Anglo-Saxon (do you understand it?)

do any English speakers understand Old English Language (Anglo-Saxon)?
I am Norwegian and I understand Old Norse very well
And I find some Anglo-Saxon words very similar to old Norse
do you learn some of it at school? (Because we learn Old Norse in Norwegian and history)

No. Not even a little bit. We might pick out a few words here or there, but that would be about it.

I'm not a linguist, so I don't know where/when the line is drawn between Old English and Middle English. That said, I was required to read Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales' in the original text, and I was able to understand it (with some effort, of course).

I think Chaucer is Middle English. For Old English, my high school lit teacher trotted out some original Beowulf, and we all stared at it in horror....

Hopeful,

I have to agree with Uriel here. A modern English speaker would recognize only occasional words in Anglo-Saxon, and even Middle English.

Persian and Albanian are probably the only other Indo-European languages which have changed from their original form more than English has. By contrast, the earliest Spanish writings date from the 10th century A.D. and show the language to have been essentially the same then as it is to today.

It depends, in that Late Middle English, that is, the language of Chaucer and that which most English-speakers think of as Middle English, tends to be quite readable to literate native speakers of Modern English once they get used to the orthographic differences present in it relative to written Modern English, even though they of course would probably not understand very much if they heard Late Middle English being *spoken*. On the other hand, Early Middle English is probably significantly less understandable to most English-speakers today, but at the same time is far less likely to be encountered by them due to there being far less literature in it than in Late Middle English, due to the dominance of Old Norman French (and Latin) in England amongst those who would have been likely to be literate at the time.

Re: "...the language of Chaucer and that which most English-speakers think of as Middle English, tends to be quite readable to literate native speakers of Modern English... Early Middle English is probably significantly less understandable to most English-speakers today..." (Travis)

Yes, It's always easier to understand people who were living and writing closer to your own time than people living further back in time, no matter what the language. Someone once pointed out that it is even easier to understand the Koran (Al-Quran) than the Bible because Mohammed lived closer to our own time than the writers of the Old and New Testaments did.

Hopeful, I would expect that Old Norse is much more important to modern Norwegian than Old English is to modern English. People who wish to see an example of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) can check the Wikipedia article about Beowulf. It has an excerpt from the original along with a modern English translation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf

Native English speakers will be able to decipher a little of the original -- for example, "Beowulf is min nama" [Beowulf is my name]. The work as a whole, though, isn't really readable. That passage continues with "Wille ic asecgan sunu Healfdenes....", [I wish to declare to the son of Healfdene....], which reminds me more of German. 'Wille ic' - I wish, 'asecgan' -- to declare, 'sunu Healfdenes' -- to the son of Healfdene. I assume that 'sunu' is our modern English 'son' in the dative case, and 'Healfdenes' the name 'Healfdene' in the genitive case.

College students and some high school students are exposed to short excerpts just to show how different Anglo-Saxon is, but unless they're specializing in English or linguistics, they'll usually read Anglo-Saxon works in translation. (I’m referring to what happens in most American schools. I don't know what happens in other English-speaking countries.)

Most of the common words in modern English have Anglo-Saxon roots, but the forms of the words have changed. Also many words of Romance origin were added to Middle English. As Travis points out, Chaucer's Middle English is much easier to understand. If I recall correctly, I read the original as a college freshman in an introductory survey course. (In high school I read the modern English version.)

"Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote...."

[When April with its showers sweet
The drought of March has pierced to the root....]

yess, I do, I do, I do!
It´s so easy!
the easiest language in the world because I speak it everyday!