Word Wednesday - How English Used To Sound

As a matter of fact ...

I was recentley shown a fascinating example of how the Enlgish language used to sound. It's a poem, by the poet John Skeleton, read aloud as it would have sounded when it was written, some 500 years ago.

The video was put together by 'The Skeleton Project' a group of three history buffs who describe themselves as giving 'information on the sociocultural, historical, and contextual background of John Skelton’s English works'

I found this video to be very strange on my ears. If you're not paying attention, it sounds like modern English spoken with a northern regional accent of England. Then as I strain my ears, I can hear very French or Scandinavian influences followed by a sentence in almost modern English.

I'd always been told how English was a melting pot of different languages such as French, German, Scandinavian etc but this video was the first real example of that theory. 

If you're reading these words, you understand English. Now enjoy what it sounded like half a millenia ago ...