Middle English

==History==

===Transition from Old English===
[[File:Middle English Dialects.png|thumb|The dialects of Middle English {{circa|1300}}]]

The transition from Late [[Old English]] to Early Middle English occurred at some point during the 12th century.

The influence of [[Old Norse]] aided the development of English from a [[synthetic language]] with relatively free word order to a more [[analytic language]] with a stricter word order.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title = A History of the English Language|last = Baugh|first = Albert|publisher = Routledge & Kegan Paul|year = 1951|location = London|pages = 110–130 (Danelaw); 131–132 (Normans)}}</ref> Both Old English and Old Norse (as well as the descendants of the latter, [[Faroese language|Faroese]] and [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]]) were synthetic languages with complicated inflections. The eagerness of [[Vikings]] in the [[Danelaw]] to communicate with their Anglo-Saxon neighbours resulted in the erosion of inflection in both languages.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title = Growth and Structure of the English Language|last = Jespersen|first = Otto|publisher = B. G. Teubner|year = 1919|location = Leipzig, Germany|pages = 58–82}}</ref> Old Norse may have had a more profound impact on Middle and Modern English development than any other language.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Crystal |first=David |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgeencyclo00crys |title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995 |isbn=9780521401791 |location=Cambridge, UK |pages=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgeencyclo00crys_012/page/n35 32] |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title = The Story of English|last = McCrum|first = Robert|publisher = Faber and Faber|year = 1987|location = London|pages = 70–71}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=BBC |date=27 December 2014 |title=[BBC World News] BBC Documentary English Birth of a Language – 35:00 to 37:20 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-OiNxknXdY |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160131210520/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-OiNxknXdY |archive-date=31 January 2016 |access-date=12 January 2016 |website=YouTube |publisher=BBC}}</ref> Simeon Potter says, "No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflexional endings of English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south."<ref>{{Cite book|title = Our Language|url = https://archive.org/details/ourlanguage00pott|url-access = registration|last = Potter|first = Simeon|publisher = Penguin|year = 1950|location = Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England|pages = [https://archive.org/details/ourlanguage00pott/page/33 33]}}</ref>

Viking influence on Old English is most apparent in the more indispensable elements of the language. [[Pronouns]], modals, comparatives, [[pronominal adverbs]] (like "hence" and "together"), conjunctions, and prepositions show the most marked Danish influence. The best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in extensive word borrowings, yet no texts exist in either Scandinavia or Northern England from this period to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. However, at least one scholarly study of this influence shows that Old English may have been replaced entirely by Norse, by virtue of the change from the Old English syntax to Norse syntax.<ref>Faarlund, Jan Terje, and Joseph E. Emonds. "English as North Germanic". Language Dynamics and Change 6.1 (2016): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00601002 Web.</ref> The effect of Old Norse on Old English was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2" /> Like close cousins, Old Norse and Old English resembled each other, and with some words in common, they roughly understood each other;<ref name=":2" /> in time, the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Lohmeier |first=Charlene |date=28 October 2012 |title=121028 Charlene Lohmeier "Evolution of the English Language" – 23:40 – 25:00; 30:20 – 30:45; 45:00 – 46:00 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adngAZ2iuRc |access-date=12 January 2016 |website=YouTube |publisher=Dutch Lichliter}}</ref> It is most "important to recognise that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population that existed in the Danelaw, these endings must have led to much confusion, tending gradually to become obscured and finally lost." This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar".<ref name=":3" />

While the influence of Scandinavian languages was strongest in the dialects of the Danelaw region and Scotland, words in the spoken language emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries near the transition from Old to Middle English. Influence on the written language only appeared at the beginning of the 13th century, likely because of a scarcity of literary texts from an earlier date.<ref name=":3" />

The [[Norman Conquest]] of England in 1066 saw the replacement of the top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by [[Normans|Norman]] rulers who spoke a dialect of [[Old French]] known as [[Old Norman]], which developed in England into [[Anglo-Norman language|Anglo-Norman]]. The use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on the clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number of words of [[Norman language|Norman]] origin began to appear in the English language alongside native English words of similar meaning, giving rise to such Modern English synonyms as ''[[pig]]''/''[[pork]]'', ''[[chicken]]''/''[[poultry]]'', ''[[calf (animal)|calf]]''/''[[veal]]'', ''[[cow]]''/''[[beef]]'', ''[[sheep]]''/''[[mutton]]'', ''wood''/''[[forest]]'', ''house''/''[[mansion]]'', ''worthy''/''valuable'', ''bold''/''courageous'', ''freedom''/''[[liberty]]'', ''sight''/''vision'', and ''eat''/''dine''.

The role of Anglo-Norman as the language of government and law can be seen in the abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of government that are derived from Anglo-Norman: ''[[court]]'', ''[[judge]]'', ''[[jury]]'', ''[[appeal]]'', ''[[parliament]]''. There are also many Norman-derived terms relating to the [[chivalric]] cultures that arose in the 12th century, an era of [[feudalism]], [[seigneurialism]], and [[crusading]].

Words were often taken from [[Latin]], usually through French transmission. This gave rise to various synonyms, including ''kingly'' (inherited from Old English), ''royal'' (from French, which inherited it from Vulgar Latin), and ''regal'' (from French, which borrowed it from classical Latin). Later French appropriations were derived from standard, rather than Norman, French. Examples of resultant cognate pairs include the words ''warden'' (from Norman) and ''guardian'' (from later French; both share a common ancestor loaned from Germanic).

The end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not result in immediate changes to the language. The general population would have spoken the same [[Old English dialects|dialects]] as they had before the Conquest. Once the writing of Old English came to an end, Middle English had no standard language, only dialects that derived from the dialects of the same regions in the Anglo-Saxon period.

===Early Middle English===
Early Middle English (1100–1300)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fuster-Márquez |first1=Miguel |last2=Calvo García de Leonardo |first2=Juan José |year=2011 |title=A Practical Introduction to the History of English |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QQLBqKjxuvAC |location=[València] |publisher=Universitat de València |page=21 |isbn=9788437083216 |access-date=19 December 2017 }}</ref> has a largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary (with [[Scandinavian influence in English|many Norse borrowings]] in the northern parts of the country) but a greatly simplified [[inflection]]al system. The grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by the [[dative]] and [[instrumental case]]s were replaced in Early Middle English with [[preposition]]al constructions. The Old English [[genitive]] -{{lang|ang|es}} survives in the ''-'s'' of the modern [[English possessive]], but most of the other case endings disappeared in the Early Middle English period, including most of the [[Old English declension#Articles|roughly one dozen forms]] of the [[definite article]] ("the"). The [[Dual (grammatical number)|dual]] personal pronouns (denoting exactly two) also disappeared from English during this period.

Gradually, the wealthy and the government [[Anglicisation|Anglicised]] again, although Norman (and subsequently [[Law French|French]]) remained the dominant language of literature and law until the 14th century, even after the loss of the majority of the continental possessions of the [[English monarchy]]. The loss of case endings was part of a general trend from inflections to fixed [[word order]] that also occurred in other Germanic languages (though more slowly and to a lesser extent), and therefore, it cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking sections of the population: English did, after all, remain the [[vernacular]]. It is also argued<ref>McWhorter, ''Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue,'' 2008, pp. 89–136.</ref> that Norse immigrants to England had a great impact on the loss of inflectional endings in Middle English. One argument is that, although Norse and English speakers were somewhat comprehensible to each other due to similar morphology, the Norse speakers' inability to reproduce the ending sounds of English words influenced Middle English's loss of inflectional endings.

Important texts for the reconstruction of the evolution of Middle English out of Old English are the ''[[Peterborough Chronicle]]'', which continued to be compiled up to 1154; the ''[[Ormulum]]'', a biblical commentary probably composed in [[Lincolnshire]] in the second half of the 12th century, incorporating a unique phonetic spelling system; and the {{lang|enm|[[Ancrene Wisse]]}} and the [[Katherine Group]], religious texts written for [[anchoress]]es, apparently in the [[West Midlands (region)|West Midlands]] in the early 13th century.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Burchfield |first=Robert W. |chapter=Ormulum |editor-first=Joseph R. |editor-last=Strayer |title=Dictionary of the Middle Ages |location=New York |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |year=1987 |volume=9 |page=280 |isbn=978-0-684-18275-9 }}, p. 280</ref> The language found in the last two works is sometimes called the [[AB language]].

More literary sources of the 12th and 13th centuries include ''[[Layamon's Brut]]'' and ''[[The Owl and the Nightingale]]''.

Some scholars<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hcmc.uvic.ca/makingEME/about.html|title=Making Early Middle English: About the Conference|website=hcmc.uvic.ca}}</ref> have defined "Early Middle English" as encompassing English texts up to 1350. This longer time frame would extend the corpus to include many Middle English Romances (especially those of the ''[[Auchinleck manuscript]]'' {{circa|1330}}).

===14th century===
From around the early [[14th century]], there was significant migration into [[London]], particularly from the counties of the [[East Midlands]], and a new [[prestige (sociolinguistics)|prestige]] London dialect began to develop, based chiefly on the speech of the East Midlands but also influenced by that of other regions.<ref name="Wright">{{cite encyclopedia |author= Wright, L. |title=About the evolution of Standard English |encyclopedia= Studies in English Language and Literature |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2012 |page=99ff |isbn=978-1138006935}}</ref> The writing of this period, however, continues to reflect a variety of regional forms of English. The {{lang|enm|[[Ayenbite of Inwyt]]}}, a translation of a French confessional prose work, completed in 1340, is written in a [[Kentish dialect]]. The best known writer of Middle English, [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], wrote in the second half of the 14th century in the emerging London dialect, although he also portrays some of his characters as speaking in northern dialects, as in the "[[Reeve's Tale]]".

In the English-speaking areas of lowland [[Scotland]], an independent standard was developing, based on the [[Northumbrian dialect]]. This would develop into what came to be known as the [[Scots language]].

A large number of terms for abstract concepts were adopted directly from [[medieval Latin|scholastic philosophical Latin]] (rather than via French). Examples are "absolute", "act", "demonstration", and "probable".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Franklin |first1=James |author-link1=James Franklin (philosopher) |date=1983 |title=Mental furniture from the philosophers |url=http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/mental.pdf |journal=Et Cetera |volume=40 |issue= |pages=177–191 |doi= |access-date=29 June 2021}}</ref>

{{anchor|Chancery Standard}}

===Late Middle English===
The Chancery Standard of written English emerged {{circa|1430}} in official documents that, since the [[Norman Conquest]], had normally been written in French.<ref name="Wright"/> Like Chaucer's work, this new standard was based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Clerks using this standard were usually familiar with [[French language|French]] and [[Latin]], influencing the forms they chose. The Chancery Standard, which was adopted slowly, was used in England by bureaucrats for most official purposes, excluding those of the Church and legalities, which used Latin and [[Law French]]  respectively.

The Chancery Standard's influence on later forms of written English is disputed, but it did undoubtedly provide the core around which [[Early Modern English]] formed.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}} Early Modern English emerged with the help of [[William Caxton]]'s printing press, developed during the 1470s. The press stabilized English through a push towards standardization, led by Chancery Standard enthusiast and writer [[Richard Pynson]].<ref name="ReferenceA">cf. 'Sawles Warde' (The protection ''of the soul'')</ref> Early Modern English began in the 1540s after the printing and wide distribution of the [[English Bible]] and [[Book of Common Prayer|Prayer Book]], which made the new standard of English publicly recognizable and lasted until about 1650.