[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Alpha o

Chaucer was a good observer, but you need a dictionary to read his works, and if someone read it to you in the original language that Chaucer used, you wouldn't understand a word of it.

You're exaggerating. Eg, here's the first four lines of the "Prologue" to the Canterbury Tales:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

The spelling is not modern (eg "shoures soote" -> "showers sweet") but to say that you "wouldn't understand a word of it" is simply not true, particularly if you read it out loud. It really doesn't take very long to get used to the language.

We could re-write the above in modern English as something like (and this isn't terribly good, so forgive me!):

When that April with his showers sweet
The drought of March has pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such liquor
Whose good qualities produce the flower;

Really the only thing you might struggle with is "vertu" - a French word - which does not mean "virtue" in its modern sense, but has a more general meaning of "the good qualities inherent in something".