On 30/12/2012 9:27 AM, Herbert Ward wrote:
Suppose one were interested in learning to speak English
with an accent approximating that that Dowland might
have had, with the idea that this might help him understand
Dowland's music better. How would one proceed?
A couple of sources to start from thought they go rather beyond the tiny
snippet that you are asking for):
McGee, Timothy, ed. _Singing Early Music: The Pronunciation of European
Languages in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance_ [With CD] Indiana
University Press, 1996 ISBN 0253329612 or pbk. 0253210267
A web site that may be of interest is 'The Great Vowel Shift':
http://eweb.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/ which covers the changes in English
pronunciation from 1300 to 1700 with lots of examples and sound files.
Would any modern British accents be close?
I always take any such claims with a large sack of salt.
Stephen Fryer
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