Muirin007: Professional nerd

The Lord’s Prayer in Old English

I really should be working right now, but I found this in my history of the English language textbook, and it’s so cool—even if you’re not Christian—that I just had to post it. My book has the Lord’s Prayer written in Old English, Old Norse, Gothic, and Vulgar Latin, and I’ve got to put them all up at some point because it’s so neat. For now, here’s the Old English Version (from around A.D. 1000) with the Present Day English translation. 

Read along with an audio recording of this prayer here.

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod.

(Our father who is in heaven, may your name be made holy.)

Tobecume þin rice. Gewuþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.

(May your kingdom come. May your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.)

Urne dæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg.

(Give us today our daily bread).

And forgyf us ure gyltas   swa swa we

(And forgive us our debts, just as we)

forgyfað urum gyltendum.

(forgive our debtors)

And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele.

(And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.)

~Hayes, Mary and Millward, C.M. A Biography of the English Language.   Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. 

(Source: muirin007)