At first, Chaucer’s language is a bit intimidating and difficult to comprehend. However, by relating it to something familiar, it may be easier to understand. For example, for anyone living within an hour or so of Pittsburgh, the term “yinzer” is a familiar one. A yinzer speaks fluent “pittsburghese.” To someone from the area and familiar with this language, the statement on the "Pittsburghese" website is easy to understand. However, to an individual who is unfamiliar with this type of speaking, this question is hard to interpret.
Similarly, Chaucer’s language is difficult for us to understand because Middle English is not well known to us. The goal of my presentation is to help you better understand Chaucer’s language in order to equip you to read some of his more demanding literature.
According to Mersand’s Chaucer’s Romance Vocabulary, Chaucer’s vocabulary is estimated to consist of about 8,430 words. This number is equal with the Authorized Version of the Bible. However, his vocabulary was partially made up of borrowed words from Latin and Italian, but mostly from French. After the Norman Conquest (1066), both English and French were spoken in England. However, common people spoke English, while the aristocrats spoke French. According to David Burnley’s A Guide to Chaucer’s Language, “French words and phrases were thought to give elegance to English expression. For Chaucer….the pressures encouraging him to exploit the resources of that language would have been considerable. It may be that the adoption of French words or phrases was occasionally a communicative necessity for him, but much more often it would be truer to see that adoption as socially-motivated.”
During Chaucer’s lifetime, English began to replace French. Chaucer’s own works had a tremendous influence on this development. Many of the words borrowed from the Romance Languages (Latin and French) appeared in Chaucer’s works first.
At this point, you may be saying, “This is all fine and dandy, but how can I learn to understand the words Chaucer uses?” Well I’m glad you asked. One of the main difficulties modern readers find with Middle English is that it is not a standardized language. It has variations in spelling and inflections.
The following is an excerpt from the Norton Anthology of English Literature.
NOUNS
The plural and possessive of nouns end in es, formed by adding s or es to the singular: knight, knightes; roote, rootes; a final consonant is frequently doubled before es: bed, beddes. A common irregular plural is yën, from yë, eye.
ADVERBS
Adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding e, ly, or liche; the adjective fair thus yields faire, fairly, fairliche.
Although you will not want to memorize a bunch of Chaucer’s Vocabulary , this website can serve as a valuable resource while studying Chaucer’s works.
In conclusion, although Chaucer’s writing is not the easiest to read and understand, it can be done. With effort and practice, you will be able to understand Chaucer’s language almost as easily as you can understand Pittsburghese.
I forgot to say thank you. You're link to Chaucer's Vocabulary really helped me. I had a better understanding of how the Canterbury Tales Project in my presentation worked. The spelling changes, but the words still mean the same. Just like with Pittsburghese, Chaucer had some slang. Using Pittsburghese helped me to see how Chaucer fit in slang. It confuses people at first (like Pittsburghese) but everyone understands, at some point, what is being said, by looking at the surrounding words and/or phrases.
Posted by: Rachel H at February 10, 2004 06:58 PM