Pretty much. Middle English is 'twa', which I think can still be heard in parts of Yorkshire (or at least could fifty years ago). Certainly it survives in Scots.
'Oldest English words' identified
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Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
Damn, my smartarse comments once more turned out to actually be pretty correct. I do that too much.
@Padma: Interesting, thanks for the info.
@Cheezy: Hell, I know for a fact that Shakespeare outright changed the pronunciation of words so that they'd rhyme - Hyperion comes to mind - so I believe you.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
What I always heard was that the terminal "e"s in Middle English, which were pronounced as a Schwa, was indicative of an inflected ending that had died out since Old English times. They were pronounced most of the time. Middle English poetry, much like Latin poetry, often pretty much ignored the final syllable of a line. Syllables were also accented pretty much the same way as in Latin, including where the accent is on the penult if it is long, the antepenult if it is short, and never the ultima. The terminal "e" would never be accented, but even when it wasn't pronounced it would still count as the ultima thus change. By Shakespeare's time the terminal "e"s were almost never pronounced, but poets of course sometimes pronounced them for the sake of the meter, as they continue to do to this day.
I'm actually reading some Chauncer now for my English class, which the theme of studying Medieval Science and Technology. Most of what we read has been Modern English translations of texts written in Latin (some of which I chose to read in the original language instead), but we are just getting in to reading Middle English works. Last week we went over his treatise on the Astrolabe (which is of course prose, not poetry), and we are supposed to have read the Cannon's Yeoman's prologue and tale by Thursday. Sometime after that we will read Chaucer's Middle English translation of Boethius's Consolatio Philosophiae, which we already read in a more modern (but, in my opinion, not very good) translation. (Note: I never got as far as I was supposed to in reading any of those, but most people in my class read less or none.)
I'm sure the ability to read words without paying attention to the order of the letters depends heavily on how good a reader one is, and how familiar one is with the words being used. It would be impossible for this to work if the reader had no idea what the word would be if it were spelled correctly.
I don't hold much respect for the opinions in this article. It's all good and fine to predict the evolution of a language based on past evolutions etc etc, but you can never take into account all of the changes taking place in that society that might affect the language.
For example, before the French revolution the "proper" way to pronounce the pronoun "toi" was "tway", but since this was an aristocratic pronunciation after the revolution it has completely disappeared from usage. The sole exception to this is in parts of Quebec, where you can still hear the "tway" pronounciation because by the time of the French Revolution Quebec was already part of the British Empire and the Church in Quebec stayed strong as ever, maintaining the aristocratic usages.
For example, before the French revolution the "proper" way to pronounce the pronoun "toi" was "tway", but since this was an aristocratic pronunciation after the revolution it has completely disappeared from usage. The sole exception to this is in parts of Quebec, where you can still hear the "tway" pronounciation because by the time of the French Revolution Quebec was already part of the British Empire and the Church in Quebec stayed strong as ever, maintaining the aristocratic usages.
RalofTyr
King
There's a good chance Arabic will replace English as the only spoken language in Great Britain in the not so distant future.
If not that, then text speak.
If not that, then text speak.
Phrossack
Armored Fish and Armored Men
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2 l8.
(By the way, I don't text. That blasphemous invention is the bane of the English language! Vote Grammar-Nazi Party!)
RalofTyr
King
If I told Julius Caesar that in a few centuries, Rome would be invaded and conquered by Germans, he'd say that was rubbish too.
So? If you'd told Julius Caesar that Rome would be invaded and conquered by the Japanese, he'd have said that that was rubbish too. Guess which of these two scenarios more closely resembles the one you described? I suggest that you take your jingoism off-topic, and come up with some better rationale for it while you're at it.
RalofTyr
King
Don't be silly. Julius Caesar would have no idea who the Japanese were and it would have taken too much of his time to properly explain them.
If you don't understand how languages spread or how many times nations rise and fall, then that's your problem.
If you think Arabic would come into play as a major linguistic force, wait a few centuries. If not Arabic, then another competing culture.
And if you think Britain is some isolated isle, free from the globalizing world and nothing changes, then, you need to come up with some better rational.
You don't have to think that nothing changes in Britain in order to question the assertion that English will cease to be spoken there in the near future. That assertion is absurd and utterly baseless. Britain experienced massive, unrelenting immigration from speakers of every language under the sun until a century ago, and yet English remained its common language - all that happened is that English changed somewhat, and even then, less than you'd think. It didn't get replaced by French after all those Huguenots flooded into the country in the seventeenth century, for example. Which tells us that one thing that has definitely never changed about the British and probably never will is that they're constantly complaining about all these foreigners coming in and messing with their culture.
RalofTyr
King
OK, you got me. English is an impervious language that will survive no matter what, just like Mahican and Yola language.
Say, just one question. How come Britain doesn't speak Latin as its primary language anymore?
You're incredibly witty. But I've given reasons for my view, and you haven't given any for yours.
I'm not going to continue such an off-topic argument anyway. Take it to Off Topic, where I'm sure your rhetorical ability will be fully appreciated.
I'm not going to continue such an off-topic argument anyway. Take it to Off Topic, where I'm sure your rhetorical ability will be fully appreciated.
There was never a point in time when English was around in Britain that Latin was the primary language. French was the langauge of court for about 300 years and Latin was only used in Mass (and in some churches, not even as a functional language - i.e. they were merely silently mimed).
Latin is still alive in the many Romance languages we have today. If you argue they're different, they're just as different as Modern English from Old English or Middle English.
Historically in Europe, languages died out only because the peoples were wiped out - the Britons were a good example when they had to run off to Wales after being slaughtered by the Saxons. In fact, "Welsh" derived from Saxon "wellas" which means "other" .
Therefore, barring epic destruction of over a billion people, the English language will still survive in some form or the other. Probably incomprehensible to our ears, but it would have evolved from it.
Mirc
Not mIRC!!!
Agreed completely with BananaLee (and Plotinus) - I just wanted to add that anyway it's worth noting that dying languages will be an entirely different story now that we have so many texts and even recordings of them! Seriously, study of history and especially language history is going to be completely changed by the existence of recordings and the Internet. They're just not old enough for us to already see those incredible differences.
Wow, you sure showed that strawman!
When you're talking about timeframes stretching centuries, putting a label on the language spoken like "English" or "French" or "Arabic" is silly. There is no "English". It doesn't exist as a single entity. What we do have is a unfathomable series of dialects which share some common vocaublary and grammar but differ from each other very much in many ways.
Language is affected by so many things: Geography, Social class, Time period (Chaucer's english is VERY different from the English of Beowolf), and even a person's mother tongue affects the English you know and speak.
English won't be replaced by any other language, ever. It will absorb and adopt features of other languages it comes in contact with and evolve and change, but it can't be replaced.
Replace the word ENGLISH with any other language, and you have just stated a truth of history: every language ever spoken, at any specific time, is utterly unique, and will either absorb or repel linguistic pressures according to cultural forces.
Regarding English, I find it hard to believe that it has survived as long as it has already!... More likely, it is to be supplanted by Mandarin or Hindi over the next millennium.
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