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An Anglo-Saxon Reader

Title: An Anglo-Saxon Reader, edited, with notes, a complete glossary, a chapter on versification, and an outline of Anglo-Saxon Grammar
Author: James W. Bright
Year: 1912

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Credits

The following individuals hand-typed the respective pages of the glossary:

Pages:
Volunteer:
241-251 Sean Crist
252-281 Steven Krise (skrise at ibm.net)
282-283 Sean Crist
284-295 Sharon Goetz [Mail]
296-305 Steve Gadd (wasoxygen at yahoo.com)
306-319 Hoyt Greeson (hgreeson at nickel.laurentian.ca)
320-329 Jonathon Kirkby (kirkbyjonathon at yahoo.com)
330-335 Steven Krise (skrise at ibm.net)
336-355 Ruth Coy (rcoy at erols.com)
356-361 Steven Krise (skrise at ibm.net)
362-367 Hoyt Greeson (hgreeson at nickel.laurentian.ca)
368-373 R. Michael Tugwell (MikeTug at ram-mail.com)
374-379 Diana C. Briscoe (dcbriscoe at csi.com)
380-385 Sarah Love (sarah_love at development.uchicago.edu)

About the glossary

The glossary to this textbook was the second text undertaken by the Germanic Lexicon Project, following the glossary to Wright's Gothic Grammar. The main work of entering the glossary was done in 1999.

OCR did not give good results with this text. This was probably partly because of Sean Crist's inexperience with OCR in 1999, but also due to the degraded quality of the pages.

Since OCR did not seem to be an option, Sean Crist recruited volunteers on the ANSAX-L mailing list, and snail-mailed xeroxed pages for each volunteer to type by hand. Then the character encodings were made regular, and the submissions were reassembled into a single document. This strategy worked splendidly. A hearty thanks to these volunteers for making this reference available to all!

Lessons learned on this project:

  1. Volunteers will give you text in all sorts of formats and character encodings. This is why the current web-based Volunteer system strictly uses plain ASCII text (with XML/HTML-style entities) and why the web-based software is designed to do rigorous automated checks on the submitted pages.
  2. Leave the text exactly as it is! In the case of this glossary, there was some tampering with the original text. The glossary entries contain page numbers where a given word appears; the volunteers were instructed to omit these, since it seemed like unnecessary effort. In hindsight, this was a mistake. There are possible applications for the page numbers; for example, somebody might want to create a web system where you can click one of the page reference numbers in the glossary. Don't throw away any data: you can often leverage useful things from it.

There was a second case where we tampered with the original text. The original glossary distinguished e-with-hook from plain e, and o-with-hook from plain o. The volunteers were instructed to ignore this etymological distinction and just type e and o. The original Anglo-Saxon texts don't represent this etymological distinction, and it seemed like it would be an extra hassle for volunteers to handle these odd characters. This was a mistake, since this etymological information has potential applications.

After reassembling the typed text, Sean Crist wrote a Perl script to parse the glossary and output an XML version to show the structure of the document. For convenience, there is also an HTML version derived directly from the XML version.

There hasn't yet been any systematic automated checked on the texts. For example, it's pretty easy to make a histogram of the abbreviations in the part-of-speech fields; errors in this field are usually easy to identify, because they fall at the bottom of the histogram. Words in the modern English gloss fields can be extracted and checked with a modern English spell checker, etc.

Online glossary revision history

1 March 2003: Removed an extraneous control character from the text version of the glossary. Thanks to Steven Krise for pointing out this glitch.

Abbreviations in the glossary

1First person
2Second person
3Third person
sgSingular
plPlural
mMasculine
fFeminine
nNeuter
nomNominative
accAccusative
datDative
genGenitive
instInstrumental
nsNominative Singular
asAccusative Singular
dsDative Singular
gsGenitive Singular
isInstrumental Singular
npNominative Plural
apAccusative Plural
dpDative Plural
gpGenitive Plural
ipInstrumental Plural
compComparative
suplSuperlative
adjAdjective
advAdverb
conjConjunction
gerGerund
impImperative
infInfinitive
optOptative (=Subjunctive)
ppPreterite Participle
pretPreterite (=Past tense)
ptcParticiple
negNegative
presPresent
dualDual
RReduplicating
PPPreterite Present

WI, WII, etc. are weak verb classes. 1-7 are strong verb classes.

Page Images

In Oct 2002, Sean Crist scanned the entire text. Previously, only the glossary text had been available.

Please feel free to perform OCR on the page images. The most important parts are the introductory pages 0-80, and pages 195-240 (notes and appendices). It is probably not worth the effort into OCRing the readings (p. 1-194) because these Old English texts should all be readily available elsewhere on the web (and at worst, they exist online in the Toronto Dictionary of Old English Corpus). However, the footnotes to the readings would be useful; they could be hyperlinked into an online version of the text.

Sean Crist used Photoshop to remove some of the graffiti doodled by a former owner of the book. This cleanup was done only on the grammar pages, not on the reading pages.

27 May 2006: Added HTML files; OCR by Sean Crist. The text has not been corrected. The glossary pages were redundantly OCR'ed.

Introductory pages and Grammar

tiff png html
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 5 6 7 8 9 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 10 11 12 13 14 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 15 16 17 18 19 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 20 21 22 23 24 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 25 26 27 28 29 25 26 27 28 29
30 31 32 33 34 30 31 32 33 34 30 31 32 33 34
35 36 37 38 39 35 36 37 38 39 35 36 37 38 39
40 41 42 43 44 40 41 42 43 44 40 41 42 43 44
45 46 47 48 49 45 46 47 48 49 45 46 47 48 49

tiff png html
50 51 52 53 54 50 51 52 53 54 50 51 52 53 54
55 56 57 58 59 55 56 57 58 59 55 56 57 58 59
60 61 62 63 64 60 61 62 63 64 60 61 62 63 64
65 66 67 68 69 65 66 67 68 69 65 66 67 68 69
70 71 72 73 74 70 71 72 73 74 70 71 72 73 74
75 76 77 78 79 75 76 77 78 79 75 76 77 78 79
80 --- --- --- --- 80 --- --- --- --- 80 --- --- --- ---

Readings, Notes, Appendices, and Glossary

tiff png html
--- 1 2 3 4 --- 1 2 3 4 --- 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 5 6 7 8 9 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 10 11 12 13 14 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 15 16 17 18 19 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 20 21 22 23 24 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 25 26 27 28 29 25 26 27 28 29
30 31 32 33 34 30 31 32 33 34 30 31 32 33 34
35 36 37 38 39 35 36 37 38 39 35 36 37 38 39
40 41 42 43 44 40 41 42 43 44 40 41 42 43 44
45 46 47 48 49 45 46 47 48 49 45 46 47 48 49

tiff png html
50 51 52 53 54 50 51 52 53 54 50 51 52 53 54
55 56 57 58 59 55 56 57 58 59 55 56 57 58 59
60 61 62 63 64 60 61 62 63 64 60 61 62 63 64
65 66 67 68 69 65 66 67 68 69 65 66 67 68 69
70 71 72 73 74 70 71 72 73 74 70 71 72 73 74
75 76 77 78 79 75 76 77 78 79 75 76 77 78 79
80 81 82 83 84 80 81 82 83 84 80 81 82 83 84
85 86 87 88 89 85 86 87 88 89 85 86 87 88 89
90 91 92 93 94 90 91 92 93 94 90 91 92 93 94
95 96 97 98 99 95 96 97 98 99 95 96 97 98 99

tiff png html
100 101 102 103 104 100 101 102 103 104 100 101 102 103 104
105 106 107 108 109 105 106 107 108 109 105 106 107 108 109
110 111 112 113 114 110 111 112 113 114 110 111 112 113 114
115 116 117 118 119 115 116 117 118 119 115 116 117 118 119
120 121 122 123 124 120 121 122 123 124 120 121 122 123 124
125 126 127 128 129 125 126 127 128 129 125 126 127 128 129
130 131 132 133 134 130 131 132 133 134 130 131 132 133 134
135 136 137 138 139 135 136 137 138 139 135 136 137 138 139
140 141 142 143 144 140 141 142 143 144 140 141 142 143 144
145 146 147 148 149 145 146 147 148 149 145 146 147 148 149

tiff png html
150 151 152 153 154 150 151 152 153 154 150 151 152 153 154
155 156 157 158 159 155 156 157 158 159 155 156 157 158 159
160 161 162 163 164 160 161 162 163 164 160 161 162 163 164
165 166 167 168 169 165 166 167 168 169 165 166 167 168 169
170 171 172 173 174 170 171 172 173 174 170 171 172 173 174
175 176 177 178 179 175 176 177 178 179 175 176 177 178 179
180 181 182 183 184 180 181 182 183 184 180 181 182 183 184
185 186 187 188 189 185 186 187 188 189 185 186 187 188 189
190 191 192 193 194 190 191 192 193 194 190 191 192 193 194
195 196 197 198 199 195 196 197 198 199 195 196 197 198 199

tiff png html
200 201 202 203 204 200 201 202 203 204 200 201 202 203 204
205 206 207 208 209 205 206 207 208 209 205 206 207 208 209
210 211 212 213 214 210 211 212 213 214 210 211 212 213 214
215 216 217 218 219 215 216 217 218 219 215 216 217 218 219
220 221 222 223 224 220 221 222 223 224 220 221 222 223 224
225 226 227 228 229 225 226 227 228 229 225 226 227 228 229
230 231 232 233 234 230 231 232 233 234 230 231 232 233 234
235 236 237 238 239 235 236 237 238 239 235 236 237 238 239
240 241 242 243 244 240 241 242 243 244 240 241 242 243 244
245 246 247 248 249 245 246 247 248 249 245 246 247 248 249

tiff png html
250 251 252 253 254 250 251 252 253 254 250 251 252 253 254
255 256 257 258 259 255 256 257 258 259 255 256 257 258 259
260 261 262 263 264 260 261 262 263 264 260 261 262 263 264
265 266 267 268 269 265 266 267 268 269 265 266 267 268 269
270 271 272 273 274 270 271 272 273 274 270 271 272 273 274
275 276 277 278 279 275 276 277 278 279 275 276 277 278 279
280 281 282 283 284 280 281 282 283 284 280 281 282 283 284
285 286 287 288 289 285 286 287 288 289 285 286 287 288 289
290 291 292 293 294 290 291 292 293 294 290 291 292 293 294
295 296 297 298 299 295 296 297 298 299 295 296 297 298 299

tiff png html
300 301 302 303 304 300 301 302 303 304 300 301 302 303 304
305 306 307 308 309 305 306 307 308 309 305 306 307 308 309
310 311 312 313 314 310 311 312 313 314 310 311 312 313 314
315 316 317 318 319 315 316 317 318 319 315 316 317 318 319
320 321 322 323 324 320 321 322 323 324 320 321 322 323 324
325 326 327 328 329 325 326 327 328 329 325 326 327 328 329
330 331 332 333 334 330 331 332 333 334 330 331 332 333 334
335 336 337 338 339 335 336 337 338 339 335 336 337 338 339
340 341 342 343 344 340 341 342 343 344 340 341 342 343 344
345 346 347 348 349 345 346 347 348 349 345 346 347 348 349

tiff png html
350 351 352 353 354 350 351 352 353 354 350 351 352 353 354
355 356 357 358 359 355 356 357 358 359 355 356 357 358 359
360 361 362 363 364 360 361 362 363 364 360 361 362 363 364
365 366 367 368 369 365 366 367 368 369 365 366 367 368 369
370 371 372 373 374 370 371 372 373 374 370 371 372 373 374
375 376 377 378 379 375 376 377 378 379 375 376 377 378 379
380 381 382 383 384 380 381 382 383 384 380 381 382 383 384
385 --- --- --- --- 385 --- --- --- --- 385 --- --- --- ---


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