Re: Middle English question

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Could anyone tell me how my sig was pronounced?  The final -e's are
> pronounced as /@/, yes?
Okay, I'm no ME expert, but here goes:

> "[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not
[he:  aks@d &ft@r EgIz and D@ go:d@ wif answErd@ D&t Se: kUd@ nOt]

> speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde haue
[spe:k@ no: frEnS@  and DEn &t last @ no:D@r seid D&t he: wUld@ h&v(e)]

> hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." --
[h&d@ eir@n DEn D@ go:d@ wif seid D&t Se: Und@rsto:d him wEl]


Now, of course all of this is also highly conditioned by dialect.  For
example, I seem to remember reading about a dialectal variation between
[U] in the south and [V] further north.  Also, I think some dialects did away
with /&/ as a phoneme entirely, so some of my renderings are little more than
guesses (like I said, I'm not an expert in the field).

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
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