THE ENGLISH OF 1525

Is it true that if you went 500 years back in time, you would still be able to understand the English spoken during that time?

No, not really. Well — yes, it’s true, kind of, that you would be able to understand English spoken 500 years ago, kind of, but actually, no, not really.

Let me explain.

(So, so, so many wrong answers to this fascinating question! Settle in, time traveler, this will be a fun ride.)

Part I: “But it’s only 50 years earlier than Shakespeare!”

I want to take care of this one first, because I just know I’ll get tons of this “but what about Shakespeare” protest in the comments. So let us begin by establishing the following ground rule:

Just because you can (sort of) understand a text written 500 years ago, that doesn’t mean you’d be able to understand the same text if it was spoken to you, the way it would have been spoken 500 years ago.

500 years ago puts us in 1525, the era of the Early Modern English. Let’s situate it in the history of the English language. It is indeed “only” 60 (not 50) years before Shakespeare’s plays (and “only” 91 years before Shakespeare’s death), but it’s also only 30–50 years after the end of the Middle English era. And Middle English sounded like this:

It’s a two-and-a-half minute recitation. Try not to look at the text that appears during the video; just listen. How much of it can you understand? And how much of it can you understand only because it helps to know it’s from The Canterbury Tales, and you know what The Canterbury Tales is about?
See below - Morgn Freeman's reading.

Now, granted, that was composed in the late 1380’s (at the earliest), so it’s about 140 years before our target date of 1525 — but note, the year of 1525 is a hell of a lot closer to Chaucer’s time than to ours.

Keep that in mind, time traveler.

Part II: The Great Vowel Shift

Between the end of the 15th century and the middle of the 18th, spoken English underwent a transformation that linguists call the Great Vowel Shift. Without going into boring technical particulars, English pronunciation changed profoundly during that roughly 250-year period. This is why English spelling is so bizarre, with orthography diverging so greatly from phonetics. (The same is true of French, by the way. French spelling is also quite maddening — as any frustrated student of the language will tell you — and it is also because Old French and Early Classical French were pronounced very differently from the modern version of the tongue.)

The year 1525 would have been in the early stages of that whole process, so we can reasonably expect that spoken English would have sounded more like its Middle English predecessor than the post-GVS English.

A lot of commonly used words would have been pronounced differently.

“Sheep”, “me” and “meat” would have sounded more like “shape”, “may” and “mate”, respectively.

The long “oo” in “goose” would have been pronounced more like it is in “book” today, rather than how it sounds in “boot”. And “boot” would have sounded more like “boat”. (So you may be forgiven for the confusion you experience when your innkeeper in 1525 looks doubtfully at his shoes and says he is going to the market to something-something “a pair of boats”.)

“Geese” would have sounded like “gays”, and “house” would have sounded like “puss”, but with an “h” at the beginning instead of the “p”.

English spelling had not been officially standardized yet, but written English — so, that employed mostly by educated elites, mostly in London and the surrounding areas — still had certain patterns and conventions. And those conventions were phonetic; in other words, it was spelled largely how it sounded. So, with some exceptions, every letter would have been enunciated as it appears.

If you’ve seen arcane English texts whose spelling has not been modernized, may have noticed, for instance, how many words whose modern forms end with a consonant sound had an “e” at the end in the past. Unlike today, most of those words would have been pronounced with an “uh” at the end.

Ending “-ight” would have been pronounced as [ee-kht], giving the word kind of a Germanic sound. So, “knight” and “night” would have been pronounced as [k-nee-kht] and [nee-kht], respectively, rather than as [näyt].

Ending “-ture” (such as in “nature”) would have been pronounced as [tu:r], and anything ending in “-tion” (such as in “coronation”) would have been pronounced like its Spanish equivalent, so with a “-cion” at the end. These would not evolve into [cher] or [cheh] and [shn], respectively, until WELL into the 18th century.

Each of those words, taken in isolation, would not sound too different from its modern pronunciation. But when a string of words like that are said in a naturalistic setting, at speed, you would probably have a hard time following.

Part III: Different phrasing

Early Modern English had certain notable structural differences vis-a-vis our present-day English, particularly in the rather modest use of auxiliary verbs. The difference with the 21st-century English is particularly notable in the importance of “do” support, that is to say — the use of the verb “do” as a grammatical modifier. Modern English leans on “do” HEAVILY. Like, a ridiculous amount. Earlier forms of English used it much more sparingly.

So, instead of saying “How do you do?”, you would say, “How do ye?”

Instead of saying, “Do you have any money?”, you would ask “Have you any money?”

Similarly, continuous present was rarely used. So, instead of saying “Where are you going?”, you would say, “Whither goest thou?”

Early Modern English used contractions that are no longer used today. You may be able to understand “‘tis” and “’twere”, but there were some others that would make speech harder to understand. Like, for instance, when the speaker put the definite article “the” before a word that began with a vowel, that vowel would get dropped. So, instead of “the other”, he would say “th’other”, and something like that can change the sound significantly enough that it would become less comprehensible to a modern speaker.

Early Modern English also had a vestige of something you still encounter in Romance languages today, where an indirect object pronoun that’s supposed to follow a preposition is modified or omitted — and in arcane English, it was omitted altogether. So, for example, if you are at a market in the 16th century, talking to a vendor about a chicken, you would ask: “How much for?” meaning “How much does this chicken cost?” or “How much does it cost?” The “it” or “chicken” at the end of “How much for?” is implied from context.

A lot of conventional phrasing was simply … different. From “What ist a clock?” instead of “What time is it?” to “What do you lack?” instead of “What do you want?”, a comprehensive list would be just far too long to put down here. But if you want to get into the weeds, there is an awesome source for this that’s publicly available online.

In 1586, Jacques Bellot, a French teacher of English, published a book called “Familiar Dialogues”, which is considered the earliest English phrasebook in existence. You can read it here:

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Familiar Dialogues This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Familiar Dialogues Author: Jacques Bellot Release date: September 25, 2020 [eBook #63292] Language: English Credits: Laurent Vogel and Greg Lindahl (using images generously provided by Godfreys Book-shelf at http://www.shipbrook.net/jeff/bookshelf) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMILIAR DIALOGUES *** Produced by Laurent Vogel and Greg Lindahl (using images generously provided by Godfreys Book-shelf at http://www.shipbrook.net/jeff/bookshelf) FAMILIAR DIALOGVES, DIALOGVES FAMILIERS, FAMILIER DEIALOGS FOR for the Instruction pour l'instruction de dé Instruction of them, that be ceux qui sont of dem, dat by desirous to learne to desireux d'apprendre desireus tou lêrne speake English, and à parler Anglois, tou spék Inglish, perfectlye to & parfaitement le and perfetlé tou pronounce the same: prononcer: Mis pronónce dé sêm: Set forth by en lumiere par Set fòrs by Iames Bellot Iaques Bellot Iémes Bellot Gentlemen Gentil'home Gentilman of Caen. Cadomois. of Caen. Imprinted at Imprimé à Londres Imprinted at London by Thomas par Thomas London bei Thamus Vautrollier, Vautrollier, Vautrollier, dwelling in the demourant aux douelling in dé blacke-Friers. Black Friers. black-Freiers. 1586. 1586. 1586 To the most vertuous A tres-vertueux Sr. Tou dé most vertueus Sir, Marke de Bussy Marc de Bussy Escuier Sir, Mark de Bussy Esquier L, of Sr. de Beruille. Ia. Escoué,ier L. of Beruille, I. B. gent. Be. Gent. Cadom. Beruille. I. B. gent of Caen of Caen. health. Salut. health. THe experience hauing L'Experience m'aiant Dé experience hàuyng in the olde tyme iadis appris quel in dé aùld teìm learned vnto me what ennuy apporte à ceux lèrned ontou my houat sorow is for them qui sont reffugiez en soro is for dem dat that be refugiate in païs estranger, quand by refugiat in a a strange countrey, ilz ne peuuent strange contré, hou
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/63292/pg63292.txt
In this book, Bellot composed various conversations from everyday life, intended to teach speakers of French basic conversational English. The text is divided into three columns — English text, French translation and rough phonetic transcription; so it should give you a good idea of both the basic phrasing of English at the time and how the words would have been pronounced. Note, this is from 1586, 61 years after our target year of 1525, and still, much of the phrasing and pronunciation, while recognizable to us on the page, is both unusual and would have sounded distorted to the modern ear.
text at gutenberg.org

Part IV: Regional differences

Where in the English-speaking world are you going in 1525? London? Or a remote village hundreds of miles from the capital?

1525 is still a time of limited geographic mobility, when most people never venture more than a few miles from the place where they were born. It is also a time before compulsory public education, mass media and mass entertainment. As a result, a lot more dialects abound, and these dialects can be quite distinct from one another. For instance, this is a time when there are still two different words for “eggs” — “eggs” and “eyren”, although the latter was beginning to fade.

So I would speculate that if you traveled outside of London in 1525, your comprehension of English, already not great to begin with, would steadily decline the further from the capital you went.

Part V: But what about Shakespeare??

Shakespeare is modern English, but there is a tendency to overstate the case among people who claim it is an indication how perfectly comprehensible early 16th century English would have been to us.

Truth is, a lot of what Shakespeare wrote is not readily comprehensible today. Most academic editions of Shakespeare’s works are heavily annotated. My high school used Folgers Library editions, which have Shakespeare’s text on one page and annotations on the opposite page, explaining what various unfamiliar words and phrases mean.

And have you ever been to an actual production of one of Shakespeare’s plays? Here is what you typically see: Shakespeare aficionados show up with printed text of the play and follow along — because it is actually a lot easier to understand if you have the text in front of you. And that, despite the fact that actors’ pronunciation is modernized, and they do not sound like Shakespeare’s contemporaries.

Conclusion: So, would you be able to survive?

Here is what I think would have happened if you were suddenly to find yourself in London circa 1525:

You’d probably be able to understand speech fairly well … for the first couple of minutes. However, your brain would have to work a lot harder to decipher the sounds than if you were hearing normal modern speech. As a result, within the first few minutes, you would begin to fall behind. Your comprehension would decline rapidly until about 10 minutes in, the speech around you would just degenerate into completely unintelligible noise. This would go both ways: the locals would have similar trouble understanding you.

If you stayed for a few months, you probably would have gotten the hang of Early Modern English — but it wouldn’t be immediately comprehensible.

Morgan Freeman reads Chaucer - - - Morgan Freeman