Old English open education resources | Opensource.com

"J. R. R. Tolkien, perhaps best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was, in his academic life, a scholar of Anglo-Saxon language and literature. After a delay of 90 years, his translation of Beowulf will finally be published today. Through this newly available translation, readers will have the opportunity to visit (or revisit) King Hrothgar's mead hall and experience Beowulf's battles against Grendel and Grendel's mother without having to learn to read Anglo-Saxon, or as it is also known, Old English. Though I am sure Tolkien's translation is excellent, reading a translation is never quite the same thing as experiencing the original. Thankfully, there are many Anglo-Saxon scholarly projects that are created the open source way. From textbooks and dictionaries to digitized manuscripts, these projects make it possible to learn Old English and work with some of the original source material anywhere in the world, with nothing more than an Internet connection and a web browser. Below, I have covered several projects that, combined, would allow someone to learn Old English and read Beowulf in the original language. The list is by no means exhaustive, but the items covered are excellent examples of open education resources in the humanities. So, even if one isn't interested in teaching themselves Old English, there is plenty to inspire those wishing to develop creative and open scholarly resources in their fields ..."