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Flying Chaucers (Linguistics)
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Flying Chaucers
The purpose of this sub-quest is to investigate the "language" of Chaucer (and other so-called "Middle English" sources). Among the items under consideration are the following:

1. Does Chaucer employ a systematic spelling system designed to convey phonetic pronunciation
2. Is it possible to unlock the original pronunciation by reading the text
3. Why have modern "Translations" by academics so badly mangled the text?

A brief note from Dan Crisp -- the note that inspired this sub-Quest:

DPCrisp wrote:
downloaded the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, original plus modernized, from a site that goes on about TRANSLATING Middle English.
Out of 858 lines, I transliterated three blocks from beginning, middle and end, totalling 220 lines: with no training and no specialist knowledge, of course. I found:
i) Some of the 'official translation' is very close to the original, which surprised me a bit. The way they go on, you'd think none of it would be rendered directly.
ii) Some of it is re-jigged just for the sake of meter and modern idiom.
iii) Between a third and a half of the lines were too much of a stretch: from equivalent-but-unnecessarily-different to nowhere-bloody-near.
So the waters are very cloudy. If this sort of translation is used to illustrate the difference between Modern and Middle English and therefore to support the view that it really is translation rather than transliteration it needs... well... I don't need to tell you. And they don't seem to have noticed that they can leave some of it well alone.
What shall I do with this? Stick it up my arse; or add some examples and post it somewhere
?

I say, let's get posting -- and here's as good a place as any!
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Mick Harper
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Here are four brief passages taken at regular intervals from earliest Anglo-Saxon to latest Modern English. So that you can judge properly, I have used modern spelling and the Latin alphabet, though the words themselves are as written at the time (though of course they have been selected by me). All you have to do is decide whether they show rapid and radical change as academic linguistics claims or not, as I claim:

The first is from The Wasteland by T S Elliot and is from the twentieth century

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.


Next, Chaucer, The Prologue, fourteenth century (with my corrected spelling in brackets).

A swerd and bokeler bar he by his syde. (A sword and buckler bore he by his side)
A whit cote and a blew hood wered he. (A white coat and a blue hood weared he)
A bagpipe wel koude he blow and sowne, (A bagpipe well could he blow and sound)
And therwithal he brought us out of towne. (And there with all he brought us out of town)


Next the Death of Edward from the eleventh century:


Englum and Sexum, oretm�gcum,
swa ymbclyppa� cealde brymmas,
��t eall Eadwarde, ��elum kinge,
hyrdon holdlice hagestealde menn.



And finally some Caedmon from the seventh century:


Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard,
metud�s maecti end his modgidanc,
uerc uuldurfadur, sue he uundra gihuaes,
eci dryctin, or astelid�.


OK, now you probably noticed that the first two were practically identical. But there no linguist will agree with you. To them Chaucer is Middle English, i.e. halfway between Anglo-Saxon and Modern English. I dunno how they manage to convince themselves of this but I have had a zillion arguments with them and they keep insisting over and over again that Chaucer is just a way-station between full-blown Anglo-Saxon and Modern English. I'll leave that one with you.

Now probably you can't tell whether the two Anglo-Saxon passages are or are not very different. I can't myself, it's all gibberish in a foreign language to me. However an Anglo-Saxon academic did accuse me of deliberately choosing a late Anglo-Saxon poet who wrote in an antique style, in order to make my case. So I guess the language really hadn't changed very much in four centuries.

It's pretty obvious to anybody with an IQ in three figures that these are two separate languages, neither of which has changed very much, but that have been spatchcocked together in order to provide a spurious account of the origins of English. That's basically what academic linguists are for, concocting modern-day creation myths.
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DPCrisp


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Here is the beginning of the Canterbury Tales in the original "Middle English", according to http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/CT-prolog-para.html:

1: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
2: The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
3: And bathed every veyne in swich licour
4: Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5: Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
6: Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
7: Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
8: Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
9: And smale foweles maken melodye,
10: That slepen al the nyght with open ye
11: (so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
12: Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
13: And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
14: To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15: And specially from every shires ende
16: Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
17: The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
18: That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.


A straight transliteration, according to me:

1: When that April with his showers suit
2: The drought of March has pierced to the root,
3: And bathed every vein in such liquor
4: Of which virtue engendered is the flower;
5: When Zephirus eke with his sweet breath
6: Inspired has in every holt and heath
7: Tender crops, and the young Sun
8: Has in the Ram his half course a-run,
9: And small fowls make melody,
10: That sleep all the night with open eye
11: (so pricks them Nature in their courages);
12: Then long folk to going on pilgrimages,
13: And palmers for to seek strange strands,
14: To far hallows, known in sundry lands;
15: And specially from every shire's end
16: Of England to Canterbury they wend,
17: The holy blissful martyr for to seek,
18: That them has helped when that they were sick.


The "translation" provided by the website above:

1: When April with his showers sweet with fruit
2: The drought of March has pierced unto the root
3: And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
4: To generate therein and sire the flower;
5: When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
6: Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
7: The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
8: Into the Ram one half his course has run,
9: And many little birds make melody
10: That sleep through all the night with open eye
11: (So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
12: Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
13: And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
14: To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
15: And specially from every shire's end
16: Of England they to Canterbury wend,
17: The holy blessed martyr there to seek
18: Who helped them when they lay so ill and weal


Only one line is faithful to the original!

15: And specially from every shires ende
15: And specially from every shire's end


The rest depart from the original:

i) subtly, excusably:

2: The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
2: The drought of March has pierced unto the root

5: Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
5: When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,

8: Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
8: Into the Ram one half his course has run,

10: That slepen al the nyght with open ye
10: That sleep through all the night with open eye

12: Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
12: Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,

13: And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
13: And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,

16: Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
16: Of England they to Canterbury wend,


ii) unnecessarily:

6: Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
6: Quickened again, in every holt and heath,

Why change "inspired hath" to "quickened again"...

7: Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
7: The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun

..."crops" to "shoots and buds"...

9: And smale foweles maken melodye,
9: And many little birds make melody

..."small fowls" to "many little birds"...

14: To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
14: To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.

..."far hallows" to "distant shrines"...

17: The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
17: The holy blessed martyr there to seek

..."blissful" to "blessed"? Isn't the sense clear enough in the original?


iii) egregiously:

1: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
1: When April with his showers sweet with fruit

3: And bathed every veyne in swich licour
3: And bathed each vein with liquor that has power

4: Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
4: To generate therein and sire the flower;

11: (so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
11: (So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-

18: That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
18: Who helped them when they lay so ill and weal

These are complete inventions!

Obviously, there is a big difference between modernizing archaic poetry for the sake of enjoyment by a wider audience and studying (and enjoying) what the poet originally wrote. Not that Chaucer requires any special study: some of the anachronisms are familiar; some self-evident, even illuminating; and some so obscure you need to look them up. So what? The same goes for modern writing!
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Mick Harper
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This is completely fascinating, Dan. One of the questions you (don't quite) raise is as to the integrity of the academics.

But actually the shenanigans are down to Applied Epistemology rather than Criminology or Ethics. Chaucer is studied in the English Literature department where all practitioners regard the text as simply a base for rhetorical flights or (in the modern fashion) a bit of semiology.

It is linguists who study texts textually. And the one language linguists steer well clear of is English. Now if The Canterbury Tales had been written in Lakotan....
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Mick Harper
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Some fine unconscious comedy from the MedtextList:

I've been asked to suggest a good translation of the Canterbury Tales. I've found Neville Coghill, and Ronald L. Ecker and Eugene J. Crook. Any recommendations?

---------------------------------

Your acquaintance would be best served with the Middle English. It takes just a little bit of effort to get used to the spelling, and any of the editions will have sufficient glossing to handle the "hard" words. My sophomores can handle the Middle English with little difficulty. None of the translations is worth the paper it's printed on, and that goes double for Coghill.
----------------------------------

I hope your doctor friend enjoys it; if he balks at the ME, remind him that translations tend to cut out the dirty jokes. I think most of us are more worried about translators sucking the life out of the poetry, but that may not be such a concern to your friend.
----------------------------------

There are no good translations of The Canterbury Tales. The only exception I ever make is for the 8 tales presented with Middle English and a translation on facing pages, by Constance and Kent Hieatt, published by Bantam.

If you want to read all the Tales, learn Middle English -- my students have managed it for 30 years. And especially don't get that awful Coghill mistranslation.

---------------------------------

I recommend Michael Murphy's "Reader-Friendly" modernizations. They provide the Middle English, word for word, with modernized spellings. Murphy argues that we do the same for Shakespeare for classroom use.
----------------------------------

We read Chaucer in Middle English in the 11th Grade -- it's certainly possible with a bit of preparation and instructor guidance -- and ultimately much better -- with a parallel translation the inadequacy of verse translations becomes apparent and that it in itself is a great lesson.

There are no good translations of The Canterbury Tales.

and in all fairness, there can't be.
-------------------------------

Can anyone suggest any particularly egregious passages in the Coghill translation? It is one thing to *tell* students that an translation is "awful" but it is quite another for them to determine it for themselves. I am thinking this would make a useful assignment to undergraduates. Suggestions?
--------------------------------

Not to shoot fish in a barrel, but for purposes of ridicule I have often put before students a one-page handout of the Coghill translation of Absolon's kiss in the Miller's Tale. I don't have it in front of me, but I do remember Coghill changes Chaucer's "swete brid" to "my chicken," desperate as he is to rhyme with the previous line's "the plot may thicken" (which of course is not in the Middle English at all). The whole passage is a travesty of the original. Be sure to remind the students that chickens don't even have lips... :)
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Ishmael


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This post is in reference to Mick's recounting of his adventures on ANSAXNET, found over in the "Who were the Anglo-Saxons Really?" thread. My comments deal specifically with points related to Chaucerian English.

Professor Hinton wrote:
Indeed, it has even been argued that since a number of changes from OE to ME depend on the loss of articulation of the vowels in final syllables, one can even date the beginning of ME in the early 11th or even late 10th century.

As we know, OE can be discounted as irrelevant. What concerns me is the pronunciation of Chaucer. Hinton argues that the final syllable in a word ending in a vowel is unarticulated. He is partially correct.

My own reading suggests that the presence of a final vowel in Chaucerian spelling is key to understanding the pronunciation of the complete word. There are no truly "silent" vowels in Chaucer. The proof is that Chaucer never rhymes a word ending in "e" with a word that does not end in "e."

Modern poets rely on pronunciation, not spelling, to select "rhyming" words. I don't think Chaucer was any different. He would not have allowed an arbitrary spelling convention to restrict his rhyming scheme. Therefore, in Chaucerian English, spelling follows pronunciation. If a word ends in "e," that "e" must somehow be pronounced.

But how?

The answer is this: the presence of a final vowel determines whether the last consonant is articulated or simply used as a "resting place."

A word like "cart" in Chaucerian english is pronounced "car(t):" the tongue comes to rest on the final "t" but does not pronounce the full sound of the consonant. The resulting sound, to many ears, would be almost indistinguishable from "car" -- and that is probably where our modern word "car" comes from. "Car" is how "Cart" originally sounded to an "untrained" ear.

However, a word like "carte," in Chaucer, is pronounced as is our modern word "cart." Not like "Cartie" or "Carty" but simply "Cart."

When spelling conventions got hammered out, some of these original phonetic spellings were retained and the pronunciation changed -- or words split simply because they were no longer recognized in their vocal form.

"Car" existed in speech but "Cart" existed in writing. The educated elite always spoke "cart" instead of "Car." Thus it seemed two words existed -- one only in spoken form. Eventually, the second oral-only word got written down as well: as "car." But both words are actually the same.
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DPCrisp


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NB. As I told my kids, the French never pronounce the ends of words unless they really have to: and one of the ways to make sure they do is to put an -e on the end.
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Mick Harper
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You may care to explore the French experience with their final consonants.

One is never told in French lessons, but the rule in French is that the final letter of any word is never pronounced. Whenever it is, an accent has to be added to indicate the fact. The only exception (that I know of) is "fils" meaning "son" which has to be pronounced "feece" in order to distinguish it from "fille" meaning daughter. The French seem to think it important to distinguish between their children though obviously to everyone else they're just French, and can be dismissed as such.

Constantly dropping a letter is an odd state of affirs in the first place but becomes odder still when you consider that, for us, French is entirely a literary language. But presumably for the French as well! How else to explain that otherwise, in the ninth/tenth century when French litterateurs began to write down their language, they decided to add on letters to every word.

Current orthodoxy explains this by claiming that the last letter was dropped in the eighteenth century because the fops of the Royal Court thought it an amusing thing to do and the "fashion" caught on, nationwide.

Not only is this unlikely in itself (though I concede just possible...anyone know the origin of the Spanish affectation for lisping?...it sounds rather foppish) it doesn't explain why EVERY French word has a silent last letter i.e. vowels as well, not just consonants.
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Ishmael


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This is another response to the aforementioned thread.

Professor Hinton writes:
The spelling is a guide to pronunciation, not the opposite. It's our standardized spelling that makes analysis of pronunciation more difficult.

Mick Harper wrote:
I cannot quite fathom either the truth or the significance of this statement but it led directly to an idea I pursued a little later. One of the functions of orthodoxy for Applied Epistemologists is as a source for new ideas. Forcing them to think, forces us to think.

What amazes me is that Hinton grasps reality and does not see the truth!

I have been arguing Hinton's position for some time: that Chaucerian spelling is a purely phonetic spelling (or nearly so). I'm not sure he understands the full implications however, otherwise he could not but recognize that Chaucer is writing "IngGlish."

By contrast, our "standardized spelling" is non-phonetic. We now employ phonetic characters to construct word-glyphs that tell us little to nothing about how a word is actually pronounced. Chaucer's English employs a standard, phonetic code that enables the reader to reconstruct the precise sound of the word -- if the reader knows the code.

Mind you, though I lack any knowledge of the subject, my guess is that ME scholars have completely bastardized the code -- all the better to obscure the fact that it encodes a nearly standard English (or Scottish!) pronunciation (I recall reading on the Web of some English choir training to sing some old poetry "in the original Middle English" -- which I should think rather silly as they sing in it every day!).

I think the key to unlocking the Chaucerian pronunciation code is to read it with the view that the underlying sound is recognizable and nearly everyday English. So far, to me, it sounds like Scottish/Irish.
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DPCrisp


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Take a look and listen at this website concerning the Great Vowel Shift (or Great Vowel Movement as I prefer to call it): it's hilarious.

http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/lit.htm

The GVS is a particularly important linguistic change for students of literature to understand because not only did it effect a massive change in the language, it did so at a time when people were increasingly interested in standardizing English.

Well, that's it in a nutshell: the Great Vowel Movement is a standardisation in spelling, not a shift in pronunciation.

Once upon a time, people spelled words the way they sounded

We STILL spell words the way they sound. The trouble is i) we can see multiple spelling conventions at play, so ii) we don't necessarily recognise the right one in each case.

But once people started standardizing the spelling of words, the written language no longer kept up with the natural and inevitable changes in pronunciation.

What natural and inevitable changes in pronunciation? The only evidence of it is in the written record: but from that we can't tell whether it was the manner of the writing or of the speaking that changed.

Standardization is a problem for the linguist trying to understand phonology, because she can no longer look to spelling as evidence for phonological change.

This is completely circular. Before standardised spelling, phonetic representation, which we call...er... spelling, was so rigidly defined that we could read off the pronunciation with complete fidelity... according to our rules of pronunciation!
Standardisation is a problem for linguists because it's the wrong cipher.

The main phonological difference between Chaucer's English (the London dialect of the late 14th century) and Present-Day English is the pronunciation of vowels; Chaucer wrote before the Great Vowel Shift. For this reason, many of the rhyming words in his poetry no longer rhyme today.

This means "this stuff is easy to identify as poetry, just like today's, with lines in rhyming pairs, just like today's; although every one of Chaucer's rhymes was spot on, unlike today's, and we'd rather die than grant Chaucer any poetic licence just like today's."

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,

The word soote doesn't survive into PDE.
[ Present-Day English ]

Yes it does: suit means in attendance. "April, with his showers", if you like.

Suit and root sounds like an ordinary rhyme to me.

And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

the u in licour and flour (PDE "liquor" and "flower") take different paths.

In Received Pronunciation, maybe, but so what?

In licour, the vowel shortens and becomes a schwa in PDE, while the vowel in flour, as expected, becomes a diphthong.

As expected? When the paradigm is upheld we have the evidence to prove it. And when the paradigm is not upheld it is only on our say-so and proves we were right all along.

Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

breeth and heeth are an interesting pair because they rhymed for Chaucer but don't rhyme for PDE speakers.

That's an assumption. Even if it's true, so what?

Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,

sonne and yronne are PDE "sun" and "run."

Well, "a-run" clearly.

The pronunciation has changed, but not due to the GVS; the short vowels in sonne and yronne unrounded and became PDE schwas.

Masterful paradigm juggling: but why bother? Sun and run rhyme whether spelled s-o-n-n-e/r-o-n-n-e or s-u-n/r-u-n.

In the audio track, she says sun-uh and run-uh, but the only evidence that every single letter was faithfully and consistently pronounced is... the way they're written. That is, there is no evidence at all! I can't imagine there's an old text that says they pronounced everything they wrote: because that has always been the case for all of us. Even the French will say so: the way they pronounce things is determined by the spelling, but according to their rules, not ours.

And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye

The same thing happens for melodye and ye as happened for breeth and heeth. The vowel at the end of melodye is unstressed and becomes short, so it maintains the sound i in PDE; the vowel at the end of ye (PDE "eye") stays long and thus goes through the GVS, becoming aI.

Never mind that this could be a slack rhyme; or might still be the same in the relevant accent.
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Ishmael


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Why isn't the final vowel pronounced that follows the last consonant? Because vowels are only ever pronounced when they are sandwiched between consonants. "E" is the standard "fill-in" vowel in English. It is, in fact, the original vowel. All others are adjuncts or modifications of "e."

but the only evidence that every single letter was faithfully and consistently pronounced is... the way they're written. That is, there is no evidence at all!

There is evidence that they pronounced as written: Chaucer's rhyming scheme.

Every word that is meant to rhyme in Chaucer also happens to be spelled the same way! This does not happen in modern poetry -- because we do not spell phonetically. We spell in accordance with convention. This is a dead give-away that there is no standardized spelling in Chaucer. His 'English' isn't in fact a written language. It is a phonetic code.

And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye

The same thing happens for melodye and ye as happened for breeth and heeth. The vowel at the end of melodye is unstressed and becomes short, so it maintains the sound i in PDE; the vowel at the end of ye (PDE "eye") stays long and thus goes through the GVS, becoming aI.

Never mind that this could be a slack rhyme; or might still be the same in the relevant accent.

There are no slack rhymes in Chaucer. Every rhyme is exact. Slack rhymes are a function of standardized spelling. Chaucer, because he is using a phonetic code, can inform his reader exactly how to pronounce every word he writes. If he wants a word pronounced differently, he can spell it differently.

An(d) smal(e) fo-u-e(l)es make(n) me(l)-owe(d)-i(e),
Tha(t) sle(p)e(n) a(l) the ny(g)h(t) with open i(e)

Notice how close this is to how we generally sound words today:

An' small fowls make melody
Tha' sleep a' the nigh' with open eye

The Chaucerian phonetic code, however, clearly indicates that in this context, 'Melody' is to be pronounced like 'mol-o-die.' This may or may not have been the conventional pronunciation. We can learn whether it was or not by examining how melody is spelled elsewhere in the text. Chaucer's phonetic code gave him the flexibility to instruct his reader in how to alter pronunciation to conform to his rhyming scheme.
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DPCrisp


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The current situation, I believe is this:

• We have strong rules of pronunciation, albeit multifarious and often conflicting.
• These rules are normally applied completely unconsciously in rendering print directly into meaning.
• Unfamiliar words - English or foreign - are read the same way, which often means they are mispronounced until the correct rules are applied. The more you already know, the less you get wrong.
• Chaucer looks very unfamiliar.
• Therefore, since the pronunciation is rendered unconsciously, Chaucer is taken to be unfamiliar.
• This different version of English is dubbed Middle English.
• Being different from ordinary English, it takes special study to understand it.
• This special study consists in identifying and articulating the rules of Middle English spelling & grammar and drawing up parallels with Modern English.
• These parallels at once indicate the differences and similarities between Middle and Modern and are used to uphold the paradigm of the rapid evolution of English from Anglo-Saxon.

Of course, this is entirely circular.
"How do you know how to pronounce it?"
"It's written down: you pronounce every vowel."
"How do you know you have to pronounce every vowel?"
"It's written down."

In THOBRland, the situation is reversed:
• There is no reason to think Chaucer wrote in anything other than plain English.
• We know for sure that Chaucer's spelling conventions were not necessarily the same as ours.
• Nevertheless, no writing system can work without a reasonable level of consistency, so we expect to be able to make out what he says with a good degree of regularity.
• Lo and behold, when it is assumed that unfamiliar spellings represent familiar words, the plain English comes tumbling out. Of course it's laced with anachronisms, but we're familiar with many of them already.
• The need to look up unfamiliar words is no greater than for any other period.
• The spellings used are completely rational, though sometimes illuminated best by assuming a Scottish accent.

That being the case, I see no reason to suggest
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,


literally reads anything other than

Tender crops, and the young Sun
Hath in the Ram his half course a-run,


Just as with reading anything modern, we should look to the meaning of what's written and not assume the spelling is meant to convey anything particular about the pronunciation: and hope we don't miss out on the subtleties of word-play too often.
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DPCrisp


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Everyone else, including you, Ish, starts off with a narrow view produced by (what they know of) Received Pronunciation and Standard (written) English; without recognising or acknowledging the variety to be had from combining different, but equally valid, spelling conventions from different times and places with different pronunciations from different times and places.

To have this conversation in text is extremely difficult. To be fair to the linguists, you can't get very far without a set of phonemes distinct from ordinary spellings, but even they are incomplete and I don't know of any system for fully articulating natural, dialectical speech. We end up having to say things like "like CH in German", but even then a) everyone has to know German pronunciation pretty well, which in my experience is uncommon, and b) that's just the German pronunciation we were taught and I have no idea what regional variations are like (although I know they're there and they're strong).

The spelling conventions we use were picked from those that arose organically, but even now spelling both does and does not dictate pronunciation:

BREAK is pronounced "brake".
BRAKE is pronounced "brake".
BEAK does not rhyme with BREAK.
BREAD does rhyme with LEAD.
BREAD does not rhyme with LEAD.
A Scouser says break/brake with a sound I never use in English.
Some people pronounce APPLE "happle".
Some regions use diphthongs where RP does not.
HEAD and HEED do not rhyme for me; they do for some Scots.
Some people add indistinct vowel sounds all over the place just in the meter if their speech. (Dunno if this is a regional thing.)

Words can be pronounced indistinctly or carefully: but when we try to articulate a word carefully, precisely, correctly... to teach it or dictate it, for instance... we do so in terms of its standard spelling.

I can see no reason to suppose that Chaucer did use a precise system of phonetic representation, let alone that we could faithfully decipher it.

The Great Vowel Shift is based on a level of standardisation that its proponents claim did not exist!
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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There is evidence that they pronounced as written: Chaucer's rhyming scheme.

No! And that was precisely my point. We don't assume every poem written now has to rhyme with 100% fidelity, so why should Chaucer's? Chaucer's rhymes can only be proved to be precise if it's known that the spellings are precise; and the only evidence for that is in his rhymes.

There are no slack rhymes in Chaucer. Every rhyme is exact.

You can only say that because you recognise what the words are: but then you assume the different-from-modern spelling indicates a different-from-modern pronunciation, despite the fact that rhymes are not necessarily preserved from one dialect to another, even now.

Slack rhymes are a function of standardized spelling.

No, slack rhymes are a function of what you want to say being near enough to looking or sounding like the other word. (And the flipside is making up or misspelling a word, or using a phrase that disrupts the meter, just to make the rhyme, perhaps to comic effect.)

If he wants a word pronounced differently, he can spell it differently.

Then he is the greatest master of the written word there has ever been, because no one before or since has been able to do this. (Although since language is not a solitary exercise, there would have to have been others...)
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Mick Harper
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To be fair to the linguists, you can't get very far without a set of phonemes distinct from ordinary spellings, but even they are incomplete and I don't know of any system for fully articulating natural, dialectical speech.

This, in my opinion, is the most important fact in the entire history of linguistics. If it's true, and I think it's true, and I think it's even truer before our speech got standardised by phonetic writing, then it means that ALL alphabetised languages were artificial. (Before the Irish made their big breakthrough.)
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