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MIDDLE ENGLISH VOCABULARY
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MIDDLE ENGLISH VOCABULARY
• In the 13TH century French influence became evident in English manuscripts.
• Almost ten thousand French words came into English at that time
• Most of these words were related to law (accuse, arrest, crime, justice) administration (authority, parliament, reign) medicine (pain, anatomy, surgeon) art (colour, beauty, image) and fashion (boots, brooch, dress).
Over 70% were nouns (a large number were abstract, which were constructed using French affixes as: pre-ance-tion-ment)
• Duplicated words: outcomes:
1. Either one word would supplant the other: leod=people; wlitig=beautiful; stow=place
2. Both words would co-exist with different senses or connotation: doom/judgment; hearty/cordial; house/ mansion.
• In the 14TH and 15th centuries several words came into the language from Latin.
• Most of them belonged to fields such as; religion (collect, memento, rosary) medicine (diaphragm, dislocate, ulcer) law (client, homicide, legal) and Literature (library, intellect, history)
• The borrowing of French and Latin words led to a distinctive feature of modern English vocabulary, consisting of 3 items, such as: kingly/ royal/ regal and rise/mount/ ascend.
Noticeable: effects of Scandinavian
Other languages supplied new words:
Contact with Low Countries brought:
-
Poll =head
Doten =be foolish
Skipper =ship's master
other loans:
Cork (Spanish)
Lough (Irish)
the effect of borrowings was dramatic in the English lexicon
Early Middle English--> 90% of words = native English origin
End Middle English period--> the previous proportion fell to 75%