Oh, I just wrote a paper about translating Chaucer's Middle English in the Canterbury Tales to Modern English. It was really interesting, particularly the part where we had to choose a section to translate however we pleased. It is a fun language, especially to read aloud.
Re: the reading aloud -- yeah, I can imagine. My History of English Language book has a phonetic transcription of the first forty or so lines of Canterbury Tales, so I was reading that the other day, and, yeah. Even without the rhythm or cadence and mispronouncing all the vowels and everything, still. Mmm.
Doesn't it sound great? I remember when we had to memorize the first 20 or so lines of the General Prologue my senior year in high school. Then we had to recite it in front of the class.
It was great, because it was a tiny AP class (just 8 of us), and we always recited it together at the beginning of class to prepare. Every time we got to the "That hem hath holpen whan that they were seke," we always coughed before the "seke". That still cracks me up.
And sorry about the rambling, but I get a little over-enthusiastic when I talk about my English classes sometimes. *g*
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22/3/03 13:18 (UTC)(no subject)
23/3/03 11:51 (UTC)Re: the reading aloud -- yeah, I can imagine. My History of English Language book has a phonetic transcription of the first forty or so lines of Canterbury Tales, so I was reading that the other day, and, yeah. Even without the rhythm or cadence and mispronouncing all the vowels and everything, still. Mmm.
Re:
23/3/03 12:24 (UTC)It was great, because it was a tiny AP class (just 8 of us), and we always recited it together at the beginning of class to prepare. Every time we got to the "That hem hath holpen whan that they were seke," we always coughed before the "seke". That still cracks me up.
And sorry about the rambling, but I get a little over-enthusiastic when I talk about my English classes sometimes. *g*