The Wordhord by Hana Videen

Here is a book for the word-nerds among us.  Ms Videen is a scholar of Old English and this entire book explores the origins and oddities of certain Old English words. She starts the book by explaining the differences between modern English, Middle English and Old English.  While many people can understand Middle English pretty well, Old English sounds like a foreign language to modern English speakers.  Videen posits that by learning Old English we can come to understand the culture and look inside the thought processes of people living 1000+ years ago.  This book was published by Princeton University Press and is pretty academic.  I am not sure how much appeal it would have to the general public, but I loved it.  I love ancient languages and have studied Latin, ancient Greek and Hebrew. This book made me want to go back and learn Old English too.  I was fascinated to learn that there are only about 200 texts written in Old English that still exist. I had never before thought of the challenge of trying to figure out what a word means when it only appears once in all existent texts.  I loved learning how medieval Englishmen put terms together to describe the people and things in their lives. I also was struck by how much Christianity permeated everything they did in 1000 AD and it made me realize how much our modern western culture has strayed from that. Finally, hats off the the narrator of the book, Sara Powell, who had to read all of the crazy Old English words.   (2022, 296 p.)