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<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">=========================================================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 07 July 2008 - Volume 03<br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">-------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
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<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Paul Finlow-Bates</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Language politics" 2008.07.06 (03) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: Theo Homan <<a href="mailto:theohoman@yahoo.com">theohoman@yahoo.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "History" 2008.07.06 (02) [E/LS/French]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">This question: do you English-speaking people read older texts? And how much do you understand? And how much do you understand of Pepys?</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">---***************************************</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">It probably depends on individual education, and language confidence, but I'd sum up as follows:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Back to the 17th Century: - no problems reading. If we could hear them speak there might be some oddities or confusion, but no more so than exists across the country anyway.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">16th Century (Shakespeare, Elizabeth I etc): - Few difficulties, though some words might be "falsch Freunde" - not quite meaning what they do today.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Late Mediaeval: - Caxton, Henry VII: - Still readable without specialist knowledge, though a lot of words that don't seem familiar at first. More strong regional variation (which Caxton commented on as a problem when he started printing in England).</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">"High" Middle-ages (Chaucer):- Need a dictionary or guide to work through, though still broadly recognisable as a version of what we speak today. The more conservative Northern language of "Sir Gawain and the Greene Knight" is the same age but probably harder. I start relying on other Germanic languages, for example when Sir Gawain is called "a sikker man", meaning true and constant, it helps if you know some German or Dutch. I suspect that if we could hear anyone from this time, we would understand very little at first.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Early post-conquest, e.g. 12-13th C: Now getting to look a bit "foreign".. There is relatively little in English anyway, because literate people mostly used French.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Old English (roughly pre-1100):- Most modern English speakers need to learn this as a foreign language, albeit obviously related to the modern one. All books I've seen teach it that way. Again, knowledge of a modern mainland Lowlands language will help, and the concepts of modern German grammar (gender, cases etc) certainly help a lot.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Hope that answers your question.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Paul Finlow-Bates</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);"><a href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk">heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a></span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk">heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Language politics" 2008.07.06 (03) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From <a href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk" target="_blank">heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Theo asked: This
question: do you English-speaking people read older texts? And how much
do you understand? And how much do you understand of Pepys?</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I think Pepys is probably within the range of most people who have the will to pursue the text. (c 1660-1680)</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I think it is
safe to say that the majority of English speakers can read Shakespeare
c 1580-1620 BUT do not necessarily understand 100% of what they are
reading.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">As for Chaucer c 1400 the majority of people would struggle with his texts if they were left unguided by those who know them.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Medieval texts say 1200-1300 would be incomprehensible - except for a word or phrase here and there</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">pre Conquest texts i.e. before 1066 utterly incomprehensible unless you have a good working knowledge of German.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">These
opinions are based on our palaeography class which works once a month
over winter on old texts. We have dealt with documents in the original
from 1688, which once you are able to read the handwriting, are fairly
clear except for archaicisms. The 16th century documents are harder to
read because of the v different handwriting and the English once read
is less easy to understand - often convoluted and vague. We have also
read 15th & 14th century documents and once again it is 'reading'
the handwriting that causes the problems. The texts are usually self
explanatory because we tend to be reading rent rolls or court rolls
rather than prose.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">But there is
the added problem that before 1400-1450 many of the documents are in
Latin or French with tons of abbreviations which make life v v
difficult. Luckily we have an expert teacher who picks up these
manscripts and reads them as if they were today's newspapers.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">It is also
clear that those of us that have learnt Latin and / or other languages
have the advantage of those who only know modern English. Maybe it is
just a case of a more flexible mind looking eagerly for solutions... I
don't know but but certainly the best 'readers' are those who are not
monoglots.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Heather [Randall]<br></p><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
•
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