Middle-English Word of the Day - February 1, 2008
Iwis (adv.) - truly, certainly.
This es botles bale, for bettir bees it neuer.
It es no wirchipe, iwysse, to wryng thyn hondes;
To wepe als a woman it es no witt holden.
Be knyghtly of contenaunce, als a kyng scholde,
And leue siche clamoure, for Cristes lufe of Heuen!
- Anonymous: The alliterative Morte Arthure (1440)
Pronunciation: /Iwis/
Key
/I/ i in bit
/w/ w in we, away
/i/ i in machine
/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/
The Middle-English Word of the Day is automatically distributed Monday through Friday.
To subscribe, send email to mewd-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
© Copyright 2008 Medieval Cookery