Personal pronouns

About Middle English Grammar

Without schooling in written English, early Middle English writers wrote in their own local dialects, so that the modern reader who becomes familiar with one text must learn another system to read a text from a different part of the country. Although the fourteenth-century London dialect of Geoffrey Chaucer begins to resemble modern English, many of his contemporaries, such as the poet of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, continued to write in local dialects. This, combined with the archaic meanings of words and older grammatical forms, can make Middle English a challenge for today. For the most part, however, these problems are overcome through practice and memorisation of vocabulary. In general, most diligent students begin to read with good fluency within five to six weeks

Here are some tips to remember:
• There is no set spelling system in Middle English; the same words are often spelt more than one way. Reading aloud can help you recognise the intended word.
• In Middle English the endings –(e)s and –(e)n had multiple functions: the plurals and possessives of nouns, and various forms of verbs. In order to determine the meanings of words with these endings, it may be necessary to consider all the possibilities before deciding which is appropriate.

Vowels
The letters a, e, i, o, and u are generally pronounced as in Spanish.
Sometimes e, i, o, and u are pronounced in as in English. Especially when followed by two consonants. The rules for which pronunciation you should use are actually pretty complicated.

Try both pronunciations and go with what feels right to you. You’ll be right the majority of the time.
The letter e is always pronounced, even at the ends of words. In unstressed syllables (generally that means in prefixes or after the first syllable of a word without a prefix), the pronunciation is something like the e in happen.

The vowel i may also be spelt y or j. The pronunciation is the same. The letter