Extract 2

This extract is by the Middle English (ME) author Geoffrey Chaucer. It comes from “The Pardoner’s Tale”, one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1386–1400); here he rails against drunkenness. The language is considerably closer to UK/US standard English than Old English, but not necessarily any closer to them than some of the other extracts. ME can thus be considered a variety of English though some have argued that it’s a creole with Norman French, not English, as its superstrate!