Old, Middle, Modern: Chaucer as the turning-point in the story of English pronunciation

Bell House brings you a recording of an online talk by leading writer and lecturer on the English language, David Crystal.
The talk illustrates the development of pronunciation from Old English (Beowulf) through Middle English (Chaucer) to Early Modern English (Shakespeare), and explains the sources of evidence that have been used to reconstruct 'original pronunciations’.
Originally planned as a face-to-face event at Bell House in March, we were pleased that David joined us online on Thursday 18th June.
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Bell House is an educational charity that offers support outside the mainstream school curriculum, lifelong learning, short courses, exhibitions, talks, and musical events. The house is also a centre for educational needs such as dyslexia support. We champion wider learning courses for all age groups. There are free events and bursary places available on all our courses.

[@zakattack8624]

I only wish this was more extensive and 5 hours long, spanning across more authors. I need more of his lectures.

[@CarolynOsborne]

My father was a Chaucer scholar, so I began watching in honor of him. I was surprised and delighted to see Robbins' book; my father worked with him on another book about Middle English.

[@samreenmahmood6656]

Crystal... an absolute linguistic and literary genius. I studied his work at A level as a kid and to this day find his talks and work absolutely mesmerising. 👊❤️

[@elainegoranov998]

He's extremely thorough and walks you through how to think about the vowel shifts over the generations which really helped me with pronunciation.

[@saxoman1]

This was awesome! Love it when scholars link us the past directly instead of making us feel alienated from what is, admittedly, the seemingly opaque mother language that our modern one comes from! That short conversation in Old English, and his efforts in linking us DIRECTLY to it with our modern language, was a beatiful exercise in that endeavor! I wish everyone could have a great teacher like him (in any subject, he clearly loves what he does and is enthusiastic about it) and wish that ALL English speakers could learn about the beautiful, interesting, CRAZY journey that our language has taken to get where it is. Bravo!

[@ElisaMarciano]

Remarkable lesson. I feel I am in his office having the pleasure of learning! What an excellent teacher! Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[@sabrinadimonte5922]

Brilliant! Thank you❤

[@geoffbakerhytch5623]

Engrossing, enlightening, and totally engaging talk by David Crystal - as usual!

[@frentom]

Thank you for those most-persuasive renderings of Chaucer and Shakespeare! In future, perhaps you could "screen-share" the text, so the viewer could see the actual passages as they were being read aloud ...

[@The-Great-Gonzo]

This is so fascinating! I would love to learn more about this. Excellent lecture!

[@mirellagiaivia7394]

i adore English laguage, I adore your lessons, I love Old English! i I have bought many of your books, the last one: The Cambridge Encyclopedia... I want to know everythig about the origin of English language: If you know the past, you can understand the present. It is amazing the links among languages: the roots unite people. You are an amazing Teacher. Thank you! Grazie from Torino!

[@gergalvin1312]

Delightful. Thank you.

[@cephalopod7300]

Þæt wæs god lecture!

[@maniaswamys702]

you have accurate tremendous pronunciation excellent professor you have great communication

[@danlinder2249]

Brilliant!

[@ScottCrothers]

Awesome!

[@maxpommer7292]

Sweet how I came to know those pronunciations like the "ch" in "loch" (scottish for "lake"). In modern English, it vanished from use, but in Scottish as well as west Germanic languages on the continent, it is still spoken, and you may find it as far away as in Persian languages. An example; If a scotsman may utter "Ach, I don't know..."" if he is flutered or somewhat agitated. the word "ach" sounds like it would in Dutch (Ach, ik weet het niet) or German (Ach; Ich weiss nicht...) I believe that some from Scotland may be ablto say the German word "Bach" correctly most English speakers not likely if they haven't learnt it. In Dutch, both "ch" and "g" can be spoken in this manner (i.e. "glimlach" = "smile") The Dutch word for god iwritten just like in eng, but also in this word, it sounds like va fricative of the throat. now, if you add an "a" at the end of that word as in Dutch, it sounds like the Farsi version (!)

[@JohnStodden1]

I only wish I had had this chap as a lecturer when I was studying modern languages at Cambridge University in the 1960s. He's inspiring and eloquent. My lecturers were boring, showed no interest in the subject and did not even look at the audience to see if they were following. They read from notes so that they could repeat the lecture next year without doing any more work. I only realise now, nearly 70 years later, how bad they were. I should have complained from the roof-tops, but as a young student you assume that "teachers know best". Are lectures today any better? I sincerely hope so!

[@annayaria2604]

Thank you so much very inspirino. Important for foreign students

[@yannschonfeld5847]

Thank you David for a very educational summary on not just the evolution of English but an intersting insight into the various living dialects of English today and perhaps even the Celtic ones in either Wales or West Country that may have had some input. I just wonder if the Great Plague played a rôle in the Great Vowel Shift when peasants and workers found a bit more freedom of movement. Historians would do well, I think, to turn some of their focus onto the history of the English language. Some already may have done so. What titles would shed some light on this subject? Thank you once again, David.

[@twoleavestrust66]

I am just a leaner of English,yet I have been listening and watching his talks..I pray for him that he should live minimum of 100 years with good health

[@nebuchadnectarthe2nd688]

I know you are translating as you please, but the meter is what make Chaucer beautiful. Just like Old English had alliterative verse. You can't just read it plan or it loses its meaning.

[@DanielL143]

Wunderfulle.

[@eriksyring]

Magnificent.

[@CoridanNJ]

Any good recommendations for a chaucer audiobook in the original pronunciation?

[@brendonlepage5576]

Wonderful gripping story. As you were reading it I've been thinking that if you read Chaucer with Afrikaans pronunciations it sounds almost as it would have done in Chaucer's time. Yay! I can read Chaucer 😁

[@gideonroos1188]

Indeed. I speak both Afrikaans and English, so when I was in uni doing historical linguistics, most of the Germanic words that didn't make sense in English, sounded like Afrikaans words. Look at the droghte of March. It's basically Afrikaans droogte. Even the adjectival final 'e', and some of the plural 'e' is the same. Soote and soete, for example.

[@brendonlepage5576]

@@gideonroos1188 Chaucer has also been my go-to example. Scots accent is good too: light, night, where they pronounce the g's as in loch. And all the kn- words the k was pronounced. And they trill r's. A lot of the differences between the languages can be explained by sound shifts. It's absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm just an interested amateur tho.

[@jackdarby2168]

I habe to ideas One is to simply follow the latin alphabets and the corresponding sounds as latin is written as it is spoken and when English began to be transliterated using the latin alphabets they must've first written it acc. to how they said it. The other is about the current accent in South West of England. It's said to have changed less as it is all country side. Also friscan as a language is brought up in this connection, friscan sounds like Germanic to me but the words are loaned from German the baisis of the language seems to be like English. You should look these bits up if you're into these things.

[@mortemoccasus2412]

Sweet old man

[@maxpommer7292]

What was that OE sentence for "I am"? Was it like "Ich eum"? Simillar to "Ich dien" in the begining? Can I therefor assume it IS spelled like"I" in German? I came across some quotations from "Beowulf" once and also some Old Saxon quotes from "Heliand", and was astonished how some words were... Did you mention " Kun(n)ing"? Even today, the Dutch word for "king" is "koning"(!)

[@maxpommer7292]

oops! ...how SIMILAR some words were or are. May I point out the word "you" took its beginnig here? Back then, it was still written "iu".

[@maxpommer7292]

Ach, I wish I could correct my typos...

[@TomFynn]

This is what the Internet was invented for. The distribution of knowledge. And it has 400+ likes. While some stupid Lady Gaga Video has Millions. Oh, the humanity.

[@CarolPrice4p]

Plattdeutsch is rather interesting, too 😎

[@carlstein9278]

As a German native speaker the old English vocabulary is weirdly familiar to me. there are phrases that are just unchanged in mordern german the canst thou in canst thou anything is identical to modern german.

[@paulapprich776]

Undoing the Great Vowel Shift, one sentence at a time. It appears that Scots did not shift so much.

[@KB-qo5wg]

Lol, I feel cheated. Why couldn't you have been my English teacher???

[@MrNova37]

some words sound like icelandic ,in old english

[@merrillmilner8717]

My CC is having a seizure.

[@nonplyrcharacter8962]

hello my classmates watching this video