THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH PODCAST TRANSCRIPT - Episode 102 - A Medieval Glossary

Sep 28, 2026

Uploaded by Rhys

Episode 102, titled “A Medieval Glossary,” explores how English and French interacted in the early 1200s, when English writing began to return and French loanwords were still limited. It focuses on margin notes left by scribes who managed documents in English, French, and Latin, often translating foreign words and summarizing difficult passages. The discussion extends to earlier bilingual word-list traditions in Sumer and translation practices in Greek scholarship, explaining how “glossai” and “glosses” emerged as a method for handling linguistic change.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time26 min

AccessFree to download

Episode 102: A Medieval Glossary

English and French in the early 1200s

Margin notes, translations, and summaries

Word lists: Sumerian and Akkadian examples

Greek glossai and the origin of “gloss”

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH PODCAST TRANSCRIPT EPISODE 102: A MEDIEVAL GLOSSARY ©2017 Seven Springs Enterprises, LLC EPISODE 102: A MEDIEVAL GLOSSARY Welcome to the History of English Podcast – a podcast about the history of the English language. This is Episode 102: A Medieval Glossary. In this episode, we’re going to look at the interaction of English and French in the early 1200s. As we know, English borrowed a lot of words from French during the Middle English period. But much of that borrowing occurred after the mid- 1200s. In the early 1200s, as English documents started to reappear, French loanwords were still few and far between. During this period, English and French existed side-by-side, but they didn’t tend to invade each other’s space. For the most part, English manuscripts used English words. But French was starting to encroach on the margins – and ‘in’ the margins. Some of the first evidence we have of the changes that were about to take place can be found in the notes and translations left behind by scribes who were trying to manage the growing interaction of English, French and Latin. This is the story of Medieval glosses. But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is [historyofenglishpodcast.com. And you can sign up to](historyofenglishpodcast.com. And you can sign up to) support the podcast at [Patreon.com/historyofenglish. And as](Patreon.com/historyofenglish. And as) always, you can reach me by email at [kevin@historyofenglishpodcast.com](kevin@historyofenglishpodcast.com) Now this time, I want to continue looking at developments during the first half of the 1200s. We’re still in the early part of the reign of Henry III who reigned as king for 56 years in total. As I’ve noted before, this was a period in which English writing was starting to make a comeback, but English documents were still rare. Most manuscripts were composed in Latin, and increasingly, French was being used as an alternative. But in England, most of the scribes spoke English as their native language, so they had to learn Latin and French as foreign languages. And some of them only acquired a basic working knowledge of those languages. As they worked with documents composed in those other languages, they would often scribble little notes in the margins. Those notes were often in English, and they were usually translations of foreign words or summaries of specific passages. These notes not only helped the scribe who made them, but also helped anyone else who might read the manuscript in the future and might also be stumped by the same obscure words in the document. Now this was not a new development. I’ve alluded to these types of notes or translations in earlier episodes. They were essential for any scribe who was working with a document that was composed in another language. In fact, these types of notes can be found in the earliest writings composed by human beings. The ancient civilization of Sumer in modern-day Iraq produced some of the oldest human writing. That writing was done on clay tablets, and those tablets show that the Sumerians often wrote down and kept extensive word lists. In 2340 BC, the Sumerians were conquered by the Semitic-speaking Akkadians. And after that conquest, the Akkadians had to interpret the tablets written in the language of the Sumerians. So they started to put together word lists in both languages to help with the translation. They would take those old Sumerian word lists, and they would translate them by putting the equivalent Akkadian word beside the Sumerian word. Some scholars consider these bilingual word lists to be the first dictionaries. One of those surviving lists has over 9,700 separate words recorded on 24 tablets. Again, those lists were essential to scribes who were trying to work with both of those languages. If we jump forward a couple of thousand years to the Greeks, we find that they also had to deal with a similar problem. Classical Greek was d

FAQs

What is the central topic of Episode 102 “A Medieval Glossary”?

The episode examines how English and French interacted in the early 1200s, and how scribes used margin notes and translations to manage obscure words in documents written in multiple languages.

Why were scribes writing notes in the margins?

Scribes often worked with texts composed in Latin or French, while speaking English natively. Margin notes in English helped them and later readers understand foreign words or difficult passages.

How does the episode connect medieval glosses to earlier traditions?

It links glosses to older practices such as Sumerian and Akkadian bilingual word lists used for translation, and to Greek scholarship where terms like “glossai” described obscure words and their explanations.

Sep 28, 2026

Uploaded by Rhys