Re: Middle English question

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/...


Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt