Middle English pronunciations

[Sir Edward]

For most of our relevant period, Middle English is the form of English that would have been used ("Old English" was more Germanic and spoken prior to somewhere around 1100 AD).

Middle English actually resembled modern English quite a bit, but with some strong differences in pronunciation. Most of our modern spellings derive from this time (even though the spellings of the time also differed quite a lot). Most of the silent letters in modern English were pronounced back then. For instance, the "k" in "knight" was pronounced (and so was the "gh" like a soft form of the "ch" in the German "ich", and the "i" had more of an "ee" sound). Ironically, as a result, the text is probably easier to read than it would be to listen to it spoken.

I just thought I'd share since I ran across some of this in some random googling. It's useful to understand if you look at the untranslated versions of Chaucer.

Here's a neat little succinct description, though the links to the audio samples are broken:

http://webpages.marshall.edu/~will2/chaucer.html

A youtube sample of middle English:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU[/youtube]

[Sir Edward]

A few passages in audio. The audio clips start a few lines into the text passage in most cases:

http://www.auburn.edu/chaucer/sound.htm

[Sir Ulrich]

I understand most of it, oddly. Shame I can't speak it then I'd be REALLY accurate in period, and no one would understand what I was saying.
But when it came to old anglo saxon I could BARELY understand it. I also read that Scots is actually closer to old anglo saxon than modern english is. Not sure if thats true but anglo saxon ALMOST sounds scottish with its roughness and tons of tongue rolling.

[Sir Edward]

I think Old English would be pretty cool to pick up too, though it's before our period. I had a small exposure to it in an English class a long time ago, but all I remember is that "se cuyning" means "the king".

[Sir William]

This is why there is no time travel...it'd be a bunch of people babbling at eachother, gesticulating vociferously to get their point across. 

[Sir Edward]

More pronunciation info for Middle English:

http://www.suite101.com/content/a-pronunciation-guide-for-middle-english-a300904