What do you call it when someone takes a work in Old or Middle English and, for those who cannot read the original, restates the text in modern English?

It seems unfair to call it a translation, since both languages are English, and yet what word fits?

I'd call it a translation, because Old, Middle, and Present-Day English are different languages.

I agree with zmj. If you don't want to use translation for some reason, I suppose you could call it a rendition.

I ask because this title page (which you may not be able to see), of an edition of the Canterbury Tales, states that it is "A Modern Rendering Into Prose".

quote:

I'd call it a translation, because Old, Middle, and Present-Day English are different languages.

I'm not certain that this is the case. Under various criteria, most easily "mutual intelligibility", one could make arguments that Old/Middle and Middle/Present English are the same languages. Obviously, transitivity doesn't hold, but people still read the Canterbury Tales in the original, and this without extensive learning of Old English.

Of course, the Old English didn't have much of a Navy, so that mucks things up a bit.

Huh! King Alfred founded the Navy.

I use 'translation' for OE to MnE, which are different languages, but 'modernization' for ME to MnE, where there is as Seanahan says sufficient intelligibility (one-way at least; the mutualness of it is untestable).

While there is more mutual intelligibility (at least in the written versions) between Middle English and Present-Day English, I would still call Middle English a different language. Also, while many identify Middle English with Chaucer (and his Canterbury Tales), we should remember that he wrote near the end of the Middle English period right before the Great Vowel Shift. If you look at a passage from the 12th Ormulum it will look less like Chaucer:

Nu wile icc here shæwenn 3uw;
Off ure laffdi3 mar3e.
Off – hu 3ho barr þe laferrd crist;
Att hire rihhte time.
Swa þatt 3ho þohh þæraffterr wass;
A33 ma33denn þweorrt üt clene!
[ll.3264ff.]

(Note: The digit 3 is standing in for the letter yogh which had a flatter top.)

Compare the passage above with one from The Squire's Tale (14th century):

"Nay sir," quod he, "but I wol seye as I kan,
With hertly wyl, for I wol nat rebelle
Agayn your lust. A tale wol I telle,
Have me excused if I speke amys;
My wyl is good, and lo, my tale is this."
[ll4ff.]

Here's an early 13th century passage. This time from Layamon's Brut:

A prest was in londe. Laweman. was hote.
he was Leucais sone. lef him beo Driste.
He wonede at Ernleie wid þan gode cniþte.
uppen Seuarne. merie þer him þohte.
faste bi Radistone þer heo bokes radde.
Hit com him on mode. & on his þonke.
þat he wolde. of Engelond þe ristnesse telle.
wat þe men hi-hote weren. and wan[e]ne hi comen.
þe Englene lond ærest afden.
after þan flode. þat fram God com.
þat al ere acwelde. cwic þat hit funde.
bote Noe and Sem. Iaphet and Cam.
and hire four wifes. þat mid ham þere weren.
Loweman gan wende. so wide so was þat londe.
[ll.1ff.]

(I would still say translation, but I would understand and not have a problem with render. Also, english was a verb which meant to translate something into English.)

Well, wordnerd, it looks like the author of the translation agreed with me!

I just stumbled across a great site at Georgetown University with lots of texts and recordings in Old English. This one is as good a place to start: the Lord's Prayer in Old English.