Middle English

Interestingly, the Great Vowel Shift only affected English, but words that were borrowed from other languages such as French and Latin were affected. This is the reason for the difficulty in understanding texts before or during the Shift, spelling, and the teaching of reading.

William was a merchant and diplomat and later learned how to print. He introduced printing to the press in retirement. He printed Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and Malory's work, and also translated best-selling texts from France and Burgundy. He was also a writer himself and printed his own work too.

Middle English concludes just as English prepares itself for the English of William Shakespeare and the Elizabethans...

Old English (c.1000):

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum

si þin nama gehalgod tobecume þin rice gewurþe þin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum

urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg

and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum

and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice.

Middle English (Wyclif, 1384):

Oure fadir þat art in heuenes halwid be þi name;

þi reume or kyngdom come to be. Be þi wille don in herþe as it is doun in heuene.

yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred.

And foryeue to us oure dettis þat is oure synnys as we foryeuen to oure dettouris þat is to men þat han synned in us.

And lede us not into temptacion but delyuere us from euyl.

Early Modern English (King James version, 1611):

Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heauen.

Giue us this day our daily bread.

And forgiue us our debts as we forgiue our debters.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliuer us from euill. Amen.

Timeline of Middle English - ~ 1100 - 1500

By Stephanie Coady

How does Middle English compare with English earlier and later?

Below is a sample of text in Old, Middle and Modern English:

No unified system was put in place so early Middle English seems more fragmented than Late Old English. The new spelling habits that were introduced were less strict and reflected spoken English more than old spelling system. The written language then took on sounds that came from the Vikings and Norman settlers; the language spoken by the Viking invaders were branches of the North Germanic variety of Indo-European. They were similar and Old English (West Germanic language) people could understand it.

When was the Middle English period?

People today find Middle English easier to read than Old English as Old English appears to be like a foreign language. Old English contained these: æ þ ð, Middle English abandoned æ and ð, and þ was not of much use. Some letters barely used in Old English were used in Middle English, such as k, q, x and z. Some examples of the same words in Old English and Middle English: Old: cwæð, Middle: quath. These words were the standard of an elite and are now archaic and never represented spoken language of Anglo-Saxons.

The Middle English period has no defined beginning and ending, as it is a transitioning period. However, it can be said to begin around 1100, at the commencement of the Norman Conquest, and concluded at around 1500, when Henry VII was crowned King.

Introduction of the Printing Press

William Caxton introduced the printing press to England around 1476, setting up in Westminister Abbey.

William also had somewhat standardised English, but with some difficulty, as some texts were incomprehensible to him, some were more like languages other than English, and the language conventions differed in different regions. Also, he did not translate books that he found were too rude.

Many of the strange and unusual spelling conventions of today can be due to William.

Also, the printing press made the spread of learning a lot easier.

13th and 14th Centuries

1154

The Great Vowel Shift

New King and Queen

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

In 1154, it was recorded that England got a new King; Count Henry of Anjou, who was the Grandson of William the Conqueror and was the first of the Plantagenet kings, who spoke Latin and French but not English. He, Henry II, was crowned in Westminister Abbey.

When the English monks stopped writing The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1154, English was at a standstill.

During the Renaissance (1400’s and 1500’s), Latin became more important, such as in the churches and in medicine. Because of this, the English language acquired more Latin words in this time. This changed the spelling of English. For example, in words such as come, some, monk, son, tongue, wonder, honey, above, done and love, have ‘o’ in the place of ‘u’.

Also, there was a new Queen; Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was the daughter of William X of Aquitaine, and was known as a beautiful woman.

In 1204 AD, the King of France took over the province of Normandy, which was previously owned by King John (also known as John "Lackland"). Following this event, the Norman nobles of England became less connected with their French cousins. Furthermore, England became the main concern of nobility rather than the estates of France, and England took on a modified tongue of English.

In court, church, and government circles, French was considered the "smart" language and Latin the "professional" language. None of the Norman Kings spoke English or had any interest in English, with Henry I as an exception, as he had an English-speaking wife.

Also, in the early thirteenth century, English came back into churches. It started to come back slowly, but shortly after a huge influx of documents came in that were written in English. At the end of the thirteenth century, Edward I, who was quite English, said to the king of France that it was forbidden by God to wipe out the English language. French then became a learnt language, rather than a language of natural tongue. This is demonstrated as William's knights learnt French at school and were not born first speaking French. There was even a book written for English-speaking children to learn French.

Henry inherited land in England and Northern France, and Eleaner brought France.

They all spoke French. Even now French is seen as a sophisticated language.

However, a much greater change in the English Language was the Great Vowel Shift. This change occurred during and after Chaucer’s lifetime and was perhaps one of the most important processes of the language going from Middle English to Modern English. The Great Vowel Shift was when vowels that were originally pronounced in one place of the mouth would be pronounced in another place in the mouth, higher up in the mouth, changing the sound of the vowel.

This made French a more popular language, and English a lesser one. However, some of the people still spoke English.

The Hundred Years' War

The Black Death

Geoffrey Chaucer (1300's)

The Black Death was a horrific plague that existed between the year 1348 and 1351. It killed about one third of people of England and caused labor shortages.

Following the Black Death, however, the working classes became of more concern in terms of economics and social importance and English became of higher importance.

The Hundred Years’ War was a long conflict between France and England that was between 1337 and 1454. It finished when the English realised that the French were too strong. The end result was that the English territory of France was confined to the Channel port of Calais (which was lost later in 1556). France was then left to be the dominant state of western Europe.

After the Hundred Years War and the Black Death, non-French and Latin abbots and prioresses took over the churches and monasteries (as many deaths had occurred in the churches and monasteries because of the disease) and English grammar was being taught in schools.

The intelligent Geoffrey Chaucer, a writer and a poet, wrote the most famous example of Middle English, The Canterbury Tales in the late 1300s, when Norman French words were half of the English vocabulary.

The Canterbury Tales is famous because it is known as the first book of poetry written in English. This is because people, even those living in England, wrote in Italian or Latin before Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales. These people who wrote and understood these texts in Italian or Latin were of the higher and educated class, as English was of lower class. However, Chaucer changed this. Shakespeare, Dryden, Keats, and Eliot all could not have been so successful without Chaucer as he introduced written English to the world.

Also, The Canterbury Tales links all stages of life. It has medieval social life and has all classes of people, from the nobles to labourers, and priests and nuns to drunkards and robbers.

The disease was started by rats, which came from ships. These rats carried the germ known to modern science as Pasteurella pestis. The rats would shed fleas which then carried the disease from the rat to the human.

Also, England had its first English-speaking King since King Harold was killed at Hastings - Henry, Duke of Lancaster, was crowned King in 1399, after King Richard II. He became King Henry IV.

In 1356 it was made compulsory that English was spoken in court proceedings and six years later Parliament was opened in English by the Chancellor.

Photo of Geoffrey Chaucer

By the 13th and 14th centuries, noble children no longer learnt French as a first language. English became the new medium of instruction.

Norman Conquest

Bibliography

The Norman Conquests begins with the death of King Edward. William, the Duke of Normandy, was very close to him, but was not related to him, and was sure that he could be king after him.

Following this, William was disgusted and battled with full force near Hastings on the 14th of October, 1066. Hence, the name of the battle, "The Battle of Hastings".

The Battle of Hastings concludes with the death of Harold, who was killed by an arrow that pierced him through his eye.

When King Edward was getting close to his death, he asked Harold Godwinson, Edward's wife's brother and Earl of Wessex, to make William the king. Instead, on the day of his death, Harold crowned himself King.

What did the Norman's do?

The Norman's took over. They destroyed the English royal family and Harold's courts in battle.

For a long time after the Norman Conquest, French-speaking Normans ruled the higher positions in the land.

William got rid of the churches, with cathedrals and monasteries being taken over by Norman bishops and abbots.

• The Virtual Linguistics Campus. The History of English (An Overview) [YouTube Video]. Retrieved from
• A Brief History of the English Language. (unknown). Retrieved from http://www.anglik.net/englishlanguagehistory.htm
• Hurley, P.K. (unknown). ME: Norman French/Middle English (1100-1500). Retrieved from http://emedia.leeward.hawaii.edu/hurley/Ling102web/mod6_world/6mod6.2.2_me.htm
• Blake, N., (Ed.). (1992). The Cambridge History of the English Language – Volume II 1066-1476. (2nd Ed.). Cambridge, New York USA: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
• McCrum, R., & Cran, W., & MacNeil, R. (1986). The Story of English. London: Faber and Faber Limited.
• Bragg, M. (Writer, Producer and Presenter). (unknown). The Adventure of English [DVD]. Unknown: itv Studios.
• Cowley, R. & Parker, G. (unknown). Hundred Years' War. Retrieved from http://www.history.com/topics/hundred-years-war

furthermore...

What happened to the language in England?

This could have been the most influential event in English history, as King Harold was the last English-speaking King for almost 300 years.

At the time French, English, and Latin were being used. Religion, law, science, and literature were conducted in languages other than English, which deemed difficult to the English-speakers.

England's social and political structures changed dramatically. Norman aristocracy almost completely replaced English aristocracy, and English became the language of the lower classes, with it being diminished as a written source in nobility in literature, law, and in official documentation

His coronation and ceremony were in English and Latin, two languages that he did not speak. William spoke the French of Normandy, with only an attempt to learn English at the age of 43 years, but was too occupied to keep it up.

The change began as soon as William was crowned on Christmas Day 1066.

More on the Linguistics of Middle English

Middle English is just a written version of the changes that happened in Old English. This can be seen when inflections were lost in Old English. This change appeared to show in written texts only until Middle English.

An example of the transition from Old to Middle English is the use of the letter "y". In Old English, French scribes sometimes wrote "u" (a short vowel) for the sound of "y". An example is mycel (Old English), muchel (Middle English), and much (Modern English). But when "y" was a long vowel, it was written by the French scribes as "ui". An example is fyr (Old English), fuir (Middle English), and fire (Modern English). However, no matter whether the "y" sound was long or short, it was pronounced differently in different regions of the country.