Which One Is English?
Beowulf, 8th-Century England
Heald pu nu, hruse, nu haeled0 ne mostan, eorla æhte! Hwæt, hyt ær on 0e gode begeaton.
Gup-dea0 fornam, feorh-bealo frecne fyra gehwylcne leoda minra, para 0e pis lif ofgeaf,
gesawon sele-dreamas.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, England, 1386
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The droghte of March hath perced
to the roote, The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour; And smale fowles maken melodye
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth That sleepen al the night with open ye—Hamlet by William Shakespeare, England, circa 1600
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he
hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!
my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be
your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to
set the table on a roar?
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain,
Anglo-American, Rural Midwest, 1850s
You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of “The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he
told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another.
Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, United States, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new na-
tion, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so con-
ceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
The Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston, African American,
Rural Deep South, 1920s
“Humph! Ah’m way behind time t’day! Joe gointer be head ’fore Ah git mah clothes on if
Ah don’t make haste... .”
“Who dat chunkin’ money in mah do’way?... Nobody ain’t gointer be chuckin’ money at
me and Ah not do ’em nothin’... .”
“Ah ain’t, Joe, not lessen you gwine gimme whateve’ it is good you got in yo’ pocket. Turn
it go, Joe, do Ah’ll tear yo’ clothes... .”
“Unhhunh! Ah got it. It ’tis so candy kisses. Ah knowed you had somethin for me in yo’
clothes.”
Now Ah got to see whut’s in every pocket you got.”
14 CHAPTER 1