WEBVTT

00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:03.5
English is one of the world's
most widely spoken languages

00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:7.5
an official language in no fewer than 83 countries.

00:00:07.750 --> 00:00:11.000 
It's also a dynamic, shifting, and growing language,

00:00:11.500 --> 00:00:16.000
reflecting the needs of its speakers
since its origins some 1400 years ago.

00:00:16.500 --> 00:00:22.000
Despite the popularity of English, however,
its history is not yet fully written.

00:00:22.500 --> 00:00:29.000
Old English is the first chapter of the English language,
and the only remaining period
without a comprehensive dictionary.

00:00:29.500 --> 00:00:35.000
The beginning of English covers about a 600-year timespan,
starting around 600 CE.

00:00:35.500 --> 00:00:40.500
Words like "hard," "heavy," "head," and "heart"
were used in everyday speech,

00:00:40.750 --> 00:00:44.000
but their written forms were different
from today's spellings.

00:00:44.500 --> 00:00:51.000
Spelling was not yet standardized,
and the order of words in a sentence
was more flexible than today's English.

00:00:51.500 --> 00:00:57.750
And unlike our modern English alphabet,
the Old English alphabet had only 22 letters.

00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:02.500
The Dictionary of Old English
is a project at the University of Toronto,

00:01:02.750 --> 00:01:05.500
dedicated to mapping this first stage of the language.

00:01:06.00 --> 00:01:10.000
The research team, using new technology
to help with the massive effort,

00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:14.500
has digitized, word by word,
every known surviving text.

00:01:14.750 --> 00:01:20.500
Everything -- including poetry, charms,
inscriptions on jewelry and on stone,

00:01:20.750 --> 00:01:23.500
historical and legal documents,
botanical and medical texts --

00:01:23.750 --> 00:01:27.500
has been input to build a corpus of Old English.

00:01:27.750 --> 00:01:35.500
Accessing this comprehensive corpus,
the editors of the DOE survey each and every example,

00:01:35.750 --> 00:01:42.000
reviewing, analyzing, and organizing the evidence
into roughly 35,000 headwords. 

00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:45.500
Right now, the defining process
is more than 60% complete.

00:01:45.750 --> 00:01:50.000
When the project is finished,
the English language for the first time

00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:54.000
will be fully indexed and available
in a digital format.

00:01:54.250 --> 00:02:00.000
With the completed Dictionary of Old English,
it will be possible to watch words grow and change,

00:02:00.500 --> 00:02:07.000
from a culture that had more than 20 words each
for "sword" and "shield" and "coat of mail," 

00:02:07.250 --> 00:02:09.750
into the language spoken today.