If you’re still wondering about how far back in time you could go and still understand the English spoken then, check out written and audio excerpts from the poem Beowulf. Also, this NPR report in which host Robert Siegel gets a lesson in pronouncing Shakespeare, based on David Crystal’s research for London’s Globe Theatre. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Middle English Lessons”
Well, earlier we promised you an answer to the question, how far back in time could you go and still expect to understand and converse with native speakers of English?
We’ve definitely ruled out being able to make out much of Old English, which was spoken in, oh, about the mid-5th century until the early 12th century.
Oh, definitely. No chance at all.
But what about Middle English, say the time of Chaucer, which was the late 14th century?
I don’t think his English is much easier to follow. Hearing it is a challenge, that’s for sure.
There are a few experts that have done readings of Chaucer. And it’s really thrilling to listen to because you almost feel like you can make out the words if you just listened a little harder.
Now, reading it, though, you can actually get some meaning out of it. The spelling is different. But there’s a fantastic Middle English dictionary, freely available online, brilliant work, and it would pick up any slack that you needed.
You can read it. You can actually make out words in Chaucer without a lot of help. The spelling’s odd, but, you know, patience will carry you through.
Right. And then by Shakespeare’s time, things get a lot easier to understand, right?
Yeah, definitely. In fact, I have a book by David Crystal. He’s that amazingly prolific language expert.
And he was asked a few years ago by the Globe Theater in London to figure out how one of Shakespeare’s plays would have been pronounced in those days. And so Crystal did all this linguistic detective work and figured out the pronunciations and helped train the company’s actors to speak the lines pretty much the way they were spoken back then.
And he describes that experience in this wonderful little book called Pronouncing Shakespeare. He talks about how there are a few differences, like reason was pronounced raisin and voice was pronounced vice.
But, you know, Shakespearean English is still pretty darned understandable for the most part.
Well, if you want to hear what Shakespeare’s plays probably sounded like when they were first produced, we’ll put some examples on our website. That’s waywordradio.org.
We’ll also put up links to audio clips of Middle English and Old English. So you can listen and decide for yourself.
So get thee to our website. And if thou hast a question about language, get thee to a phonery and call us.
The number’s 1-877-929-9673. Or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.
