Kevin Stroud Talks the History of English
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The Difference Between Middle English and Modern English
David Frum: If you go back in time, how much variation does it have? He says the big difference between Middle English and Modern English was the pronunciation. The vowels of English shifted around in the 1400s and 1500s so that words in English became start to be pronounced completely differently. "I think if I dropped you in late 1300s England during the time of Chaucer, at first you would not know what anybody was saying," he said.
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