So Wikipedia is now available in Old English

Is anyone as excited as I am? Today I was sitting at work with nothing to do (the phones were not ringing as much today. Is it because it's a Friday?) and, not surprisingly, I set myself to browsing the internet for something of interest.

Today, the Boston Metro featured an article on the new translations made of what is being dubbed "The Gospel of Judas," and I admit that I am quite fascinated by Biblical scholarship (this is related, I swear). I did a search and found an article on Wikipedia about the find. After having browsed all the external links, and essentially extinguished all the patience I could muster for the subject, I began searching the site for other items of interest, such as Neil Gaiman and The Lord of the Rings.

I began noticing the sidebar for the site, which contains the available languages, and noticed Galego was available. A native Portuguese speaker myself, I was curious about this language which is spoken only in the part of Spain that borders the northernmost tip of Portugal. I had certainly never seen it written before, and was quite surprised to find it quite readable (although I can say nothing about how it is actually pronounced in colloquial speech). It seems a bizarre mix of Spanish and Portuguese. Again, the sidebar drew my attention, and for the first time I saw "Anglo-Saxon."

As an undergraduate, I studied Old English ("for my sins," as my professor would later attribute to my success level in this particular course). I was immediately intrigued. The site is certainly still under construction, and, to be fair, there are not many among us who can read, let alone write a coherent sentence or two, in this language. Although for most people the creation of an Old English version of Wikipedia will be no more than a curiosity (one they cannot understand, but a curiosity no less), I find it intriguing and bold. Who would have thought that more than one thousand years after the death of the Anglo-Saxon culture we would be reading articles about Samuel Alito in Old English?

I am a strong proponent of revitalizing dead languages. I think it is a genius idea to have editions of Harry Potter in Latin, Ancient Greek and Old English (and I believe there are such items). We no longer have classical educations. What public schools today teach their pupils any of the classical languages beyond "caveat emptor" or "amor vincit omnia"? Wikipedia is a good place to start.