Welcome to the History of English Podcast, the podcast about the history of the English

language.

This is Episode 130, Dialect Dialogues.

In this episode, we're going to look at the first dialect stories in English.

Specifically, we'll explore the tale told by the reef in the Canterbury Tales.

And we'll also examine a middle English play from the north of England called the Second

Shepherd's Play. These works represent some of the first attempts by English writers to feature

characters who speak in regional dialects. In an era long before sound recordings, these

dialogues provide a rare insight into the way people actually spoke in different parts of England

in the Middle Ages. So this time, we'll examine those dialect dialogues.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is historyofenglishpodcast.com

and you can sign up to support the podcast and get bonus episodes and transcripts at patreon.com

slash historyofenglish. Now, last time, I mentioned that I was going to discuss

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in this episode. But due to time considerations, I've elected

to save that poem for next time. And that will actually be the last poem from this period

in the late 1300s that we're going to explore in the podcast. From there, we'll move the story

into the 1400s, where we'll look at the impact of the printing press, the great vowel shift,

and lots of other fun stuff. But this time, I want to focus on one last part of the Canterbury

and it may be the most fascinating part for people who are interested in the development of the

English language. That's because it represents one of the first attempts by an English writer to

compose dialogue in a regional dialect. Of course, the writer was Jeffrey Chaucer, and the story

was the tale told by the Rheave. The tale features two students from the north of England, and when

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