Pieces and sounds of British history

We're about to finish unit 3c. Did you find it interesting? Some of you might want to read a bit more on British history. Why not?

I recommend you to visit this website on the Norman Conquest. It's highly interactive and even includes samples of "how English would have sounded" back in 1066.
(Explorer is required, don't try with Mozilla since it doesn't work)

Wierd, isn't it? The way it used to sound. Historians divide the different stages of the language into:

- Old English (from the 5th-to the 11th century)
- Middle English (11th-15th)
- Early Modern English (15th-17th)
- Modern English (up to today)

Would you like to listen to more examples of earlier versions of English?

Click here for some Old English samples. Scroll down the page and look for the heading "Poems". Then click on one of the poems and finally on the yellow letter that the poem starts with.

Click here for some Middle English poems by Chaucer. It still sounds incomprehensible to our ears, doesn't it?

Enjoy!