Talk:Middle English
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[edit] Links to archaic characters
Cumbersome sentence to be refrased: Original Frase: "Though never the language of the Roman Catholic Church, which was always Latin, it lost status as a language of courtly life, literature and documentation, being largely supplanted by Anglo-Norman French. It remained, though, the spoken language of the majority" Suggested refrassing: Though the language of the Roman Catholic Church, which always had been Latin..."never lost its status as a language of courtly life, literature and documentation" (In the originial is not clear whether this is the meanining intended, or just the contrary: "Though it was never lost, It had been largely replaced by Anglo-norman). Please somebody that know the facts correctly kindly refrase it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.197.48.37 (talk) 15:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Would it be sensible to include a list of the archaic letters somewhere on the page? It would be useful for people like me, an interested layperson. There is a link to the page for Eth but none to Yogh, which is what I was looking for. I found it after a bit of searching but that involved leaving wikipedia. Jaybee 20:33, 3 July 2007
- I've added the table and IPA for pronunciation. Can someone who is familiar with IPA and the way these letters should be pronounced check this for correctness please? 12:19, 6 July 2007
I've changed some the abbreviations in this article into their full form in the past (as it is easier to read and the wikipedia isn't paper anyway) but they've since been changed back.
Is there a reason for this that I haven't thought of? - 03:03 Apr 9, 2003 (U
- Abberviations are bad because you can't tell what they mean when you read a bit halfway through the article... I've taken them back out, and standardized the markup a bit more. --Brion 05:23 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)
I've taken out the ridiculously dated notion that Middle English was exclusively the language of the 'lewed', and tried to open up a slightly more modern and sophisticated outlook in the introduction.
also a distinction needs to be made between the natural language (mother tongue) of the population and learnt languages. The Norman nobility originally spoke French, of course, but there is evidence that by the late 12th century they had lost it as their natural language (due to the children of the Norman elite being brought up by English wives or wetnurses) This meant that by this time everyone in England had English as their first language. However, the nobility did hang on to French, but had to learn it as a second language.--Cap 11:40, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
can we get rid of the whole 'mother tongue' 'milk language' rubbish. Language acquisition can be a little more complicated than 'learned it at the breast of a wetnurse'. Consider chicano/latino kids growing up in California, who have two spanish-speaking, monolingual parents, who learn English through peers, schools, having to conduct business on behalf of their parents, work places, etc. Wetnurses. Pah.
I was not trying to deny that it was a complicated issue. If anything I was trying to emphasise this complexity, as the part of the article I was referring to uses the even more simplistic argument that the nobility spoke one language and the common people antother, when in reality the majority of the nobility (and maybe even a few common people) were bilingual in French and English. I was not saying that children only learnt English, but that English would likely be their most natural language. They did of course learn French "through peers, schools...work places, etc." aswell, and an ability to speak fluent French was probably commonplace amongst the nobility. but language is aquired at very young age and their first contact with languge was most likely English. There is also plenty of evidence that the nobility of England were becoming less competent in their use of French in the 14th/15th centuries. I was just trying to make a distinction between someone's first language and a second language which is aquired (however competently) after this.--Cap 11:40, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This is the original post (on the History of the English Language page which is the article i was actually referring to "French was the language of the aristocracy, while English remained the language of the common people" - French was the language of the Norman aristocracy after 1066, but after the late 12th century they began to lose it as a mother tongue (which was now English). This didn't mean that French died out however, the nobility still used French, but had to learn it as a second language.
"had nature not intervened, English may not have survived as a separate language. However, in the 14th century the Black Death killed so many of those in positions of power that many English speakers from the working classes rose to fill such positions, so displacing many of the French speakers." - this may have been an important factor, though it must be remembered that the "French speakers" being displaced also had English as their first language and the use of the French language in places such as parliament and other places of power was artificially maintained by people whose mother tongue was actually English.--Cap 11:40, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Have tidied up and clarified some parts. In particular, trying to clarify the distinctions between the Norman language, Anglo-Norman and Old French. Have removed the following para, as archer is an Anglo-Norman word and does not seem to therefore serve the contrastive purpose intended for the example.
- Archer and fletcher are special cases. Although there is no particular reason why we kept the English version - archer - and the French word fletcher has fallen, it is more than likely the archers themselves used the word 'archer' and the generals used the word 'fletcher'.
Man vyi 06:41, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Are thorn and yogh necessary?
I propose we replace thorn with 'th' and use of 3 for yogh with 'y', which I believe is the usual transliteration of those characters. I don't really think their presence adds much, other than making the text harder for non-experts to understand. If we must keep them, then there should be an explanatory note about the characters and what they mean. Nohat 08:48, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- You should keep them IMO - see my note at the top of the page about coming here as a non-expert to find out about Yogh. If someone is going to learn enough to read a M.E. poem, for instance, they need to know how to read and pronounce those characters. Jaybee 12:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] E sound?
Did Old and Middle English have the X-Sampa /e:/ sound, which Modern English lacks?
- Yes, this was lost in the Great Vowel Shift. --Saforrest 01:23, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Chancery English
I cleaned up the article on the Chancery Standard - and then noted that the previous version is repeated at the base of this article. Should the separate article on Chancery English be removed? Should the extended info on this page be removed and replaced with a link? Or should (elements of) the new version (plus links - I must add those...) be integrated in the text of the Middle English article? I'd do it myself if I had more expertise on the subject matter - plus I wouldn't like to tread on anyone's toes. Suggestions please. Thanks Parmesan 18:32, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
- Replaced Chancery Standard text with that from the separate page due to no comments being made. Redirected separate page here. Parmesan 18:10, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Pronunciation
I don't know much about the pronunciation of now-silent e's in Middle English, and I understand that Chaucer's verse was not as rigidly decasyllabic as later poets, but the claim "Words like 'straunge' are disyllabic. 'Palmeres' is trisyllabic" doesn't make much sense to me; it gives that line 12 syllables, while pronouncing both 'straunge' and 'palmeres' with two syllables, the last 'e' in 'palmeres' dropped, gives a metrically perfect line of iambic pentameter with a feminine ending.
Maintaining smooth meter likewise gives a one-syllable 'thanne' in front of an 'l', and a two-syllable 'ferne' in front of an 'h' - where I'd expect the last 'e' to be silent. Sadly, I don't know much about the issue, but from what I've read it seems like 'e' can be dropped or kept largely depending on meter. Someone who knows more should talk about this, as to me it seems like a pretty big part of Chaucer's verse. And as for the structure of the language itself, is the retention of the 'e' in these circumstances conservative, or was it probably still in normal use? -- Parvomagnus 11:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
- The "Pronunciation" section as it stands is not good. I advise you to ignore it and refer instead to something more authoritative like the "Language and Versification" section of the introduction to The Riverside Chaucer, which includes helpful material like a section of the general prologue marked up with stresses and silent syllables.
- A quick note that may help, however, is that it's important not to think of Chaucerian verse in terms of syllable counts. The lines in question here are constructed on the basis of having five stresses, not ten syllables. I suspect "palmeres" here should actually be slurred into two syllables; the elision of the second syllable of "thanne" is predictable before a vowel, and the second syllable of "ferne" is kept because the following syllable, the first of "halwes", is stressed and in a word from a Germanic root (<h> being IIRC only silent in words borrowed from French). But all that's off the top of my head and may well be wrong. — Haeleth Talk 13:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Alphabet
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Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007) |
Could use a section on the alphabet/orthography. -- Beland 13:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
This article is exceptionally boring.
- I agree that it needs something on orthography. The Jade Knight 23:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Where are the citations/references?
Or was it all sourced from * Sweet, Henry (2005). First Middle English Primer. Evolution Publishing: Bristol, PA. ISBN 1-889758-70-1. Just wondering.
Asd2112 19:19, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Incubator Link
I commented out the incubator link- the page that you are sent to is empty; the main page of Incubator has no mention of the Middle English version. If someone has a good reason for keeping that link there, feel free to remove the comments. Cymbalta 17:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC) Boring stuff!!
[edit] Middle English in Scotland and the coming of Scots
- "Scots emerged from Early Northern Middle English not as Middle English became Modern English"
This topic is somewhat difficult to deal with as "Scots" was still "Inglis" and some centuries away from its speakers deciding they'd like to change the name of their language at the time you mention (evolution from "Early Northern Middle English which im assuming is a reference to one of "Northumbrian" or "Anglo-Saxon" as seen here). Even if it is generally decided to anachronistically refer to a certain stage of Middle English as spoken in Scotland as "Scots" it doesnt change the fact that Middle English was spoken in Scotland and if this:
- "his article doesn't describe what was spoken in Scotland"
Is the case you should insert any missing information rather than remove undoubted fact from the article. Middle English was spoken in Scotland and the fact that its speakers eventually decided to adopt a different identity and, consequently, eventually a different name for their language doesnt have any bearing upon this fact. siarach (talk) 20:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
