The Canterbury Tales: The Reeve's Tale Language and Communication Quotes Page 3

Here Aleyn presents another northernism with the question "Whilk way is he geen?" He replaces the –ch in "whilch" (meaning "which") with a -k, demonstrating the northern dialect's tendency to substitute –lk for –lch. Also, "goon" (for "go") becomes "geen" in Aleyn's dialect, the o's replaced with ee's this time instead of a's.

Can you spot all the northernisms? In addition to many, many a's instead of o's (alswa/also, waat/woot, raa/roe, bathe/bothe), John uses a word of Scandinavian origin when he asks Aleyn why he didn't put the horse in the "lathe" (meaning barn). Also, he replaces the "u" in "put" with an "i," making this word "pit," another common northernism.

Symkyn is teasing the clerks here, although it's difficult for our modern ears to make out the joke. The complicated arguments scholars were fond of at this time period led some people to accuse them of using sophistry, or tricky arguments, to prove ridiculous things. So Symkyn jokingly says that John and Aleyn must be able to make his bedroom larger merely with their speech. Aren't scholars supposed to be good at that sort of thing? Symkyn asks. Although Symkyn is joking, he draws our attention to the way different kinds of speech can exclude certain groups. As a working-class person, he no doubt feels excluded by the language of scholars. This exchange is interesting in a narrative that, with the dialect of John and Aleyn, has very much focused on the way that language can form distinct groups.