Dr. Rachael-Anne Knight
Language Change
rachaelanne@cantab.net
Inset Session University of Reading
www.rachaelanne.co.uk
July 2004
Middle English (1100-1500)
History:
In 1066 the Normans invaded and French became the language of the governing classes
although English was still spoken by the majority of the population. However, after the loss
of Normandy by King John in 1204 and the hundred years war, ties were lost with France and
many ‘Normans’ began to think of themselves as English. At the beginning of the ME period
there were many different dialects and each author wrote in their own dialect. Therefore there
is some variation in the writing of this time. During the course of the period however, the
speech of the London region gradually emerged as the standard form used for writing and
eventually developed into Standard Modern English.
The word stock
The Norman conquest had a huge influence on the word stock of the language. Many English
words were replaced by French words which are still present in the language today.
OE
ME
MnE
Rice
cuntre
country
Genoh
plente
plenty
Dl
porcioun
portion
Spelling
 Some French spelling conventions were borrowed. For example <th> was gradually
introduced to replace thorn and eth
 <v>was used to represent either /v/ word initially or /u/ elsewhere
 <ch> was introduced to represent // where OE had simply used <c>
 Middle English scribes introduced <wh> instead of <hw> for the sound at the start of
‘what’
 <qu> replaced <cw> under influence from Latin
 Double vowel letters were introduced to represent long vowels
Morphology
In general many inflections were lost in Middle English. This is due partly to phonetic
changes and partly to analogy. The first change to happen was that inflectional –m became –
n, for example in the dative plurals of some nouns. This meant that a distinction was lost
from other cases and eventually the –n was lost altogether. At around the same time, distinct
vowels (-a, -u, -e) all merged to schwa which was written as <e>. Therefore the distinctions
that these vowels and nasals had signalled could no longer be made. This effectively
eliminated grammatical gender, which had already begun to breakdown in OE.
Nouns
In OE gender had been distinguishable in most nouns. In ME most plurals and genitives came
to be –es (pronounced []). So just like in Mdn English most nouns had only two forms
having lost distinctions of case (except the genitive) and gender. Towards the beginning of
this period –en was still being used to signal plurality, especially in the south but by the 14 th
century the –s ending had spread to the vast majority of words across the country.
7
Dr. Rachael-Anne Knight
Language Change
rachaelanne@cantab.net
Inset Session University of Reading
www.rachaelanne.co.uk
July 2004
Personal pronouns
Of course in Mn English these pronouns still retain distinctive gender (in the third person) and
case forms (genitive, subject, object). The dual number was lost during the ME period but the
remaining forms were quite varied in different dialects.
The Definite article
The Old English forms were eventually reduced to ‘the’ ‘that’ and ‘tho’ (later those). So
again distinctions of case and gender are lost.
Verbs
The distinction between weak and strong verbs was maintained but many originally strong
verbs became weak. Some verbs could form the preterit and past participle by either a vowel
change or the addition of –ed (like hung and hanged today), although most eventually could
only use the weak form.
Syntax
Because so many inflections were lost relations between words could potentially be unclear.
Therefore the word order became more fixed. At this stage then the language has changed
form a highly synthetic one in OE to a much more analytic one where the relationship
between words is signalled by word order rather than inflection
An illustration
1. In the first made God of nought heuen and erth.
2. The erth forsothe was veyn withinne and voyde and derknesses weren vp on the face
of the see. And the spirite of God was yborn vp on the waters.
3. And God seid, “Be made light,” and made is light.
4. And God sees light that it was good and dyuidide light from darknesses.
5. And clepide light day and derknesses night, and made is euen and moru, o day.
Activity
What new words are apparent? (compared to the OE version)
Which spelling conventions are typical of the period?
How is the plural of ‘darkness’ now formed?
How is the genitive formed in 2?
What observations can we make about spelling?
How many forms of ‘erth’ and ‘the’ are there?
8