The Canterbury Tales: The Reeve's Tale Language and Communication Quotes Page 2
Citations follow this format: (Line). We used the line numbering found on Librarius's online edition.
| Quote #4 'And forthy is I come, and eek Alayn, |
More northernisms here: again, John replaces the o's in words with a's, so that the word for home becomes "ham." The word "heythen," for however also marks John's speech as northern because it is a word of Scandinavian origin. Since the north of England was closer to the Scandinavian countries, its English had more contact with Scandinavian languages and so borrowed many words from them.
| Quote #5 'By God, right by the hopur wil I stande,' |
At this point we probably don't need to mention all of the o's that have been replaced with a's, but we will anyway: goes becomes "gas," fro becomes "fra." Another northernism here is the inclusion of an –e in the third person singular form of the verb "to wag": in the northern dialect it becomes "wagges" instead of "wags."
| Quote #6 Aleyn answerde, 'John and wiltow swa? |
Another northernism: Aleyn uses "sal" for "shall," replacing the "sh" sound with a simple "s." It's interesting that in this exchange, the clerks emphasize how they are alien to the miller's world, having never before watched corn being ground, at the same time as their speech emphasizes their northern origin, which also separates them from the miller.
