Re: Middle English question

On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:

> On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, Patrick Dunn wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:
> >
> > > Patrick Dunn wrote:
> > > > OE is more my field, but the general rules are:
> > > >
> > > > final e's pronounced as /@/
> > > > a vowel before a final e is long, unless followed by double consonants (so
> > > > "hadde" is a short a, but the e in speke is long
> > > > doubled vowels are long
> > > > y pronounced like /i/.
> > > > Most vowels have their eupropean equivelents.
> > >
> > > So, something like:
> > > [he: aks@d after eg@s and Te: go:d@ wif answerd@ Tat Se: cu:d@ spe:k@
> > > no: frenS@ and Ten at last a no:Ter sEd Tat he: wu:ld@ ha:v@ had@ ej:r@n
> > > Ten Te: go:d@ wif sEd Tat Se: understo:d him wel]?
> >
> > I believe so.  Remember that the /w/ in answerde is pronounced, too.  They
> > really didn't have much of that silent letter nonsense.
> >
>
> I tend to pronounce Middle (and Early) English as if it were
> dialect Dutch, and that works pretty well along the lines given
> here. But what I was wondering about was, how are the diphtongues
> pronounces, _ou_ especially? I guess /au/, but it might be /o/
> or even /u/...
According my little paperback Chaucer which I would copy in directly
except I lost the wrestling match for it with my cat and am fond of the
skin on my hands, ou is pronounced as in ME "thought" but longer.  (The
book said "slower."  Bah.)