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Middle English

Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics|historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and about 1470, when the #Chancery Standard|Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William Caxton in the late 1470s. By that time the variant of the Northumbrian dialect (prevalent in Northern England) spoken in southeast Scotland was developing into the History of the Scots language|Scots language. The language of England as used after this time, up to 1650, is known as Early Modern English. Unlike Old English, which tended largely to adopt Late West Saxon scribal conventions in the immediate pre-Conquest period, Middle English as a written language displays a wide variety of scribal (and presumably dialectal) forms. However, the diversity of forms in written Middle English may signify neither greater variety of spoken forms of English than could be found in pre-Conquest England, nor a faithful representation of contemporary spoken English (though presumably greater fidelity to this than may be found in Old English texts). Rather, this diversity suggests the gradual end of the role of Wessex as a focal point and trend-setter for scribal activity, and the emergence of more distinct local scribal styles and written dialects, and a general pattern of transition of activity over the centuries that follow, as Northumbria, Kingdom of the East Angles|East Anglia and London emerge successively as major centres of literary production, with their own generic interests.

History

Eleventh to thirteenth centuries

Sample passage of Old English (Late West Saxon) of the 11th century

(Note the letters Thorn_(letter)|⟨þ⟩ and Eth|⟨ð⟩ represent [[Voiceless_dental_fricative|θ]] and/or [[Voiced_dental_fricative|ð]])
- ''Syððan wæs geworden þæt he ferde þurh þa ceastre and þæt castel: godes rice prediciende and bodiende. and hi twelfe mid. And sume wif þe wæron gehælede of awyrgdum gastum: and untrumnessum: seo magdalenisce maria ofþære seofan deoflu uteodon: and iohanna chuzan wif herodes gerefan: and susanna and manega oðre þe him of hyra spedum þenedon.'' A literal translation, using descendants of the original words where possible (bold words are explanations), might be
- "Sith '''''(since)''''' it was worthen '''''(had come to happen)''''' that he fared through the '''''towns''''': God's rich '''''(kingdom)''''' predicating and boding, and he had twelve '''''(disciples)''''' with him, and some wives '''''(women)''''', that were healed of '''''suffocating''''' ghosts and un-'''''upright'''''-nesses: Mary, Magdalene, '''''out of whom''''' seven devils out-'''''went''''', and Johanna, Chuza '''''(Herod's steward)''''''s wife, and Susanna, and many others that '''''(gave)''''' him of '''''their''''' speeds '''''(things thought of as "fast")''''' " The typical modern translation is
- "And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance."
- —Translation of Gospel of Luke|Luke ch.8 v.1–3, from the New Testament

Situation in the eleventh century

Norman French in the Kingdom of England Although it is possible to overestimate the degree of culture shock which the transfer of power in 1066 represented, the removal from the top levels of society of an English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchy, and their replacement with one speaking Norman language|Norman French and using Latin for administrative purposes, opened the way for the introduction of Norman French as a language of polite discourse and literature, and fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration. (However the Normans of the early period were illiterate and depended on the clergy for written communication and record-keeping.) Although Old English was by no means as standardised as modern English, its written forms were less subject to broad dialect variations than was post-Conquest English. Even now, after nearly a thousand years, the Norman influence on the English language is still apparent though it did not begin to affect Middle English until somewhat later. Consider these pairs of Modern English words. The first of each pair is derived from Old English and the second is of Anglo-Norman origin: pig/pork, chicken/poultry, calf/veal, cow/beef, wood/forest, sheep/Lamb (food)|mutton, house/mansion, worthy/honourable, bold/courageous, Freedom (philosophy)|freedom/liberty.Scott, Walter. ''Ivanhoe''; chapter 1 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 which derive from Anglo-Norman: ''court'', ''judge'', ''jury'', ''appeal'', ''parliament''. Also prevalent in Modern English are terms relating to the chivalric cultures which arose in the 12th century as a response to the requirements of feudalism and crusading. Early on, this vocabulary of refined behaviour began to work its way into English: the word 'debonaire' appears in the 1137 Peterborough Chronicle; so too does 'castle|castel' (castle), another Normans|Norman import, which makes its mark on the territory of the English language as much as on the territory of England itself. This period of tri-lingual activity developed much of the flexible triplicate synonymy of modern English. For instance, English has three words meaning roughly "of or relating to a king":
- ''kingly'' from Old English,
- ''royal'' from French and
- ''regal'' from Latin. Likewise, Norman and — later — French influences led to some interesting word pairs in English, such as the following, which both mean "someone who defends":
- ''Warden'' from Norman, and
- ''Guardian'' from French (itself of Germanic origin). Old and Middle English The end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not of course change the linguistic situation immediately. Though the most senior offices in the church were filled by Normans Old English would continue to be used in chronicles such as the Peterborough Chronicle until the middle of the 12th century and the non-literate would have spoken the same dialects as before the Conquest though these would be changing slowly until the time when written records of them are available for study, which varies in different regions. Once the writing of Old English comes to an end Middle English has no standard language, only dialects which derive from the dialects of the same regions in the Anglo-Saxon period.

Situation in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries

Deeper changes occurred in the grammar. Bit by bit, the wealthy and the government anglicised again, although Norman (and subsequently French) remained the dominant language of literature and law for several centuries, even after the loss of the majority of the continental possessions of the English monarchy. The new English language did not look the same as the old: for as well as undergoing Changes to Old English vocabulary|changes in vocabulary, the complex system of inflected endings which Old English had was gradually lost or simplified in the dialects of spoken Middle English. This change was gradually reflected in its increasingly diverse written forms too. The loss of case-endings was part of a general trend from inflectional to fixed-order words that also occurred in other Germanic languages, so cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking layers of the population. English remained, after all, the language of the vast majority. It was also a literary language in England, the language of poets such as Chaucer and Langland, from the 12th to the 14th centuries, alongside Anglo-Norman and Latin. In the later 14th century, Chancery Standard (or London English)—-a phenomenon produced by the increase of bureaucracy in London, and the concomitant increase in London literary output—introduced a greater conformity in English spelling. Although the fame of Middle English literature tends to derive principally from the later fourteenth century, with the works of Chaucer|Geoffrey Chaucer and of John Gower, an immense body of literature survives from throughout the Middle English period. Early Middle English (1100-1300) has a largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary (in the North, with many Norse borrowings). But it has a greatly simplified inflectional system. The complicated grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by means of the dative and accusative cases are replaced in Early Middle English with constructions that involve prepositions. This replacement is incomplete. We still today have the Old English genitive in many words (we now call it the "possessive": the form dog's for "of the dog"; but the apostrophe here doesn't mean that anything has been "left out." But most of the other case endings disappear in the early ME period, including, most of the dozens of forms of the word the. Grammatical genders also disappear from English during the Early ME period, further simplifying matters.

c. 1400

The ruling class began to use Middle English increasingly around this time. The Parliament of England used English from about the 1360s, and the king's court used mainly English from the time of Henry V of England|King Henry V (who accession|acceded in 1413). The oldest surviving correspondence in English, by Sir John Hawkwood, dates from the 1390s. With some standardisation of the language, English began to exhibit the more recognisable forms of grammar and syntax that would form the basis of future standard dialects:
- ''And it is don, aftirward Jesus made iourne bi cites & castelis prechende & euangelisende þe rewme of god, & twelue wiþ hym & summe wymmen þat weren helid of wicke spiritis & sicnesses, marie þat is clepid maudeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis wenten out & Jone þe wif off chusi procuratour of eroude, & susanne & manye oþere þat mynystreden to hym of her facultes''
- —Luke ch.8, v.1–3 "And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance."
- —Translation of Gospel of Luke|Luke ch.8 v.1–3, from the New Testament A text from 1391: Geoffrey Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe. However, this was a time of upheaval in England. Four kings were deposed between 1399 and 1500, and one of them was deposed twice. New men came into positions of power, some of them from other parts of the country or from lower levels in society. Stability came only gradually, after 1485, with the Tudor dynasty. The language changed too—there was much change during the 15th century. But towards the end of that century a more modern English was starting to emerge. Printing began in England in the 1470s, which tended to exert a stabilising effect. With a standardised, printed English Bible and Prayer Book being read to church congregations from the 1540s onward, a wider public became familiar with a standard language, and the era of Modern English was underway.

Construction

With its simplified case-ending system, the grammar of Middle English is much closer to that of modern English than that of Old English.

Nouns

Losing the rather more complex system of inflected endings in Old English, Middle English retains only two separate noun-ending patterns. Compare, for example, the early Modern English words ''engel'' (angel) and ''name'' (name):
In modern prose: When April with its sweet showers has pierced the drought of March to the root, bathing every vein in such liquid by which virtue the flower is engendered, and when Zephyrus with his sweet breath has also inspired the tender plants in every wood and field, and the young sun is halfway through Aries (astrology)|Aries, and small birds that sleep all night with an open eye make melodies, their hearts pricked by nature, then people long to go on pilgrimages, and pilgrims seek foreign shores and distant shrines known in sundry lands, and especially they wend their way to Canterbury from every shire of England to seek the Thomas Becket|holy blessed martyr who has helped them when they were sick.

References

- 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