So, in my writing project, which is medieval fantasy, the (known) world is separated into three large chunks; there are the northern countries, the Tanayah Empire to the south, and Wildwood to the east. The major nations are based on various real-life countries/regions, with a couple mixes (I started having one country based on Norway, and it's kind of slipped into Scotland). As such, I have attempted to have the names of people and locations in the various countries rooted in various languages from the medieval, or really just non-roman periods of their IRL countries. So far, I haven't really had much trouble at all with finding words that sound like town names and translate into stuff that might provide forshadowing, until I got to Braeseth. Braeseth, culturally and linguistically (if not historically), is based on England. I'm already using other celtic languages (Scottish-Gaelic and Welsh, primarily), and someone suggested I try using Anglo-Saxon (or Old English) when I ran into a wall with deciding Braeseth's language. The problem, I have not been able to find a usable translator that I don't have to pay for. Anyone have any ideas? I would resort to dictionaries or something, if I had access to Anglo-Saxon dictionaries. The woes of wanting to use a dead language that isn't latin, I guess. Seriously, though, I would be thankful for any suggestions. Thank you.
Are you looking for Anglo Saxon or for Old English? They're pretty much the same thing, and Old English is the more common name for it. You might have more luck there. You're unlikely to find a decent translator for OE, though. It's not as complex as languages that do have decent machine translation, but the demand is obviously much lower. Depending on how much stuff you need doing, I might be able to lend a hand, but naturally entire passages are going to be out of the question for most people. Take a look at wiktionary. They have a pretty solid corpus of OE terms, and it's better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick.
You could just look into whatever remains of the dead languages and mash up consonants and vowels. You could just make a language.
As if I or any Englishmanperson would call it Braeseth? 'Wilkom ato Braeseth.' 'Here, yo mayestie, taketh tissu for sweepen nostrille.' 'Chancyew liege, arise.'
There's always learning enough Old English to get a good feel for the language. I recommend Peter S. Baker's Introduction to Old English and learn the language yourself. It's not hard if you know a little German, and opens you up to a whole new world of literature. It's how I learnt Old English/Anglo-Saxon. Hate to say this, especially in resurrecting an older thread like I am here, but online translators (especially when they are automatically generated like Google Translate) will be awful. Google translate will always muck up the case/conjugation systems - just look at Google Translate's Latin! It's useless.
BTW, it's pretty crap with cases in any inflected language. The Russian translations are a nightmare, mostly from English to Russian. Utter rubbish. Frankly, it doesn't even handle Spanish well (an "easy" language) because it's pro-drop so it has no clue who the grammatical person is, even though it's hard-baked into every single Spanish verb.
Exactly the same with a 'harder' language, like Latin. For fun I typed a few random sentences into Google Translate and the results were hilarious. For example, type in the sentence 'cum meo amico Romam ambulant' (they are walking with my friend to Rome), that brought back 'When he walked by my friend'. 'Romam ambulant' brings back 'he walks' - which is almost as baffling. Where has 'Romam' disappeared to? But 'Romam ambulo' brings back 'I walk to Rome' which is (finally) right. It's just a mess.
There's a site called Old English Translator that is pretty good for translating individual words both to and from the language. Get yourself a decent grammar along with it and you'll be on your way. I have Old English Grammar and Reader by Diamond which is pretty good, but if you don't want to buy a book, Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer on Project Gutenberg is as good a place to start as any. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34316/34316-h/34316-h.htm
I very much second the Old English Translator website. It was indispensable for me learning Old English. As Friedrich says, it's only good for individual words - but a good grammar book covers actual sentence structures, so if you use that website as just a dictionary you'll be totally fine.
There's also this digitization of the Bosworth-Toller dictionary which I believe is highly regarded. http://www.bosworthtoller.com/ Also, if you're willing to buy a book, and want one that is perhaps geared towards modern learners, Complete Old English (a Teach Yourself book) by Mark Atherton is lighthearted and fun. Old English is a source of great joy. There's so much fantastic poetry that has no parallel in Modern English. "The Battle of Maldon" and Beowulf alone would justify studying it.
