Request for variant subtag fr 16th-c 17th-c

[CE Whitehead]

"We do not need to distinguish Early Modern English from English.

See this text by Spenser: 
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/queene1.html#Canto%20I.

It's in Early Modern English. Any educated English speaker can read it. It 
would be easier for many if the spelling were modernized, but apart from 
some syntax and vocabulary, it's English. "
O.k. this is the case with 16th century French too.  Every educated French 
speaker can read it; it is just the spelling that is different.

16th century French is thus something like 16th century English time-wise.

You only tag Middle English because it is the dialect spoken by Chaucer, or 
by the author of the Sir Gawaine poems (two different dialects).  It's not 
our dialect I do not think.  I do believe our dialect is Scottish dialect (I 
still call it that; otherwise known as Scots) is not so different from 
Modern English even in the 14th century; see the ballad below which may 
contain stanzas composed over several different time periods about an event 
circa 1290:
http://www.skell.org/explore/text/spensT.html
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/63.html  (note the dialect dates have a 
long range)

The ballads all got published in the 18th century alas so that can also help 
explain the almost exact resemblance to Modern Scots.


--C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar at hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Share your latest news with your friends with the Windows Live Spaces 
friends module. 
http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://spaces.live.com/spacesapi.aspx?wx_action=create&wx_url=/friends.aspx&mk