[Sca-cooks] Writing Middle English - & time frame - an aside from "period cookbook"

[julian wilson]

Sue Clemenger <mooncat at in-tch.com> wrote:Julian's in a time zone several hours ahead of most of us on this list. 
So perhaps we were just *reading* it pre-caffeine, and it was written well awake?
And Julian...if you ever want to give lessons on writing forsoothly, I'd gladly volunteer to be a student! I've always wanted to be able to do that.....
--Maire, who generally hangs out somewhere in mid-late 16th century England, even if she does occasionally meander elsewhen
REPLY
Thank you, Sue.
OK, everyone else on this List resident in N.America, my "HOME" time-zone is GMT; and for me, your East Coast is minus five hours, and your West Coast is minus eight hours. 
"Olde" Jersey is on the eastern side of the Atlantic from New Jersey, so don't be confused and assume I live in the USA, please.
As for giving lessons in what you name as "speaking foresoothly" - much as I enjoy teaching, that's  going to be a little difficult from where I live, by e-mail. 
The best advice I can give those of you who wish to try it [and it IS worth doing because it greatly adds to the ambience of what one does in front of the Public, as well as the atmosphere of "private" events] - is to read a whole bunch of contemporary literature, aloud, to yourself - over and over, - and carefully note the differences in speech rhythms, in verb placements, and in choices of adverbs and adjectives.
 I would suspect the contemporary material most-easily available, to those of you who wish to try this, is likely to be the works of William Shakespear, Christopher Marlow, and that wonderful published collection of the Paston Letters. Using those as your "models" will not only change your  modern speech patterns enough to create a really "antick" feeling for the Public, but the result should also help you to feel you are putting-on your Characters as you put-on your 14th/15th C garb, helping you to inhabit the "skin" of the "Inglysch" Character you've chosen to redact.
 
When our Companie interact with the visitors to our Camps, we only resume modern speech to them,  if our Visitors "look blank" when we speak Early Middle English  [which is correct for "our period", 1450 to 1509]. Even our youngest Companions pick-up the 15th C. speech-habits very quickly.
 
I can also make a fairly good attempt at late-mediaeval French [French was the late-Mediaeval Langtuage of Diplomacy as well as being the 2nd "Lingua Franca" for the "educated Classes", after Latin.], - which goes-down very well with our French Visitors.  
For our German and Japanese visitors, I use their own modern languages.
 
I have noticed in my Internet researches that there are a number of helpful SCA sites which deal with this aspect of our hobby/pastime/pashion. If any of you are truly serious about doing this, - then once our Companie's coming 3-day event is over, I'll try to re-locate the URL's for those helpful websites, and download them to interested parties, off-list.





Yours in service, 
Julian Wilson,
[aka. Messire Matthew Baker/Matthieu Besquer, Governor & Castellan of Jersey, 1486-1497: - "Si vis pacem, para bellum"]
late-medieval Re-enactor; & Historian and Master Artisan to  
"The Companie of the Duke's Leopards",
[the only medieval living-history Group
in "olde" Jersey]
		
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