The Canterbury Tales, or, How Technology Changes The Way We Speak: The London History Show

Sources and further reading:
Strycharczuk, P. et al. 2020. General Northern English: Exploring Regional Variation in the North of England with Machine Learning
Stuart-Smith, J. 2017. Changing sounds in a changing city: An acoustic phonetic investigation of real-time change over a century of Glaswegian

00:00 Intro
00:59 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
07:32 Sponsor: Kids These Days
09:08 Caxton's Canterbury Tales
11:31 How Technology Changes The Way We Speak
15:44 Credits

[ZachBurns-zcov]

Permission to make “if history had gone down another trouser leg” a well known phrase…

[JimBob]

The way you said 'copypasta' was fantastic. Also, I remember my grandad grumbling about modern historical dramas that no one wears any headwear in them - there's clearly a growing demand for wimple representation!

[ProfPoindexter]

I had the great good fortune to study Chaucer under a prof who actually spoke conversational Middle English. The class was conducted in that language, and we were each encouraged to complete one of Chaucer's unfinished Tales (in rhyming Iambic pentameter couplets, of course) in lieu of taking the final exam. Made an English major out of me.

[catrionabean]

I cannot handle the sheer delight with which you pronounced "copypasta", like sampling a fine delicacy. Very much invited to live in my head rent free hereinafter

[LikeTheProphet]

Funnily enough, in Dutch, you still call “eggs” “eiren, ” and pronounced very similarly! In Dutch, egg (singular) is “ei, ” and adding -en at the end of most nouns makes that noun plural (with the occasional word becoming plural with an -s, like in English).

We can see the Germanic root of the English word for “eggs” in this way!

Goodness I love languages. And as a person with a degree in English studying in the NL, I absolutely love this video. ❤️

[thelastsaxtop]

"Yeet" is definitely my favourite word to be added to the English language. It's the only one I know of which so many transformations are agreed upon; he/she/it yeets, he has yeeted, he yote.

[TastingHistory]

I adore this video! Can’t get enough Chaucer. Thank you.

[theladycata]

I love how the egg joke still kinda works for a modern audience. If it had been the exact same joke but backward and the man had asked for eyren then it would be confusing due to the lost context, but “could I get some eggs?” “sorry, I don’t speak French” is absurd enough on its own that I could see it today in something along the lines of the Monty Python spam sketch

[creakybulks]

I don't know how I was recommended this but this is an AWESOME video.

[FigureOnAStick]

Honestly, the sociocultural impact of the printing press is one my favorite subjects of history. It's so rare that a historical event creates such a clean break between two periods. For anyone who's interested and needs your reading slot filled for the next six months, "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change" by Elizabeth Eisenstein is probably the most comprehensive history on the topic.

[alexhudspeth]

You have summarized my 6 years of university in 17 minutes. Thank you, this is a wonderful, delightful video.

[BS-vxdg]

Thank you for this; this was my very favorite video of yours of all time. For decades I have taught my students that Chaucer is *AN* example of Middle English, just as Beowulf is an example of Old English (or Anglo-Saxon). But though it seems obvious now (having seen your video) it never occurred to me that Chaucer's work is the reason why anything called "Middle English" is even identifiable today. Oh, and the story about the eggs is one of the most insightful anecdotes (about anything) that I have ever heard. I just really, really liked this video, thank you.

[aaronharkins]

She looks so proud of her modern lingo she’s acquired, I love it.

[TroPyn]

Linguistics is such an interesting subject. Like archeology of words and language. Being a Dutch native speaker, grammar across Germanic influenced languages are so interchangeable.

[zengrenouille]

We did Canterbury Tales in high school. You said these characters were all recognizable to 14th century Britain's. This book stuck with me, because I recognized each character as fitting someone I knew in my life then.

Chaucer did a great job capturing human nature in this book.

[Dave_Sisson]

I grew up in an industrial town in Victoria, Australia. Almost no one had moved in or out of there for over a century. So when I moved to Melbourne, people were amused by my rather archaic vocabulary. Sadly I rarely say the words I was mocked for using 30 years ago and if I use them now, it seems slightly false and affected.

[Suspense]

Can you make a whole video of you joyously reciting modern slang one by one? That was wonderful

[frogandspanner]

My first language (or, to be more accurate, my first words) were Dutch, although I was born and grew up in UK. The first decade of my life was in a mix of Dutch and English. When it came to O level we did the _Nonnes Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen_ - one of the few clene tales. When it came to my turn to read out a section I did so using Dutch phonetic pronunciation. Teacher (Dorothy/Dot) was astonished, and made me do a longer section at a school assembly.

[michelleallen]

Love your videos! I'm a nurse recovering from cancer surgery and I'm feeling a bit useless being on the receiving end at the moment so it's refreshing to watch someone funny, charming and educational as you are. Thank you and keep it up! ❤

[macbuff]

As a German-American, I grew up in a bi-lingual environment. I also learned basic French in high school. I always loved learning about languages and the origins of words :)

In German, eggs is "Eier, " so very close to "Eyren"

I really like how sci-fi TV series like "The Expanse" portray a quite colorful (or "colourful") form of English