MediaWikimōtung:Userlogin

Inmeldian oþþe níwne hordcleofan sceapan

'Inmeldian' is an invented verb; it's the cognate of German and Dutch anmelden ('log in').

I've used the infinitive here because it's been used elsewhere. Shouldn't these all be in the imperative? --Saforrest 23:26, 7 ÆGé 2005 (UTC)

It seems a reasonable verb. Worth bearing in mind that English's (and also Englisc's) closest living relative (unless you count Scots) is Frisian (http://fy.wikipedia.org/wiki/), so we should draw on that language too. As it happens, the Frisians are using "oanmelde", so this backs up your case.

Good question about the infinitive. Some languages seem to use the infinitive in quite a lot of situations where we use the imperative. I've seen the French-language version of Windows, for example, and all the menus like "Open", "Close", "Exit" are translated as infinitives. (Of course, this specific example has no relevance to Englisc.) If you think about it, the menus we have in English - "Open", "Close", "Exit", ... - could equally well be understood as infinitives (the notion that an English infinitive requires "to" is a myth). But I've always understood them as being imperatives, and I suspect this may be other speakers' understanding too. I believe the German "anmelden", "einstellen" and Swedish "skapa", "logga" are both infinitive and imperative forms, though the German might be better understood as infinitive because the polite form of the imperative (which is the form identical to the infinitive) is normally followed by "Sie". I have not yet looked closely enough at the Dutch or Frisian to see if they are infinitive or not. It looks like the Icelanders are using infinitives. You can't always tell because the imper. sing. is occasionally the same as the infinitive, but the use of "breyta" for "edit" seems to prove the matter. The imper. sing. would be "breyt" and the imper. pl. would be "breytið".

In summary, there are good reasons in comparative linguistics for going for the infinitive. There may be reasons based on modern English (and possibly other languages?) for going for the imperative. We can't know for sure what the AS would have done though... -Rícaheard

Thanks for your response. Looking at Frisian is a good idea; however, this brings up a question: clearly meldian is right etymologically for the OE, but what about the prefix? Is the oan in Frisian oanmelde the equivalent of OE in or on? That is, should our constructed verb be onmeldian or inmeldian?

Probably it's not too important: modern English doesn't make too much of a distinction (we can either log in or log on).

By the way, your evidence of the use of the infinitive on other Wikipedias has convinced me that using the infinitive is probably the right way to go. --Saforrest 06:16, 8 ÆGé 2005 (UTC)

You are probably right that it's not too important, but I think I am tempted to go for on (or rather an - see below): anmeldian. The resources I have don't list Frisian cognates, but it is highly likely that Frisian oan = OE on (which also = German an). Frisian oan is usually translated to, at ( http://dictionaries.travlang.com/FrisianEnglish/ ). OE on has a broader meaning than our modern word on: "in, on, into, on to, to". Sweet's Dictionary says of in: "rare in West Saxon" (our preferred dialect), though he might just be referring to the preposition rather than the prefix in-. There are two pages full on in- compounds and three pages full of on- compounds (though in the Anglian dialect of OE, in- was often used instead of on- in those on- words, so this might not be a meaningful distinction, but maybe it is in WSaxon terms at least). In Clark Hall, the difference is three in- pages versus seven on-. It's also striking how often OE on- compounds are translated by modern in- (onbescéwung, inspection; onbryce, inroad; ongeboren, inborn; ondrencan, inebriate; ...). Wikipedia:Tutorial_on_Old_English says that we prefer "early West Saxon spellings", and that an- is the eWS spelling of on-. --Rícaheard