Re^2: Hoicka ha, rather inadequate hilfe ist da
How now,
merrily, my lad! :-)
sorry, my English won't be of sufficient perfection to answer
in quite as well a way as you did aforehand.
I doe note that another persone of wisdome hath provided much
of aide. Yet doe I adde this, my “two pence worth.” I
presume to offer my succore in a mingling of englysh and
german, assur’d as I am that thou readest englysh with
facilitye.
hoicka hoick, whoope whoope ............sounds of shouting, I
would assume. Whoopee remains a shout of
celebration/enthusiasm (albeit hackneyed and more often used
for comic effect) as well as a euphemism for sexual congress.
(Didn’t know that, did you?)
i admittedly didn't ;-)
Cf. the 1930's (1940's?) popular tune Making Whoopee.
yet i dare assume that in this hunting song coitus is not the
predominant topic *g*
You are probably right. On the other hand, the elizabethans have a reputation for being lusty. And just what made the Merry Wives of Windsor so damned happy?
Hoicka hoick has lost whatever
position of prominence in the pantheon of percussative
pronouncements it perchance possessed previously. I would
expect questioning looks in my direction were I to shout
“hoicka hoick” at a sporting event, for example. Maybe I will
try it.
good luck. be god with ye.
I have changed my mind. The players will probably think I am shouting "Take a hike." which of course means go away and they might offer an unkind retort.
they are at a fault (wie ist das gemeint?)
Hard to say. It is not even clear who “they” are. Possible
explanations - they are guilty of doing something wrong, they
are failing, they are doing something very well (if this is an
earlier version of “to do something TO a fault”), they are
next to or in a ditch or depression in the earth of some kind.
ah! would make sense :-)
You would have to research hunting language and geological
descriptions of the time or find some way to research earlier
meanings of “fault.” HOWEVER, if we assume the “they” of this
sentence are the “they” of the previous sentence, then I
would guess that “they” are animals and that they have gone to
ground in a hole. This would be germane information in a hunt
and common behaviors of foxes, badgers, hares and and enemy
infantrymen. Or maybe I am completely wrong.
i hope not so ;^)
but, as we already are at the question: what dictionary would
be of help to my odd inquiries? meaning, where am i to search
if i want to look up vocabulary in a diachronic description?
Beats the hell out of me. I really don't know anything about elizabethan english but there seems to be a lot about it in the internet. Maybe if you keep on clicking on the embedded urls in the texts and also try contacting the individuals whose e-mail addresses appear you can find someone more knowledgeable. You could also try querying the english departments at various universities. Due to the wonders of the wired world, you can do so rather quickly and easily, as you know.
Boy, winde the horne (ich glaube, es ist [wind], nicht
[waind]?)
boy, wind (blow) the horn
yes, i do know the meaning of to wind a horn, i just wasn't
sure about the pronounciation. however, i am now convinced
that [wind] will be more fitting than [waind]
Once again, I am no expert, but it is quit possible that at the time it might have been pronounced (i will use english 'civilian' orthography to avoid confusing myself. Sorry if it confuses you.) wine-d. It might even have been pronounced way-nd. I think there are discussions of vowel sound shifts in the internet.
Sing tiue tiue tiue
I assume that tiue is how the horn sounds to the author....a
fox-hunting horn sounds like this to me, I guess. At least
those I have heard in movies.
aha.
uhm.
could you go ahead and try transcribing the sound of these
horns? or rather, give hints as to how "tiue" might sound?
[TAI-WUE] (or: *tie* as in tie a yellow ribbon, and *whe* as
in whether or not...???)
As a present-day native speaker of english, I would pronounce the written tiue as tea (as in the Queen's favorite non-alcoholic drink) - oo (as in too). If done in a falsetto through pursed lips, it sounds like the hunting horns that I have heard in movies.
Now in full crie, with yeeble yable gibble gabble hey
nonsense words - which seemed to be common in songs of the
period, at least ....cf. “hey, nonney-nonney” and “tralala” in
other songs of the period.
yes, i thought so. i didn't try to look these up, you know.
just in case you believed... ;-)
The hounds doe knocke it lustily with open mouth and lusty
crie
the hounds are going about the business of belling (yes, “to
bell” is an english verb - from middle english “bellen”) and
barking with eagerness
were i to speak those words, would i have to pronounce the
last syllable of "lustily" that it rhymed with "cry"?
Good question. That would make it rhyme, wouldn't it? As you have probably perceived, english pronunciation changed quite a bit during and after the elizabethan period (some of it - I am convinced - because of the appearance on the scene of the House of Hannover. Beginning slight before 1700 or so and for 200 years, the King of England had a father who spoke German and a mother who was born in Germany. The German royalty spoke many English words in a German way - I believe historical accounts will bear me out- and the court went along with him ("It's good to be the king" - Mel Brookes) and the upper nobility went along with them and the tradesmen selling to the court went along......etc.) Anyway, I digress. But my answer is, in short, that I do not know, but the assumption that the verse should rhyme makes sense. On the other hand, it does not sound wrong to me to pronounce it lusti-lee (as in teeth). This type of quasi, modified, sort-of, half-assed rhyme is common in English poetry. I realize that that is no help at all. Sorry. But as I said there are guides to Elizabethan pronounciation in the internet. In fact just now I remember seeing them. Unfortunately, they use a strange orthography to indicate the sounds that does not even seem to be the international phonetic alphabet. Maybe my computer does not support whatever symbols they used.
Wish I could be of more help, but anyone who chooses to study Elizabethan english deserves whatever happens to them. :-)
Geeble gabley yours
Jim
