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Middle English

Middle English (abbreviated to ME[1]) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but Oxford University Press specifies the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1100 to 1500.[2] This stage of the development of the English language roughly followed the High to the Late Middle Ages.

Middle English

England (except for west Cornwall), some localities in the eastern fringe of Wales, south east Scotland and Scottish burghs, to some extent Ireland

developed into Early Modern English, and Fingallian and Yola in Ireland by the 15th century

meng

Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English literary variety broke down and writing in English became fragmented and localized and was, for the most part, being improvised.[2] By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, a standard based on the London dialects (Chancery Standard) had become established. This largely formed the basis for Modern English spelling, although pronunciation has changed considerably since that time. Middle English was succeeded in England by Early Modern English, which lasted until about 1650. Scots developed concurrently from a variant of the Northumbrian dialect (prevalent in northern England and spoken in southeast Scotland).


During the Middle English period, many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether. Noun, adjective, and verb inflections were simplified by the reduction (and eventual elimination) of most grammatical case distinctions. Middle English also saw considerable adoption of Anglo-Norman vocabulary, especially in the areas of politics, law, the arts, and religion, as well as poetic and emotive diction. Conventional English vocabulary remained primarily Germanic in its sources, with Old Norse influences becoming more apparent. Significant changes in pronunciation took place, particularly involving long vowels and diphthongs, which in the later Middle English period began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift.


Little survives of early Middle English literature, due in part to Norman domination and the prestige that came with writing in French rather than English. During the 14th century, a new style of literature emerged with the works of writers including John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales remains the most studied and read work of the period.[4]

Emergence of the voiced /v/, /ð/, /z/ as separate phonemes, rather than mere allophones of the corresponding voiceless fricatives

fricatives

Reduction of the Old English to monophthongs and the emergence of new diphthongs due to vowel breaking in certain positions, change of Old English post-vocalic /j/, /w/ (sometimes resulting from the [ɣ] allophone of /ɡ/) to offglides, and borrowing from French

diphthongs

Merging of Old English /æ/ and /ɑ/ into a single vowel /a/

Raising of the long vowel /æː/ to /ɛː/

Rounding of /ɑː/ to /ɔː/ in the southern dialects

Unrounding of the front in most dialects

rounded vowels

Lengthening of vowels in (and in certain other positions). The resultant long vowels (and other preexisting long vowels) subsequently underwent changes of quality in the Great Vowel Shift, which began during the later Middle English period.

open syllables

Loss of (double consonants came to be pronounced as single ones)

gemination

Loss of weak final vowels (, written ⟨e⟩). By Chaucer's time, this vowel was silent in normal speech, although it was normally pronounced in verse as the meter required (much as occurs in modern French). Also, nonfinal unstressed ⟨e⟩ was dropped when adjacent to only a single consonant on either side if there was another short ⟨e⟩ in an adjoining syllable. Thus, every began to be pronounced as evry, and palmeres as palmers.

schwa

The main changes between the Old English sound system and that of Middle English include:


The combination of the last three processes listed above led to the spelling conventions associated with silent ⟨e⟩ and doubled consonants (see under Orthography, below).

Morphology[edit]

Nouns[edit]

Middle English retains only two distinct noun-ending patterns from the more complex system of inflection in Old English:

(collection of glossaries)

Medulla Grammatice

Middle English creole hypothesis

Middle English Dictionary

Middle English literature

A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English

Brunner, Karl (1962) Abriss der mittelenglischen Grammatik; 5. Auflage. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer (1st ed. Halle (Saale): M. Niemeyer, 1938)

Brunner, Karl (1963) An Outline of Middle English Grammar; translated by Grahame Johnston. Oxford: Blackwell

Burrow, J. A.; Turville-Petre, Thorlac (2005). A Book of Middle English (3 ed.). Blackwell.

(1960) "A Middle English Syntax. 1. Parts of Speech". Helsinki : Société néophilologique.

Mustanoja, Tauno

A. L. Mayhew and Walter William Skeat. A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580

(archived 22 February 2012)

Middle English Glossary

, ed. (1915). A Middle English Reader. Macmillan – via Internet Archive. With grammatical introduction, notes, and glossary.

Oliver Farrar Emerson

on Miraheze

Middle English encyclopedia