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Middle english
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'''Middle English''' is the name given by
historical linguistics to the diverse forms of
the
English language spoken between the
Norman invasion in 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, 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 1470s. By this time the
Northumbrian dialect spoken in south east Scotland was developing into the
Older Scots Scots language. The language of
England as spoken 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. It should be noted, though, that the diversity of forms in written Middle English signifies 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 perhaps greater fidelity to this than may be found in Old English texts). Rather, this diversity suggests the gradual end of
Wessex's role 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 which follow, as the north east,
East Anglia and London emerge successively as major centres of literary production, with their own generic interests.
Literary and Linguistic Cultures
Middle English was one of the three languages current in England. Though never the language of the
Catholic Church, which was always
Latin, it lost status as a language of
Noble court courtly life,
literature and
documentation, being largely supplanted by
Anglo-Norman language Anglo-Norman. It remained, though, the spoken language of the majority, and may be regarded as the only true
vernacular language after about the mid-twelfth century, with Anglo-Norman becoming, like Latin, a learned tongue of the court. English did not cease to be used in the court: it retained a cartulary function (being the language used in royal charters); nor did it disappear as a language of literary production. Even during what has been called the 'lost' period of English literary history, the late eleventh to mid-twelfth century, Old English texts, especially homilies, saints' lives and grammatical texts, continued to be copied, used and adapted by scribes. From the later twelfth and thirteenth century there survives huge amounts of written material of various forms, from lyrics to saints' lives, devotional manuals to histories, encyclopaedias to poems of moral (and often immoral) discussion and debate, though much of it remains unstudied in part because it evades or defies modern, arguably quite restricted, categorisations of literature. Middle English is more familiar to us as the language of Ricardian Poetry and its followers, the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century literature cultures clustered around the West Midlands and around London and East Anglia. This includes the works of
William Langland, the
The Pearl Poet Gawain Poet,
Chaucer,
John Lydgate Lydgate,
John Gower Gower,
Thomas Malory Malory,
William Caxton Caxton, and
Thomas Occleve Hoccleve. Perhaps best known, of course, is
Chaucer himself in his
Canterbury Tales and other shorter poems, where the poet consistently revalues and reinvents older traditions while managing to avoid completely abandoning them.
History
1000
:''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;''
:-- Translation of
Gospel of Luke Luke 8.1-3 from the
New Testament
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 an English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchy, and their replacement with a
Norman language Norman-speaking one, both opened the way for the introduction of French as a language of polite discourse and literature and fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration. Although Old English was by no means as standardised as modern English, its written forms were less subject to broad dialect variations than post-Conquest English.
Even now, after a thousand years, the Norman influence on the English language is still visible.
Consider these Modern English words derived from Old English:
''pig'',
''cow'',
''wood'',
''sheep'',
''house'',
''worthy'',
''bold''. Contrast these with this set of related but overlapping Modern English words (in Modern English), all derived from Anglo-Norman French:
''pork'',
''beef'',
''forest'',
''mutton'',
''mansion'',
''honourable'',
''courageous''.
The role of Anglo-Norman as the language of government and law can be seen by the abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of government derived from Anglo-Norman: ''court'', ''judge'', ''jury'', ''appeal'', ''parliament''. Also prevalent are terms relating to the chivalric cultures which arose in the twelfth century as a response to the requirements of feudalism and crusading activity. Early on, this vocabulary of refined behaviour begins to work its way into English: the word 'debonairte' appears in the 1137
Peterborough Chronicle, but so too does 'castel', another Norman import that makes its mark on the territory of the English language as much as on the territory of England itself.
This period of trilingual activity developed much of the flexible triplicate synonymity 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.
Deeper changes occurred in the grammar. Bit by bit, as we have seen, the wealthy and the government anglicized again, though 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 did not look the same as the old. Old English had a complex system of inflectional endings, but these were gradually lost and simplified in the dialects of spoken English. Gradually the change spread to be reflected in its increasingly diverse written forms. This loss of case-endings was part of a general trend from inflectional to fixed-order words which occurred in other Germanic languages, and cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking layers of the population. English remained, after all, the language of the majority. It certainly was a literary language in England, alongside Anglo-Norman and Latin from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. In the later fourteenth century, Chancery Standard (or London English) - itself a phenomenon produced by the increase of bureaucracy in London, and a concomitant increase in London literary production - introduced a greater deal of conformity in English spelling. While the fame of Middle English literary productions tends to begin in the later fourteenth century, with the works of Chaucer and Gower, an immense corpus of literature survives from throughout the Middle English period.
c.1400
The Establishment is using English increasingly around this time. The
Parliament of England used English increasingly from around the 1360s, and the king's court used mainly English from the time of Henry V (acceded 1413). With some standardization of the language, English begins to exhibit the more recognisable forms of grammar and syntax that will 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 8.1-3
A text from 1391:
Geoffrey Chaucer's [http://art-bin.com/art/oastro.html Treatise on the Astrolabe].
However, this was a time of upheaval in England. Five 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 lower levels in society. Stability only came 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 started in England in the 1470s. With a standardized, printed, English Bible and Prayer Book being read to church congregations from the 1540s, a wider public became familiar with a standard language, and the era of Modern English was underway.
Construction
Key points
With its simplified case-ending system, Middle English is closer to modern English than its pre-Conquest equivalent.
Nouns
Despite losing the slightly more complex system of inflexional endings, Middle English retains two separate noun-ending patterns from Old English. Compare, for example, the early Modern English words ''engel'' (angel) and ''nome'' (name):
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! !!colspan="2"| singular !!colspan="2"| plural
|-
! nom/acc
| engel || nome || engles || nomen
|-
! gen
| engles* || nome || engle(ne)** || nomen
|-
! dat
| engle || nome || engle(s) || nomen
|}
The strong -s plural form has survived into Modern English, while the weak -n form is rare (''oxen'', ''children'', ''brethren'').
Verbs
As a general rule (and all these rules are general), the first person singular of present tense verbs ends in -e (ich here), the second person in -(e)st (þou spekest), and the third person in -eþ (he comeþ). (''
Thorn (letter) þ'' is pronounced like the unvoiced ''th'' in "thanks"). In the past tense, weak verbs are formed by an -ed(e), -d(e) or -t(e) ending. These, without their personal endings, also form past participles, together with past-participle prefixes derived from the old English ge-: i-, y- and sometimes bi-.
Strong verbs form their past tense by changing their stem vowel (e.g. binden -> bound), as in Modern English.
Pronouns
Post-Conquest English inherits its pronouns from Old English:
{| class="wikitable"
|+ First and Second Person
|-
!rowspan="2"|
!colspan="2"| First Person !! colspan="2"| Second Person
|-
! singular !! plural !! singular !! plural
|-
! nom.
| ich, I || we || þu || ye
|-
! acc.
| me || us || þe || yow, ow
|-
! gen.
| min, mi || ure || þin || yower, ower
|-
! dat.
| me || us || þe || yow, ow
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Third Person
! !! masc. !! neut. !! fem. !! pl.
|-
! nom.
| he || hit || ho, heo, hi || hi, ho, heo
|-
! acc.
| hine || hit || hi, heo || hi
|-
! gen.
| his || his || hire, hore || hore, heore
|-
! dat.
| him || him || hire || hom, heom
|}
First and second pronouns survive largely unchanged, with only minor spelling variations. In the third person, the masculine accusative singular became 'him'. The feminine form was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into 'she', but unsteadily - 'ho' remains in some areas for a long time. The lack of a strong standard written form between the eleventh and the fifteenth century makes these changes hard to map.
Pronunciation
Generally, all letters in Middle English words are pronounced. (
Silent letter Silent letters in Modern English come from pronunciation shifts but continued spelling conventions.) Therefore 'knight' is pronounced {{IPA|[knɪçt]}} (with a pronounced K and a 'gh' as the 'ch' in German 'nicht'), not {{IPA|[naɪt]}}, as in Modern English.
:Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
:And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
:To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
::''(
Chaucer,
Canterbury Tales)''
Words like 'straunge' are disyllabic. 'Palmeres' is trisyllabic. Comparison with Old English has led some to claim Middle English (and therefore Modern English) developed as a sort of
Creole language creole.
Chancery Standard
Chancery Standard was a written form of English used by government bureaucracy and for other official purposes from the late 14th century. It is believed to have contributed in a significant way to the development of the English language as spoken and written today. Due to the differing dialects of English spoken and written across the country at the time, the government required a clear and unambiguous form for use in its official documents. Chancery Standard was developed to meet this need.
History of the Chancery Standard
The standard was developed during the reign of King Henry V, 1413 to 1422, in response to his order for government officials to use, like himself, English rather than
Anglo-Norman language Anglo-Norman or
Latin. It had become broadly standardized by about the 1430s.
It was largely based on the London and East Midland dialects, as those areas were the political and demographic "centres of gravity." However, it used other dialectical forms where they made meanings more clear, for example the northern "they", "their" and "them" were used rather than the London "hi/they", "hir" and "hem." This was perhaps because the London forms could be confused with words such as he, her, him.
In its early stages of development, the clerks that used it would have been familiar with
French language French and Latin. The strict grammars of those languages influenced the construction of the standard. It was not the only influence on later forms of English—its level of influence is disputed and a variety of spoken dialects continued to exist—but it provided a core around which Early Modern English could crystallise.
By the mid-15th century, Chancery Standard was used for most official purposes except the Church (which used Latin) and some legal matters (which used French and some Latin). It was disseminated around England by bureaucrats on official business, and slowly gained prestige.
Chancery Standard provided a widely-intelligible form of English for the first printers, who appeared later in the 15th century.
Sample Text
The following is from the first sentence of the
Prologue from
The Canterbury Tales by
Chaucer.
'''Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote
'''The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
'''And bathed euery veyne in swich licour,
'''Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
'''Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
'''Inspired hath in euery holt and heeth
'''The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
'''Hath in the Ram his halfe course yronne,
'''And smale fowles maken melodye,
'''That slepen al the niÈ?t with open ye--
'''So priketh hem Nature in hir corages--
'''Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
'''And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
'''To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
'''And specially, from euery shires ende
'''Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
'''The holy blissful martir for to seke,
'''That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.'''
References
*{{cite book | author=
Henry Sweet Sweet, Henry | title=First Middle English Primer | publisher=
Evolution Publishing:
Bristol, PA | year=2005 | id=ISBN 1-889758-70-1}}
Category:History of the English language
Category:Middle English language
ar:انجليزية وسطى
see
Middle English
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