Chaucer's 14th Century History The Canterbury Tales may be considered almost impossible to read by many modern readers. They tend to have difficulty understanding many words and their meaning in this story. While reading The Canterbury Tales, I noticed how the rhythm and rhyme differ from modern English, the vowels are pronounced differently, and many of the words used in this story are no longer used in modern English. Additionally, three main changes can be observed over time in the English language, vocabulary, pronunciation and sentence structure. The many historical language changes that have occurred since the 14th century can be found in The Canterbury Tales and explain why so many people have difficulty fully understanding the original version of this story. This becomes very clear when you sit down and start reading Chaucer's work. work that he constructed his sentences extremely differently from the way we construct ours today. For example, the first four lines of The Canterbury Tales say: "When this April with its showers soots its gentle showers, the drought of March has pierced to the root and bathed every vein in such liquor/liquid whose virtue begets is the flower; when Zephyrus eke with his sweet. the breath of the west wind was also breathed into every grove and field of heather, the tender crops and the young. sun young shoots / Spring sunHath in Aries his half. of course y-run,3 in Aries / a runAnd small. birds make little melodic birds that sleep all night with their eyes open and sleep (this is how nature pricks them in their courage), spurs/spirits, then aspire people to go on pilgrimage, people aspire and palm to search for strange strands” (Chaucer lines 1-13) Which... middle of paper ...... is found in Shakespeare's work. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is truly a perfect example of how much the English language has changed. I immediately noticed the differences in rhythm, rhyme, sentence structure, vocabulary, and pronunciation, which directly reflect historical changes that have occurred over the past five or six hundred years. These changes cause many people to have difficulty understanding Middle English text quickly. This is also why many people think that Chancers' work is impossible to read, let alone understand. Works Cited Chaucer, Geoffrey. GENERAL PROLOGUE. The Canterbury Tales. “History of the English language”. English club. .Mahoney, Nicole. “Language change”. Language and linguistics: language change. National Science Foundation, .