The Stages of English

This video is designed to showcase the different iterations of English as it passes through the centuries, starting with the Old English Period (600-1100 AD), through Middle English (1100-1500), Early Modern English (1500-1800), and into Modern English (1800-2010).

I'll remind any critics that I'm just a student, and that mistakes in pronunciation are bound to happen. Also, I probably screwed up the Early Modern pronunciation badly, but the Middle English and Old English should be about spot-on. Please don't judge me too harshly!

The poems I read from are:

Old English: Beowulf, lines 1-12
http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~beowulf/main.html

Middle English: The Canterbury Tales, Lines 1-18
http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm

Early Modern English: Shakespeare Sonnet #130
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15557

Modern English: Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, lines 1-14
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/logr/log_026.html

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Old Middle
• Early
• Modern
• English
• Beowulf
• Canterbury
• Tales
• Shakespeare
• Sonnet
• 130
• Walt
• Whitman
• Song
• Myself
• Morphology
• History
• Byron
• General
• Prologue
• Chaucer
• Geoffrey
• Walkthrough

[lardman65]

Really cool, just a question, but how do you know if you are pronouncing the Old english right.

[eringobragh16]

@lardman65 I checked the pronunciation against one of my prof's who is a Medievalist, I found this dude "Benjamin Bagby" who memorized the entire first half of the poem and performs it, and I checked it against my textbooks on the subject.

if you mean how can I be sure that the books and people I've consulted are right, I ultimately can't, just like I can't be sure I'm pronouncing ancient Greek properly. They all seem to generally agree about how to say those words, so I'm going with them..

[ericshinkle]

This is throwing a sizable wrench into my time travel plans.

[bobbobato]

You know, even though old and middle english are difficult to understand, if you tried you can probably apply the accents successfully to modern english. It'd be interesting if this was done in a historical film.

[Tanatoast]

I failed to find the French words in The Canterbury Tales (I am French myself). Thou didst great job though :)

[shoujoairocks]

great pronunciation.

[xxWayoftheSunxx]

Where did you learn Old English? I have learned middle english, but I absolutely cannot find decent resources on learning to read and speak Old English.

[publiusovidius]

Thanks for this. Love coming across random stuff like this and expanding my mind just a bit more :)