Types of English

[callisto_chan]

Today we studied a little bit more about the three forms of English. Mind you, we'd been taking notes on Old/Middle English for most of the week, but today we were given a short passage from Old English and Middle English and tried to translate them -- or at least pick out words we recognised

Comments

[erin_hime]

Seeing those first few lines of Canterbury Tales always reminds me of, I think, my senior year in high school (it could be my freshman, I had the same teacher both years) when my teacher started reciting those first few lines in actualy Middle English. For extrea credit, we could take a tape she made of so many lines, and do the same thing. I didn't do it, but it was kinda cool. What's interesting is that soote and roote, if I remember, were pronouced 'soo-te' and 'roo-te', and words that don't rhyme for us rhymed in Middle English.

What really gets me is that Merry grew up with that language, and can recite the Canturybury Tales using proper pronouciation, and know what it means. The prologue is just, um, translated? Yeah, we'll go with that. :P

[callisto_chan]

Well you got lucky. ;) My teacher didn't know how to pronounce either Old or Middle English, so we weren't able to hear it. She did mention, though, that one of her teachers apparently studied Old English. It'd be interesting to hear how that sounds.

And I'm sure Liz would find it very odd if Merry just started spouting off the Canterbury Tales. She'd probably think Merry was speaking gibberish. :P