, at least in my class. Everyone looked up modern English translations.

>>9431156
Old English would be something like "hwā eom ic?" (Who am I)

>>9431178
Alright makes sense

>>9431180

Thanks for correcting me, anons

>>9431180
i hate when people reproduce old text in these awful faux-archaic fonts

like that lower case d, what the fuck is up with it? makes it 90% harder to read than it should be.

>>9431181
Special end class?

We begin Shakespeare at 12.

>>9431156

old english:


Mæg ic be me sylfum soðgied wrecan,
siþas secgan, hu ic geswincdagum
earfoðhwile oft þrowade,
bitre breostceare gebiden hæbbe,
gecunnad in ceole cearselda fela,
atol yþa gewealc, þær mec oft bigeat
nearo nihtwaco æt nacan stefnan,
þonne he be clifum cnossað.