Middle English

===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.