Middle English
(C.1100 - C.1500)
Norman ConquestThe transition from old English to Middle English began during the event of the Norman Conquest of 1066. William conqueror invaded the island of Britain from northern France. The conquering Normans were once Vikings who had settled in northern France about 200 years before. However, they had adopted with French instead of their Old Norse language. They then spoke a rural dialect of French that had Germanic influences that was called Anglo-Norman or Norman French. Anglo-Norman French had then became the language that the kings and nobility had used. Even though Latin was mostly used for written language, even by the Church and in official records, like the “Domesday Book”. This book talked about the legal authority, which was written in Latin. However, the lower class continued to speak English. Middle English consists of a mixture of Old English and Anglo-Norman.
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Norsemen Fleet Retrieved from http://www.travelfranceonline.com/bayeux-tapestry-norman-conquest-england/
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French (Anglo-Norman) Influence
Anonymous, Historical and cosmological anthology, manuscript on parchment England Retrieved from http://www.artfixdaily.com/artwire/release/2952-les-enluminures-of-paris-and-chicago-bringing-rare-and-important-
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The normans had handed down over 10,000 words where about three quarters of words are still used today. For example, there are a huge number of abstract nouns ending in the suffixes “-age”, “-ance/-ence”, “-ant/-ent”, etc. This might link to the related matters of royalty, (crown, castle, prince), government and administration (parliament, government, governor), court and law (court, judge, justice). Over a period of time, many near synonyms acquired slight differences in meaning, which adds to the precision and flexibility of the English language. The French scribes changed some of the common Old English letter pattern from “hw” to “wh”. A “w’ was even added, so some words that only began with “h” like hal became whole. These are some of the kinds of inconsistencies that changed in the English language during this period. During the second half of the 12th Century, where the reign of the Norman King Henry II and his queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Many more Francien words from central France were imported in. Since queen Eleanor of Aquitaine is the most cultured woman in Europe, she included many terms of romance and chivalry, for example, romance, courtesy, honour, passion, etc. Then, French words started to flow into English at an increasing pace. In the second half of the 14th Century, words like abbey, alliance, attire, coast, magic, etc. |
Middle English after the NormansIn this period, English was also the language that was mainly of the uneducated peasantry that many of the grammatical difficulties of Old English gradually disappeared. By the 14th century, the pronounced stress that was usually on the lexical root of a word, shifted towards the beginning of words. Also, many vowels developed into the common English. The Norman “qu” substituted for the Anglo-Saxon “cw” which meant that cwene became queen, cwic became quick. The letters “hw” generally became “wh”, like when, where, etc. A lot of letters started to differentiate, like “f” and “v”, and “s” and “z”. Short vowels were known by consonant doubling, where siting became sitting, and so forth. |
A section of the late 12th Century "Ormulum" retrieved from http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_middle.html (originally from Wikipedia)
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Resurgence of English
Spread of the Black Death retrieved from http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_middle.html (originally from Encyclopedia Britannica, 1994)
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There was an estimate of up to 85% of Anglo-Saxon words were lost as a result of the Vikings, and the Norman invasions. Also, two hundred years after the Norman Conquest, English was not French but became the language of England. The Black Death of 1349 - 1350 killed a third of the English population. The Statue of Pleading, which made English the language that they had officially used in the courts and Parliament, which was adopted in 1362. At the same time, Edward III became the first king to speak and address Parliament in English. Through this change, English had become the language of instruction in schools in 1385. Below is part of the passage that was taken from a piece of work in the late 14th Century called “Mandeville’s Travels”. This piece of work was about travels in foreign land. “In þat lond ben trees þat beren wolle, as þogh it were of scheep; whereof men maken clothes, and all þing þat may ben made of wolle. In þat contree ben many ipotaynes, þat dwellen som tyme in the water, and somtyme on the lond: and þei ben half man and half hors, as I haue seyd before; and þei eten men, whan þei may take hem.” |
Chaucer and the Birth of English Literature
In the early 1380s, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his first famous “Canterbury Tales”, and it was written in English. Geoffrey Chaucer’s piece of work was considered the first great works of English literature, and the first demonstration of artistic use of Middle English, instead of French or Latin.
In “Canterbury Tales”, originally 20-25% of his vocabulary was originally in French. However, the whole work was basically improved English. Chaucer introduced up to 2,000 words into the language, and were commonly used everyday in the 14th Century, London. John Wycliffe translated “The Bible” in 1384. Through this, over 1,000 English words were first recognized and recorded in it. However, most of them were Latin Based. By the late 14th and 15th Century, English had changed drastically. |
"The Knight's Tale" from Chaucer's work "Canterbury Tales" Retrieved from http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_middle.html
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