Namoore of theese! How do you pronounce Chaucer's English?
To appreciate Chaucer's poetry, it must be read and pronounced in his "language". The English language has changed considerably in the 650 years since Chaucer wrote. Trying to reconstruct the sound of a language as it was spoken centuries ago is very difficult (to say the least). It involves among other things, comparing related languages and phonetic probability. Luckily for us, scholars have spent much time and hard work figuring it out.
The quick way is this: pronounce all consonants. There is a reason there is a "K" in front of the word "knight". It was pronounced 650 years ago! If you had great difficulty in 1st grade understanding why you said "nyf" but spelled it "knife", now you kuhnowah. Taking the first example, besides the "K" you must pronounce the "N" and "GHT". The best I can come up with for modern spelling is: Kunyckt. I am fully appreciating George Bernard Shaw's desire to come up with phonetic spellings for the English language at this time. And we haven't even gotten to the vowels yet!
The Great Vowel Shift. In contemporary English we pronounce our vowels in all sorts of ways, confounding foreigners and ourselves quite often. We feel safe on consonant ground but encounter a new word and we must muddle through: long or short "A" ? And forget about dipthongs! In any case, the way we pronounce vowels is not the way Chaucer pronounced his. He wrote before the GVS, which was an inexplicable change in how the vowels in English were pronounced. The vowels moved or shifted around in the mouth and nobody knows why just that they did. For a quick guide use this:
And finally since those charts always confuse me I suggest this link:
Harvard Medieval Pronunciation Guide
At this site they have the pronunciation examples as sound files. Hearing how the words are sounded is much easier and more accurate than reading and guessing the sounds.
Return to: Chaucer Home Page