Can you translate modern English into middle English?

Answer 1

You can only if you think that you can translate the language they speak in California into the one they speak in Tennessee. Shakespeare's English (Elizabethan English) is in fact Modern English, although a different dialect. Like all dialects, it has a slightly different vocabulary, but is basically comprehensible to any other speaker of Modern English. Most of what is called "translation" of Shakespeare is in fact paraphrasing using simpler words.

You can write more in Shakespeare's style by writing in iambic pentameter, avoiding contractions like don't and can't, and using a lot of metaphors, similes, personifications and classical allusions. It would help if you enjoyed wordplay and puns, and jokes which hinged on double meanings.

You would also have to be sure not to use words for things which have been invented in the last 400 years. You should also be aware of words which have changed their meanings or have acquired new meanings, or have lost meanings over that time.

Answer 2

Middle English, like that used by Chaucer, can certainly be translated into Modern or Present Day English as indicated by the many many translations of Chaucer's work available... so of course the opposite is also true. Edmond Spencer wrote The Fairie Queene in a faux Middle English as praise to English Literary tradition; so there's no reason someone today could not do the same. See the Blog "Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog" as an example.

You might need to invent some words though. Middle English didn't have words for things like "laser" or "cell phone" or "computer", so you'd have to come up with some phrase for those concepts (or just use the modern word, as in the "hath a blog" title above).

Answer 3

"Shakespeare English" is "modern English" and since translation is putting something from one language into another, no you can't. You can, of course, reword it in another idiom or dialect of the same language, which might more properly called paraphrase rather than translation. You can also recast Robert Burns's poetry into the dialect of a New York rapper, and recast the New York rap into the idiom of an Australian. So you could paraphrase Shakespeare into Broad Scots, New York Black or Australian dialects.

The error to be avoided is thinking that Shakespeare's English is somehow a different language from the language you speak. It is not. You speak one idiom and other people in the world today speak other idioms, and Shakespeare and others in the past spoke yet other idioms.

Answer 4

It's not too difficult. Most of the words resemble English. Also, Chaucer is basically our one and only source for Middle English, and a lot of his works have been translated into modern English. e.g. copies of the Cantebury Tales will be labeled as translated.

Did you have a particular phrase you needed translated?

Also, as far as translators to and from Middle English -- I don't know of any that exist, but if you delve into the Chaucer, you could probably make up your own. I promise, it's not that difficult. :)

Answer 5

English [Middle English] (old England) Gode dei English [Old English] (old Britain) Ic grete þe

Answer 6

Heere folwen the words bitwene the Hoost and the Millere.

Whan that the Knyght had thus his tale ytoold,

In al the route ne was ther yong ne oold

That he ne seyde it was a noble storie,

And worthy for to drawen to memorie;