Voices from Medieval Wales (AD 1070s- 1500s)

[Treffie]

Many different languages were heard in Wales during the early medieval and medieval periods. People from other countries invaded, came here to work or had prolonged contact through trade.

These passages were recorded in 2007 for new archaeology galleries at National Museum Cardiff. These modern recreations of what these lost voices may have sounded like illustrate differing degrees of linguistic exchange in Wales, and further perspectives on creative thoughts, words and deeds from these early periods.

Listen (http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/2727/)

[Agrippa]

Anglo-Norman sounds very interesting, Middle-Welsh "mentally slow" and very strange to my ears.

Middle-English is definitely closer to Northern German/Dutch dialects than modern English, easy to hear.

[Arthur Scharrenhans]

Fascinating!
It seems those professors have done quite a job of reconstructing the pronunciation of ancient languages (in my experience, this is sadly more the exception than the rule in academia. I study ancient Greek and it's depressing how little care is paid to the phonetic side of things in the study of 'dead' languages, even when we can actually reconstruct it with great precision.)