Medieval Cookery - Middle-English Word of the Day

Middle-English Word of the Day - April 25, 2008

Mountance (n.) - amount, space, duration.

In al this world ther is no creature,
That eten or dronken hath of this confiture
Noght but the montance of a corn of whete,
That he ne shal his lif anon forlete;

- Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury tales (1387-1394)

Pronunciation: /mAUntAns/

Key
/m/ m in make
/aU/ au in Paul, aw in awl
/n/ n in no
/t/ t in tie
/A/ a in father
/s/ s in hiss

The Middle-English Word of the Day is selected from Mayhew and Skeat's
"Concise Dictionary of Middle English."
As found on Greg Lindahl's website
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/concise/concise.html

The example text was found at the Middle English Collection of the University of Virginia Library.
http://etext.virginia.edu/collections/languages/english/mideng.browse.html

The approximate pronunciation is determined using Carol Hamill's Middle English Pronunciation Guide
and noted using upon the ASCII-IPA Standard
http://www.island.net/~hamill/medieval/mepronunc.html
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/IPA/

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