Vowels nearly always change faster than consonants. “Yelde” and “trybut” are a little trickier. Yelde ye to all men your debts: to him that ye schuleth trybut, Not much of a disguise! It would be a stretch to call this What's “youre dettes”? It turns out it's “your debts”. If you're not sure what a word is, try reading it aloud.įor example, what's “alle men”? Oh, it's just “all men”, that wasĮasy. Here's the big secret of reading Middle English: it sounds better than Yelde ye to alle men youre dettes: to hym that ye schuleth trybut, The quotation I discussed in the earlier article looks like this:ĭaunting, right? But it's not as bad as it looks. Y - Where Middle English uses ‘y’, we often use ‘i’. ForĮxample, the word for “law” is often spelled “laue”. W - When w is used as a vowel, Middle English just uses a ‘u’. Ordinary word “have”, wearing a funny hat. "haue”? When you know the trick, you see it's just the totally There's a ‘u’ in a funny place, try reading it as a ‘v’ instead and U, v - Letters ‘u’ and ‘v’ are sometimes interchangeable. Some familiar letters behave a little differently: Sounds (“thin” and “this” respectively) but in Middle English they're kinda Like ‘night’ that are still spelled with a ‘gh’ but is now German words like gestern and garden change to yesterday and (It was originally more like a “gh-” sound. Pretending that it's a ‘g’ or ‘gh’ instead and see if the meaningīecomes clearer. Sound, but if the word it's in doesn't make sense with a ‘y’ try The letters are a little funnyĭepending on when it was written and by whom, you might see some of Stuff is sitting in boxes on the sidewalk.īy the end of the 17th century things had settled down to the spelling Is a snapshot of the moment in the middle of a move when half your Spelled the same? In Old English, it made more sense. (present tense) and “read” (past tense) pronounced differently but “meet” spelled differently but pronounced the same? Why are “read” Spelling and pronunciations that didn't match. Great Vowel Shift and many words froze with Unfortunately, during the 15thĬentury, the Midlands dialect had been undergoing a change in With the introduction of printing, the spelling, which had been fluidĪnd do-as-you-please, became frozen. Midlands dialect used there became the standard, and the other That point, because most books were published in or around London, the The printing press was introduced in the late 15th century, and at This is good, because a lot of thatįrenchification is still in Modern English, so it will be familiar.įor a long time each little bit of England had its own little dialect. It's still German underneath, but a lot of the spelling and Middle English is that mashup of English andįrench. Normans invaded England and the English language got a thick layer ofįrench applied on top. Over the centuries Old English diverged from German. ![]() Think an anglophone can learn to read it with mere tricks. Really is a foreign language, and requires serious study. It helps to understand why Middle English is the way it is.Įnglish started out as German. Nevertheless I have pretty good success reading The tricks get you maybeĩ0 or 95% of the way there, at least for later texts, say after 1350ĭisclaimer: I have never studied Middle English. It looks like a foreign language, but it's not. ![]() Yup! If you can read English, you can learn to read Middle English. In fact this one is so much easier than it looks that it Ȝelde ȝe to alle men ȝoure dettes: to hym þat ȝe schuleþ trybut,Īs often with Middle English, this is easier than it looks atįirst. Village of Melrose Park_ The Master of the Pecos River returns Hieroglyphic monkeys holding stuff Egyptian crocodile hieroglyphs in Unicode More notes about pain as a game mechanic Two words, two lies (again) The pillar box war Water, polo, and water polo in Russian The shell and its crappy handling of whitespace Tiny life hack: paint your mouse dongles Math SE report 2023-05: Arguments that don't work, why I am a potato, and set theory as a monastery Why does this phrase sound so threatening? More about _Cozzi v. The Universe of Discourse : You can learn to read Middle English The Universe of Discourse
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