The vernacular spoken and written in England from about 1100 to about 1500, the descendant of the Old English language and the ancestor of Modern English.
The history of Middle English is often divided into three periods
Early Middle English, from about 1100 to about 1250, during which the Old English system of writing was still in use;
Central Middle English period from about 1250 to about 1400, which was marked by the gradual formation of literary dialects, the use of an orthography greatly influenced by the Anglo-Norman writing system, the loss of pronunciation of final unaccented -e, and the borrowing of large numbers of Anglo-Norman words; the period was especially marked by the rise of the London dialect, in the hands of such writers as John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer; and
Late Middle English, from about 1400 to about 1500, which was marked by the spread of the London literary dialect and the gradual cleavage between the Scottish dialect and the other northern dialects.
During this period the basic lines of inflection as they appear in Modern English were first established. Among the chief characteristic differences between Old and Middle English were the substitution of natural gender in Middle English for grammatical gender and the loss of the old system of declensions in the noun and adjective and, largely, in the pronoun.
Norman Conquest
The event that began the transition from Old English to Middle English was the Norman Conquest of 1066, when William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy and, later, William I of England) invaded the island of Britain from his home base in northern France, and settled in his new acquisition along with his nobles and court. William crushed the opposition with a brutal hand and deprived the Anglo-Saxon earls of their property, distributing it to Normans (and some English) who supported him.
However, the Normans spoke a rural dialect of French with considerable Germanic influences, usually called Anglo-Norman or Norman French, which was quite different from the standard French of Paris of the period, which is known as Francien.
The differences between these dialects became even more marked after the Norman invasion of Britain, particularly after King John and England lost the French part of Normandy to the King of France in 1204 and England became even more isolated from continental Europe.
During the reign of the Norman King Henry II and his queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in the second half of the 12th Century, many more Francien words from central France were imported in addition to their Anglo-Norman counterparts
Many more Latin-derived words came into use (sometimes through the French, but often directly) during this period, largely connected with religion, law, medicine and literature, including scripture, collect, meditation, immortal, oriental, client, adjacent, combine, expedition, moderate, nervous, private, popular, picture, legal, legitimate, testimony, prosecute, pauper, contradiction, history, library, comet, solar, recipe, scribe, scripture, tolerance, imaginary, infinite, index, intellect, magnify and genius.
But French words continued to stream into English at an increasing pace, with even more French additions recorded after the 13th Century than before, peaking in the second half of the 14th Century, words like abbey, alliance, attire, defend, navy, march, dine, marriage, figure, plea, sacrifice, scarlet, spy, stable, virtue, marshal, esquire, retreat, park, reign, beauty, clergy, cloak, country, fool, coast, magic, etc.
Middle English After the Normans
Middle English After the Normans
A page from the late 12th Century Ormulum
During these Norman-ruled centuries in which English as a language had no official status and no regulation, English had become the third language in its own country.
The “Ormulum”, a 19,000 line biblical text written by a monk called Orm from northern Lincolnshire in the late 12th Century, is an important resource in this regard. Concerned at the way people were starting to mispronounce English, Orm spelled his words exactly as they were pronounced.
RESURGENCE OF ENGLISH
It is estimated that up to 85% of Anglo-Saxon words were lost as a result of the Viking and particularly the Norman invasions, and at one point the very existence of the English language looked to be in dire peril. In 1154, even the venerable “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”, which for centuries had recorded the history of the English people, recorded its last entry.
But, despite the shake-up the Normans had given English, it showed its resilience once again, and, two hundred years after the Norman Conquest, it was English not French that emerged as the language of England.
Biography of Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales
by: Geoffrey Chaucer
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