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

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 03:37 PM 5/22/2005, you wrote:
>
>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.

Just a minor correction, Julian- I'm certain you meant Early _Modern_ 
English (which is that time period, and Shakespeare is probably the best 
known writer of such), as Early Middle English would be the 12th century. 
As late as 1120 or so, the language was still pretty much Anglo-Saxon, but 
by Stephen's reign, an entry into the Old English Annals (Peterborough 
Chronicles) is decipherable (sort of) by someone who can read Chaucer, or 
simply has a creative bent to their reading. The Great Vowel Shift  that 
started in the mid/late 15th century was the pivot point for Middle English 
becoming Early Modern English.

'Lainie, Pedant-at-Large
___________________________________________________________________________
O it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it 
like a giant--Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act II