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Middle English
Englisch English Inglis
A page from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales
Region
England (except for west Cornwall), some localities in the eastern fringe of Wales, south east Scotland and Scottish burghs, to some extent Ireland
Era
developed into Early Modern English, and Fingallian and Yola in Ireland by the 15th century
Language family
Indo-European
Germanic
West Germanic
North Sea Germanic
Anglo-Frisian
Anglic
Middle English
Early forms
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Germanic
Old English
Writing system
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-2
enm
ISO 639-3
enm
ISO 639-6
meng
Glottolog
midd1317
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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 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]
^Simon Horobin, Introduction to Middle English, Edinburgh 2016, s. 1.1.
^ abHorobin, Simon; Smith, Jeremy (2002). An Introduction to Middle English. Oup USA. ISBN 978-0-19-521950-0. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
^Carlson, David. (2004). "The Chronology of Lydgate's Chaucer References". The Chaucer Review. 38 (3): 246–254. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.691.7778. doi:10.1353/cr.2004.0003. S2CID 162332574.
^The name "tales of Canterbury" appears within the surviving texts of Chaucer's work.[3]
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The MiddleEnglish creole hypothesis is a proposal that MiddleEnglish was a creole, which is usually defined as a language that develops during contact...
corpus of MiddleEnglish. The dialects of MiddleEnglish vary greatly over both time and place, and in contrast with Old English and Modern English, spelling...
debated. Old English evolved into MiddleEnglish, which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and MiddleEnglish also developed...
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early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary...
/uː/ to Middle French /yː/, becoming MiddleEnglish /iw/ and then Modern English /juː/. Affects Q, U. the inconsistent lowering of MiddleEnglish /ɛr/ to...
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MiddleEnglish Bible translations (1066-1500) covers the age of MiddleEnglish, beginning with the Norman conquest and ending about 1500. The most well-known...
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descendant of MiddleEnglish, spoken in County Wexford Fingallian, another presumed descendant of MiddleEnglish, spoken in Fingal Euro EnglishEnglish in Denmark...
Breton mythologies) Athelston (mid- or late 14th century): Anonymous MiddleEnglish verse romance, often classified as a Matter of England text. Its themes...
and non-U English usage, with "U" representing upper and upper middle class vocabulary of the time, and "Non-U" representing lower middle class vocabulary...
Modern English (ME), sometimes called New English (NE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since...
government in the following century. In spite of this, some texts of early MiddleEnglish engaged in linguistic purism, deliberately avoiding excessive Anglo-Norman...
Language: Anglicisation English language English-speaking world Old EnglishMiddleEnglish Early Modern English Cumbric language Cornish language Brythonic...
§ Brackets and transcription delimiters. English diphthongs have undergone many changes since the Old and MiddleEnglish periods. The sound changes discussed...
'Golden Age' of medieval English historiography, was during the High Middle Ages in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when English chronicles produced...
Western Christianity through the Middle Ages. Since then, the Bible has been translated into many more languages. English Bible translations also have a...
The Middle East (term originally coined in English [see § Terminology]) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey...
Muspilli, the Old Saxon Heliand, the Old Norse Poetic Edda, and many MiddleEnglish poems such as Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Layamon's...
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