A world of languages spoken in undergraduate English classrooms

The prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Clerk’s Tale” in the Ellesmere Chaucer manuscript held at The Huntington Library. © MS EL 26 C 9, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

I dar the bettre aske of yow a space

Of audience to shewen oure requeste,

And ye, my lord, to doon right as yow leste. (Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Clerk’s Tale,” lines 103-105)

If you were in Professor Claire Waters’ ENL 113B course on Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales this past winter, you would probably have more of an idea of what these lines mean than the average reader. That’s because the class did not just study literary devices, themes, and tropes, but also actively learned a new language together. Then again, in this class of over 80 undergraduate students, most already knew at least one language other than modern English. In fact, an initial survey of the students by Professor Waters showed that, taken as a group, they knew or had studied over 30 languages. These included everything from Spanish to Tagalog, Punjabi to Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese… even Elvish. But they were all engaged in studying a language where no one in the room was a native speaker: Middle English.

The languages besides Modern English that ENL 113B students had experience with.

Quick refresher on Middle English as compared to the other forms of English if it’s been a while since you read Chaucer. In broad strokes, the predecessor of Middle English, Old English (think Caedmon’s Hymn, Beowulf) is basically impossible to read and understand today without translating. Middle English began to develop in the generations after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and demonstrates the influence of French in terms of vocabulary and verse forms; Chaucer was one of the major figures that got us rhyming. With the Great Vowel Shift in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries, pronunciation moved toward the form we use today in Modern English.

No one is a native speaker of Middle English, but everyone who speaks Modern English knows a bit of it. "Middle English is foreign/familiar to us all,” Professor Waters explained. “I made the point that the class deals consistently in two languages that are learned languages for all of us, having no native speakers: Middle English and academic English.” Reminding students that they have already learned and studied other languages, even if not to the point of complete fluency, helped encourage them to tackle a vocabulary and syntax that many had never previously encountered.

During a discussion of “The Clerk’s Tale,” students spoke about how knowing German or French helped some with the pronunciation and general understanding of the texts. Another said they were surprised at how much they could understand when reading out loud, even though they would usually go and check out their assumptions after the initial read-through. There was also a general sense of shared difficulties: “I get through with suffering,” one student said baldly, with many others nodding in agreement. Others chimed in that they found the class more useful or enjoyable than they had expected.

Middle English is one more language among many in our classrooms. “We all come from different places and different backgrounds, so it makes sense that as university students we’d have so many languages,” said a student sitting in the middle of the room. That doesn’t mean it’s not a challenge to pick up another tongue. 

Professor Waters prepared the class for their midterm exam by encouraging them to keep using their growing knowledge of Middle English: “Don’t jump to big stuff without an anchor in the language.” Words to live by, no matter the language, alive or dead.