![]() The same could be said of Sinitic, Arabic, and many other "macrolanguages". You can follow her on Twitter visit her website, .Īs we've been seeing synchronically with English accents across space, diachronically there is also great variation in the language through time. She studied Cultural Studies and English at Trent University, earning her MA at the University of Toronto, where she specialized in medieval literature and Renaissance drama. Ttyl.ĭanièle Cybulskie is the lead columnist of and the host of The Medieval Podcast. In a few hundred years, who knows what shape English will take? An interesting question. After all, Modern English encompasses everything from Shakespeare’s words to text-message short forms. When that April with his showers sweet / The drought of March has pierced to the root…Īs you can see, even Middle English seems far-removed from the English we use today, but it is looking much more similar to the language of Shakespeare.Īlthough the invention of the printing press helped to level out our alphabet and to standardize spelling, it didn’t stop the evolution of our language. Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote… This English evolved steadily over several hundred years, and is a little easier to read, as you can see from the first two lines of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: “Middle English” came about after the Norman Conquest, when the Norman French of the conquering people integrated itself into Old English, increasing vocabulary immensely. ![]() Middle English was my specialty in college, so I feel special affinity for it. (I recommend Liuzza’s translation for modern readers.) Liuzza in Beowulf: A New Verse Translation)īecause of the huge differences in language, Beowulf is hardly ever read in Old English these days. In the dark night he came / creeping, the shadow-goer (Old English is also sometimes referred to as Anglo-Saxon, since it was the language of those people.) Even though it is the ancestor of today’s English, it is hardly recognizable to modern eyes.Īs an example, here is an excerpt from the most famous work in Old English: Beowulf: The first form of recorded English, which we call “Old English,” was spoken and written before the Norman Conquest of 1066 AD, although it continued to be used afterwards. Ȝ / ȝ (yogh) – sounds like “gh” as in “thought” (although it has a more throaty, phlegmy sound) Ƿ / ƿ (wyn) – sounds like “w” as in “will” Ð / ð (eth) – sounds like “th” as in “Seth” Þ / þ (thorn) – sounds like “th” as in “the” Æ / æ (ash) – sounds like the “a” in “cat” ![]() In the Middle Ages, English had five additional letters: The most noticeable difference between older forms of English and today’s English is the alphabet. What, then, are the most distinguishing characteristics of the three main stages in the development of English? When people study Shakespeare in high school, I often hear them refer to his language as “Old English.” As far as the language goes, Shakespeare’s English actually falls under the category of “Modern English.” This may be a little hard to believe, considering the conspicuous lack of “thee” and “thou” in modern writing, but the forms of English that came before are even more foreign. The Differences between Old English, Middle English and Modern English
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