Old English (or "Englisc") is the English language as recorded from around the year 700 to 1100. Spoken by King Alfred the Great and Lady Godiva, the Venerable Bede and Edward the Confessor, it is the language of such classics as "Beowulf," "The Dream of the Rood," and "The Seafarer." After 1100 the language went through a period of change so rapid that, by the time two centuries had passed, few could read these old texts. And yet "Englisc" really is English-much closer to the language of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, and Dickens, and much easier for English speakers to learn, than such...