Eduard Sievers

I want to preface this review with the fact that I am completely new to learning Old English. I've only ever read modern English translations of Old English Literature. I had a really hard time reading through this book. It was originally written in German, translated into English, and presumes that the reader has a working knowledge of German. I don’t know if it’s because a reader in late 1890’s would have had better working knowledge of all the languages involved before delving into this book, but I found all of the references to German, Old German confusing. The abbreviations were inscrutable. I mostly had no idea what was going on, but I think that is my fault. It has sections on all the different vowels and variations of vowels, with lists of vocabulary examples. Now that I look at it, maybe it is just a reference text that shouldn’t be read straight through? This book is an interesting look into language learning in the 1890’s and early 1900’s, but I’m not sure it’s useful to any but the most advanced language learners now.… (lisätietoja)