In which I revel in being a geek. Because it is fun. ^__^
Fun with pseudo-Middle English! Woohoo!
A little background first: A friend on another site periodically posts little snippets of life with the very independent and precocious girl that he takes care of. These range from the humorous to the bizarre and inexplicable to the heartwarming-with-overtones-of-odd, and a lot of us really enjoy these "Miss D moments."
About a week or so ago, he posted a photo of the list of rules that she had spontaneously written and posted on her door:
Rules
1. No farting.
2. No cereal.
3. No saying bad words.
4. to stories.
5. I smal my flawer.
6. I pick up my stuff.
7. When I go to sleep you havet to give me some water.
I converted the list of rules into a rather silly sort of pseudo-Biblical declaration of obedience, "Yea, shall I not fart, nor eat cereal..." and so forth. My friend pointed out to me that "flawers smal" looked kind of Chaucerian, and it went downhill from there.
I pulled out my copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (I had no Chaucer to hand, and it's the right time-period, at least) and proceeded to sink at least an hour into writing this:
"Yea, I wyl nauther verte ne ette cerreyl, and I wyl speke no corses. Two stori schal I telle, and flawers smal, and als kepe clene my chambre. And also quen I lyye in my lofte yow schal brynge me watter."
I flat-out invented "cerreyl," guessed at "yea," "speke," "kepe," and "clene," and pulled "verte" from "Sumer is icumen in," but everything else I gleaned directly from Gawain. It was really fun.
A little background first: A friend on another site periodically posts little snippets of life with the very independent and precocious girl that he takes care of. These range from the humorous to the bizarre and inexplicable to the heartwarming-with-overtones-of-odd, and a lot of us really enjoy these "Miss D moments."
About a week or so ago, he posted a photo of the list of rules that she had spontaneously written and posted on her door:
Rules
1. No farting.
2. No cereal.
3. No saying bad words.
4. to stories.
5. I smal my flawer.
6. I pick up my stuff.
7. When I go to sleep you havet to give me some water.
I converted the list of rules into a rather silly sort of pseudo-Biblical declaration of obedience, "Yea, shall I not fart, nor eat cereal..." and so forth. My friend pointed out to me that "flawers smal" looked kind of Chaucerian, and it went downhill from there.
I pulled out my copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (I had no Chaucer to hand, and it's the right time-period, at least) and proceeded to sink at least an hour into writing this:
"Yea, I wyl nauther verte ne ette cerreyl, and I wyl speke no corses. Two stori schal I telle, and flawers smal, and als kepe clene my chambre. And also quen I lyye in my lofte yow schal brynge me watter."
I flat-out invented "cerreyl," guessed at "yea," "speke," "kepe," and "clene," and pulled "verte" from "Sumer is icumen in," but everything else I gleaned directly from Gawain. It was really fun.