LL-L: "Old English" LOWLANDS-L, 03.MAY.2000 (03) [E]

[Ian James Parsley]

Tom,

There is little doubt that Scots is more conservative that Standard British
or American English, but in fact there are several accents you could try for
Chaucer that would work quite neatly. I would imagine West Country would do
quite well, and in fact there is a lot of evidence to show that the
present-day West Midlands accents are quite close to Chaucer. Of course
Southern Ulster is considered by many the most conservative of the lot - as
with the joke of two women going past a music shop: the first points to a
picture and says 'that's Nat King Cole' and the second says 'Oh? Who is it
then?' The 'nat' there will be familiar to you from Chaucer, of course.

Scots also has had its own influences over time as well, and though I would
suggest it is more conservative than English, it is certainly very, very
different from first-millennium Anglo-Saxon (whereas, for example, an
Icelander from 1000 years ago would have little trouble understanding Modern
Icelandic). Another interesting question is whether Ulster-Scots is more
conservative than the Scottish dialects of Scots - many argue that it is
(and there is plenty of historical evidence to suggest why it should be),
however there are noteworthy elements of Ulster-Scots grammar which show it
to be less conservative (for example the merging of the preterite and past
participle, thus 'A grat, A hae grat' vs. 'A grat, A hae grutten).

Best,
-------------------------------
Ian James Parsley
http://www.gcty.com/parsleyij
0772 0951736
"JOY - Jesus, Others, You"