![]() ![]() Now get your mind in the gutter and start translating!Īnd at the window out she putte hir hole,īut with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers For example, “witen” for “to know” has fallen out of the language, though we still have “unwitting”-as in “unwitting fool”-for “unknowing.” (German speakers will, moreover, recognise a close relative of “wissen”.) There are, finally, a few words you just won’t recognise, though some serious lateral thinking may help you. Some verb endings are different (put is putte, has is hath). Word order is more flexible (so the writer isn’t beholden to the “subject/verb/objec” rule.) ![]() Spelling wasn’t properly codified in the middle ages, so try playing around with similar sounds in your head (only once Caxton’s printing press arrives in 1476 do we start getting any uniformity in spelling). ![]() It tells us all about the limits and freedoms offered by the world’s Lingua Franca. The transformation is both dramatic and sneaky. It’s also a poem that also reveals plenty about the history of English. English with a big enough injection of French vocabulary and Scandinavian grammar to look very familiar but still old German enough to make you think twice. The below lines come from a poem composed in the 1380s in “Middle English.” This is English after the Norman Conquest of 1066 but before Shakespeare. It is written in English and celebrated as one of the most important texts in the Western Canon of Literature. features an act of “involuntary cunnilingus” and more toilet humour than the back of the school bus on a Friday afternoon. Writer, translator, and person, Elke Wakefield lives in Melbourne, Australia with a small family and a big library.Įlke Wakefield. ![]()
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