Middle English (abbreviated toME[1]) is a form of theEnglish language that was spoken after theNorman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following theOld English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but theUniversity of Valencia states the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500.[2] This stage of the development of the English language roughly coincided with theHigh andLate Middle Ages.
Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, andorthography. 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.[3] By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by theinvention of the printing press byJohannes 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 byEarly Modern English, which lasted until about 1650.Scots developed concurrently from a variant of theNorthumbrian dialect (prevalent in northern England and spoken in southeastScotland).
During the Middle English period, many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether. Noun, adjective, and verbinflections were simplified by the reduction (and eventual elimination) of mostgrammatical case distinctions. Middle English also saw considerable adoption ofAnglo-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, withOld 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 theGreat Vowel Shift.
Little survives of earlyMiddle 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 includingJohn Wycliffe andGeoffrey Chaucer, whoseCanterbury Tales remains the most studied and read work of the period.[5]
The transition from LateOld English to Early Middle English had taken place by the 1150s to 1180s, the period when theAugustinian canonOrrm wrote theOrmulum, one of the oldest surviving texts in Middle English.[6]
Contact withOld Norse aided the development of English from asynthetic language with relatively free word order to a moreanalytic language with a stricter word order, as both Old English and Old Norse were synthetic languages with complicated inflections. Communication betweenVikings in theDanelaw and their Anglo-Saxon neighbours resulted in the erosion of inflection in both languages; this effect was characterized as being of a "substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic" manner. Like close cousins, Old Norse and Old English resembled each other, and with a lot of vocabulary and grammatical structures in common, speakers of each language roughly understood each other, but according to the historian Simeon Potler, the main difference lay in their inflectional endings, which led to much confusion within the mixed population that existed in the Danelaw, thus endings tended gradually to become obscured and finally lost, "simplifying English grammar" in the process,[3][7][8][9] leading to the emergence of the analytic pattern.[10][11] The dramatic changes that happened in English contribute to the acceptance of the hypothesis that Old Norse had a more profound impact on the development of Middle and Modern English than any other language.[12][13][14]
Viking influence on Old English is most apparent inpronouns, modals, comparatives,pronominal adverbs (likehence andtogether), conjunctions, and prepositions show the most marked Danish influence. The best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in extensive word borrowings; however, texts from the period in Scandinavia and Northern England do not provide certain evidence of an influence on syntax. However, at least one scholarly study of this influence shows that Old English may have been replaced entirely by Norse, by virtue of the change from Old English to Norse syntax.[15]
While the Old Norse influence was strongest in the dialects under Danish control, which approximately coveredYorkshire, the central and easternMidlands, and theEast of England, words in the spoken language emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries near the transition from Old to Middle English. Influence on the written languages only appeared from the beginning of the 13th century onwards;[7] this delay in Scandinavian lexical influence in English has been attributed to the lack of written evidence from the areas of Danish control, as the majority of written sources from Old English were produced in theWest Saxon dialect spoken inWessex, the heart of Anglo-Saxon political power at the time.[16]
TheNorman Conquest of England in 1066 saw the replacement of the top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies byNorman rulers who spoke a dialect ofOld French, now known asOld Norman, which developed in England intoAnglo-Norman. The use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on the clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number ofNorman words were borrowed into English and used alongside native Germanic words with similar meanings. Examples of Norman/Germanic pairs in Modern English includepig andpork,calf andveal,wood andforest, andfreedom andliberty.[17]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 that are derived from Anglo-Norman, such ascourt,judge,jury,appeal, andparliament. There are also many Norman-derived terms relating to thechivalric cultures that arose in the 12th century, an era offeudalism,seigneurialism, andcrusading.
Words were often taken from Latin, usually through French transmission. This gave rise to various synonyms, includingkingly (inherited from Old English),royal (from French, inherited from Vulgar Latin), andregal (from French, which borrowed it from Classical Latin). Later French appropriations were derived from standard, rather than Norman, French. Examples of the resultingdoublet pairs includewarden (from Norman) andguardian (from later French; both share a common ancestor loaned from Germanic).[18]
The end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not result in immediate changes to the language. The general population would have spoken the samedialects as they had before the Conquest. Once the writing of Old English came to an end, Middle English had no standard language, only dialects that evolved individually from Old English.[19]
Ralph d'Escures’Homily on the Virgin Mary, a French work translated into Latin and then English in the first half of the 12th Century, was either one of "the very latest compositions in Old English, or, as some scholars wouldhave it, the very earliest in Middle English," having an Old English vocabulary co-existing with simplified inflexion.[20]
Early Middle English (1150–1350)[21] has a largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary (withmany Norse borrowings in the northern parts of the country) but a greatly simplifiedinflectional system. The grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by thedative andinstrumental cases were replaced in Early Middle English withprepositional constructions. The Old Englishgenitive -es survives in the-'s of the modernEnglish possessive, but most of the other case endings disappeared in the Early Middle English period, including most of theroughly one dozen forms of thedefinite article ("the"). Thedual personal pronouns (denoting exactly two) also disappeared from English during this period.
The loss of case endings was part of a general trend from inflections to fixedword order that also occurred in other Germanic languages (though more slowly and to a lesser extent), and, therefore, it cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking sections of the population: English did, after all, remain thevernacular. It is also argued[22] that Norse immigrants to England had a great impact on the loss of inflectional endings in Middle English. One argument is that, although Norse and English speakers were somewhat comprehensible to each other due to similar morphology, the Norse speakers' inability to reproduce the ending sounds of English words influenced Middle English's loss of inflectional endings.
Important texts for the reconstruction of the evolution of Middle English out of Old English are thePeterborough Chronicle, which continued to be compiled up to 1154; theOrmulum, a biblical commentary probably composed inLincolnshire in the second half of the 12th century, incorporating a unique phonetic spelling system; and theAncrene Wisse and theKatherine Group, religious texts written foranchoresses, apparently in theWest Midlands in the early 13th century.[23] The language found in the last two works is sometimes called theAB language: one of a range of regional dialects: East Midlands (London), South West (Kentish), Western (AB) and Northern.[24]
Some scholars[25] have defined "Early Middle English" as encompassing English texts up to 1350. This longer time frame would extend the corpus to include many Middle English Romances (especially those of theAuchinleck manuscriptc. 1330).
Gradually, the wealthy and the governmentAnglicised again, although Norman (and subsequentlyFrench) remained the dominant language of literature and law until the 14th century, even after the loss of the majority of the continental possessions of theEnglish monarchy.
In the aftermath of theBlack Death of the 14th century, there was significant migration intoLondon, of people from the counties of the east and centralMidlands as well as from theSouth East England, and a newprestige London dialect began to develop as a result of this clash of the different dialects,[26] that was based chiefly on the speech of theEast Midlands but also influenced by that of other regions.[27] The writing of this period, however, continues to reflect a variety of regional forms of English. TheAyenbite of Inwyt, a translation of a French confessional prose work, completed in 1340, is written in aKentish dialect. The best known writer of Middle English,Geoffrey Chaucer, wrote in the second half of the 14th century in the emerging London dialect, although he also portrays some of his characters as speaking in northern dialects, as in "The Reeve's Tale".
In the English-speaking areas of lowlandScotland, an independent standard was developing, based on theNorthumbrian dialect. This would develop into what came to be known as theScots language.
A large number of terms for abstract concepts were adopted directly fromscholastic philosophical Latin (rather than via French). Examples are "absolute", "act", "demonstration", and "probable".[28]
The Chancery Standard of written English emergedc. 1430 in official documents that, since theNorman Conquest, had normally been written in French.[27] Like Chaucer's work, this new standard was based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Clerks using this standard were usually familiar withFrench andLatin, influencing the forms they chose. The Chancery Standard, which was adopted slowly, was used in England by bureaucrats for most official purposes, excluding those of the Church and legalities, which used Latin andLaw French respectively.
The Chancery Standard's influence on later forms of written English is disputed, but it did undoubtedly provide the core around whichEarly Modern English formed.[citation needed] Early Modern English emerged with the help ofWilliam Caxton's printing press, developed during the 1470s. The press stabilized English through a push towards standardization, led by Chancery Standard enthusiast and writerRichard Pynson.[29]Early Modern English began in the 1540s after the printing and wide distribution of theEnglish Bible andPrayer Book, which made the new standard of English publicly recognizable and lasted until about 1650.
Reduction of the Old Englishdiphthongs 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
Merging of Old English/æ/and/ɑ/ into a single vowel/a/
Lengthening of vowels inopen syllables (and in certain other positions). The resultant long vowels (and other preexisting long vowels) subsequently underwent changes of quality in theGreat Vowel Shift, which began during the later Middle English period.
Loss ofgemination (double consonants came to be pronounced as single ones)
Loss of weak final vowels (schwa, written⟨e⟩). ByChaucer's time, this vowel was silent in normal speech, although it was normally pronounced in verse as themeter required (much as occurs in modernFrench). 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 asevry, andpalmeres aspalmers.
The combination of the last three processes listed above led to the spelling conventions associated withsilent⟨e⟩ anddoubled consonants (see underOrthography, below).
Nouns of the weak declension are primarily inherited from Old Englishn-stem nouns but also fromō-stem,wō-stem, andu-stem nouns,[citation needed] which did not inflect in the same way asn-stem nouns in Old English, but joined the weak declension in Middle English. Nouns of the strong declension are inherited from the other Old English noun stem classes.
Some nouns of the strong type have an-e in the nominative/accusative singular, like the weak declension, but otherwise strong endings. Often, these are the same nouns that had an-e in the nominative/accusative singular of Old English (they, in turn, were inherited fromProto-Germanicja-stem andi-stem nouns).
The distinct dative case was lost in early Middle English, and although the genitive survived, by the end of the Middle English period only the strong-'s ending (variously spelled) was in use.[31] Some formerly feminine nouns, as well as some weak nouns, continued to make their genitive forms with-e or no ending (e.g.,fole hoves, horses' hooves), and nouns of relationship ending in-er frequently have no genitive ending (e.g.,fader bone, "father's bane").[32]
The strong-(e)s plural form has survived into Modern English. The weak-(e)n form is now rare and used only inoxen and as part of adouble plural, inchildren andbrethren. Some dialects still have forms such aseyen (foreyes),shoon (forshoes),hosen (forhose(s)),kine (forcows), andbeen (forbees).
Grammatical gender survived to a limited extent in early Middle English[32] before being replaced by natural gender in the course of the Middle English period. Grammatical gender was indicated by agreement of articles and pronouns (e.g.,þo ule "the feminine owl") or using the pronounhe to refer to masculine nouns such ashelm ("helmet"), or phrases such asscaft stærcne (strong shaft), with the masculine accusative adjective ending-ne.[33]
Single-syllable adjectives added-e when modifying a noun in the plural and when used after the definite article (þe), after a demonstrative (þis,þat), after a possessive pronoun (e.g.,hir,our), or with a name or in a form of address. This derives from the Old English "weak" declension of adjectives.[34] This inflexion continued to be used in writing even after final -e had ceased to be pronounced.[35] In earlier texts, multisyllable adjectives also receive a final-e in these situations, but this occurs less regularly in later Middle English texts. Otherwise, adjectives have no ending and adjectives already ending in-e etymologically receive no ending as well.[35]
Earlier texts sometimes inflect adjectives for case as well.Layamon's Brut inflects adjectives for the masculine accusative, genitive, and dative, the feminine dative, and the plural genitive.[36]The Owl and the Nightingale adds a final-e to all adjectives not in the nominative, here only inflecting adjectives in the weak declension (as described above).[37]
Comparatives and superlatives were usually formed by adding-er and-est. Adjectives with long vowels sometimes shortened these vowels in the comparative and superlative (e.g.,greet, great;gretter, greater).[37] Adjectives ending in-ly or-lich formed comparatives either with-lier,-liest or-loker,-lokest.[37] A few adjectives also displayedGermanic umlaut in their comparatives and superlatives, such aslong,lenger.[37] Other irregular forms were mostly the same as in modern English.[37]
Middle Englishpersonal pronouns were mostly developed fromthose of Old English, with the exception of the third person plural, a borrowing fromOld Norse (the original Old English form clashed with the third person singular and was eventually dropped). Also, the nominative form of the feminine third person singular was replaced by a form of thedemonstrative that developed intosche (modernshe), but the alternativeheyr remained in some areas for a long time.
As with nouns, there was some inflectional simplification (the distinct Old Englishdual forms were lost), but pronouns, unlike nouns, retained distinct nominative and accusative forms. Third person pronouns also retained a distinction between accusative and dative forms, but that was gradually lost: The masculinehine was replaced byhim south of theRiver Thames by the early 14th century, and the neuter dativehim was ousted byit in most dialects by the 15th.[38]
The following table shows some of the various Middle English pronouns. Many other variations are noted in Middle English sources because of differences in spellings and pronunciations at different times and in different dialects.[39]
Middle English personal pronouns Below each Middle English pronoun, theModern English is shown in italics (witharchaic forms in parentheses)
As a general rule, the indicative first person singular of verbs in the present tense ended in-e (e.g.,ich here, "I hear"), the second person singular in-(e)st (e.g.,þou spekest, "thou speakest"), and the third person singular in-eþ (e.g.,he comeþ, "he cometh/he comes"). (þ (the letter "thorn") is pronounced like the unvoicedth in "think", but under certain circumstances, it may be like the voicedth in "that"). The following table illustrates a typical conjugation pattern:[40][41]
Middle English verb inflection
Verbs inflection
Infinitive
Present
Past
Participle
Singular
Plural
Participle
Singular
Plural
1st person
2nd person
3rd person
1st person
2nd person
3rd person
Regular verbs
Strong
-en
-ende, -ynge
-e
-est
-eþ (-es)
-en(-es,-eþ)
i--en
–
-e (-est)
–
-en
Weak
-ed
-ede
-edest
-ede
-eden
Irregular verbs
Been "be"
been
beende,beynge
am
art
is
aren
ibeen
was
wast
was
weren
be
bist
biþ
beth,been
were
Cunnen "can"
cunnen
cunnende,cunnynge
can
canst
can
cunnen
cunned,coud
coude,couthe
coudest,couthest
coude,couthe
couden,couthen
Don "do"
don
doende,doynge
do
dost
doþ
doþ,don
idon
didde
didst
didde
didden
Douen "be good for"
douen
douende,douynge
deigh
deight
deigh
douen
idought
dought
doughtest
dought
doughten
Durren "dare"
durren
durrende,durrynge
dar
darst
dar
durren
durst,dirst
durst
durstest
durst
dursten
Gon "go"
Gon
goende,goynge
go
gost
goþ
goþ,gon
igon(gen)
wend,yede,yode
wendest,yedest,yodest
wende,yede,yode
wenden,yeden,yoden
Haven "have"
haven
havende,havynge
have
hast
haþ
haven
ihad
hadde
haddest
hadde
hadden
Moten "must"
–
–
mot
must
mot
moten
–
muste
mustest
muste
musten
Mowen "may"
mowen
mowende,mowynge
may
myghst
may
mowen
imought
mighte
mightest
mighte
mighten
Owen "owe, ought"
owen
owende, owynge
owe
owest
owe
owen
iowen
owed
ought
owed
ought
Schulen "should"
–
–
schal
schalt
schal
schulen
–
scholde
scholdest
scholde
scholde
Þurven/Þaren "need"
–
–
þarf
þarst
þarf
þurven, þaren
–
þurft
þurst
þurft
þurften
Willen "want"
willen
willende, willynge
will
wilt
will
wollen
–
wolde
woldest
wolde
wolden
Witen "know"
witen
witende, witynge
woot
woost
woot
witen
iwiten
wiste
wistest
wiste
wisten
Plural forms vary strongly by dialect, with Southern dialects preserving the Old English-eþ, Midland dialects showing-en from about 1200, and Northern forms using-es in the third person singular as well as the plural.[42]
The past tense of weak verbs was formed by adding an-ed(e),-d(e), or-t(e) ending. The past-tense forms, without their personal endings, also served as past participles with past-participle prefixes derived from Old English:i-,y-, and sometimesbi-.
Strong verbs, by contrast, formed their past tense by changing their stem vowel (e.g.,binden becamebound, a process calledapophony), as in Modern English.
With the discontinuation of theLate West Saxon standard used for thewriting of Old English in the period prior to the Norman Conquest, Middle English came to be written in a wide variety of scribal forms, reflecting different regional dialects and orthographic conventions. Later in the Middle English period, however, and particularly with the development of theChancery Standard in the 15th century, orthography became relatively standardised in a form based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Spelling at the time was mostly quiteregular. (There was a fairly consistent correspondence between letters and sounds.) The irregularity ofpresent-day English orthography is largely due topronunciation changes that have taken place over theEarly Modern English andModern English eras.
Middle English generally did not havesilent letters. For example,knight was pronounced[ˈkniçt] (with both the⟨k⟩ and the⟨gh⟩ pronounced, the latter sounding as the⟨ch⟩ in GermanKnecht). The major exception was thesilent⟨e⟩ – originally pronounced but lost in normal speech by Chaucer's time. This letter, however, came to indicate a lengthened – and later also modified – pronunciation of a preceding vowel. For example, inname, originally pronounced as two syllables, the /a/ in the first syllable (originally an open syllable) lengthened, the final weak vowel was later dropped, and the remaining long vowel was modified in theGreat Vowel Shift (for these sound changes, seePhonology, above). The final⟨e⟩, now silent, thus became the indicator of the longer and changed pronunciation of⟨a⟩. In fact, vowels could have this lengthened and modified pronunciation in various positions, particularly before a single consonant letter and another vowel or before certain pairs of consonants.
A related convention involved the doubling of consonant letters to show that the preceding vowel was not to be lengthened. In some cases, the double consonant represented a sound that was (or had previously been)geminated (i.e., had genuinely been "doubled" and would thus have regularly blocked the lengthening of the preceding vowel). In other cases, by analogy, the consonant was written double merely to indicate the lack of lengthening.
The basicOld English Latin alphabet consisted of 20 standard letters plus four additional letters:ash⟨æ⟩,eth⟨ð⟩,thorn⟨þ⟩, andwynn⟨ƿ⟩. There was not yet a distinctj,v, orw, and Old English scribes did not generally usek,q, orz.
Ash was no longer required in Middle English, as the Old English vowel/æ/ that it represented hadmerged into /a/. The symbol nonetheless came to be used as aligature for the digraph⟨ae⟩ in many words of Greek or Latin origin, as did⟨œ⟩ for⟨oe⟩.
Eth and thorn both represented/θ/ or itsallophone/ð/ in Old English. Eth fell out of use during the 13th century and was replaced by thorn. Thorn mostly fell out of use during the 14th century and was replaced by⟨th⟩. Anachronistic usage of the scribal abbreviation (þe, "the") has led to the modern mispronunciation ofthorn as⟨y⟩ in this context; seeye olde.[43]
Wynn, which represented the phoneme/w/, was replaced by⟨w⟩ during the 13th century. Due to its similarity to the letter⟨p⟩, it is mostly represented by⟨w⟩ in modern editions of Old and Middle English texts even when the manuscript has wynn.
Under Norman influence, the continentalCarolingian minuscule replaced theinsular script that had been used for Old English. However, because of the significant difference in appearance between the oldinsularg and theCarolingiang (moderng), the former continued in use as a separate letter, known asyogh, written⟨ȝ⟩. This was adopted for use to represent a variety of sounds:[ɣ],[j],[dʒ],[x],[ç], while the Carolingiang was normally used for [g]. Instances of yogh were eventually replaced by⟨j⟩ or⟨y⟩ and by⟨gh⟩ in words likenight andlaugh. InMiddle Scots, yogh became indistinguishable from cursivez, and printers tended to use⟨z⟩ whenyogh was not available in their fonts; this led to new spellings (often giving rise to new pronunciations), as inMcKenzie, where the⟨z⟩ replaced a yogh, which had the pronunciation/j/.
Under continental influence[clarification needed], the letters⟨k⟩,⟨q⟩, and⟨z⟩, which had not normally been used by Old English scribes, came to be commonly used in the writing of Middle English. Also, the newer Latin letter⟨w⟩ was introduced (replacing wynn). The distinct letter forms⟨v⟩ and⟨u⟩ came into use but were still used interchangeably; the same applies to⟨j⟩ and⟨i⟩.[44] (For example, spellings such aswijf andparadijs for "wife" and "paradise" can be found in Middle English.)
The consonantal⟨j⟩/⟨i⟩ was sometimes used to transliterate theHebrew letteryodh, representing thepalatal approximant sound/j/ (and transliterated inGreek byiota and in Latin by⟨i⟩); words likeJerusalem,Joseph, etc. would have originally followed the Latin pronunciation beginning with/j/, that is, the sound of⟨y⟩ inyes. In some words, however, notably fromOld French,⟨j⟩/⟨i⟩ was used for theaffricate consonant/dʒ/, as injoie (modern "joy"), used inWycliffe's Bible.[45][46] This was similar to thegeminate sound[ddʒ], which had been represented as⟨cg⟩ in Old English. By the time of Modern English, the sound came to be written as⟨j⟩/⟨i⟩ at the start of words (like "joy"), and usually as⟨dg⟩ elsewhere (as in "bridge"). It could also be written, mainly in French loanwords, as⟨g⟩, with the adoption of thesoft G convention (age,page, etc.)
Manyscribal abbreviations were also used. It was common for theLollards to abbreviate the name ofJesus (as in Latin manuscripts) toihc. The letters⟨n⟩ and⟨m⟩ were often omitted and indicated by amacron above an adjacent letter, so for example,in could be written asī. A thorn with a superscript⟨t⟩ or⟨e⟩ could be used forthat andthe; the thorn here resembled a⟨Y⟩, giving rise to theye of "Ye Olde". Various forms of theampersand replaced the wordand.
Numbers were still always written usingRoman numerals, except for some rare occurrences ofArabic numerals during the 15th century.
Although Middle English spelling was never fully standardised, the following table shows the pronunciations most usually represented by particular letters anddigraphs towards the end of the Middle English period, using the notation given in the article onMiddle English phonology.[47] As explained above, single vowel letters had alternative pronunciations depending on whether they were in a position where their sounds had been subject to lengthening. Long vowel pronunciations were in flux due to the beginnings of theGreat Vowel Shift.
Symbol
Description and notes
a
/a/, or in lengthened positions/aː/, becoming[æː] by about 1500. Sometimes/au/ before⟨l⟩ or nasals (seeLate Middle English diphthongs).
/b/, but in later Middle English became silent in words ending-mb (while some words that never had a/b/ sound came to be spelt-mb by analogy; seereduction of /mb/).
c
/k/, but/s/ (earlier/ts/) before⟨e⟩,⟨i⟩,⟨y⟩ (seeC andhard and soft C for details).
/eː/, becoming[iː] by about 1500; or/ɛː/, becoming[eː] by about 1500. InEarly Modern English the latter vowel came to be commonly written⟨ea⟩. The two vowelslater merged.
ei, ey
Sometimes the same as⟨ai⟩; sometimes/ɛː/ or/eː/ (see alsofleece merger).
/ɡ/, or/dʒ/ before⟨e⟩,⟨i⟩,⟨y⟩ (see⟨g⟩ for details). The⟨g⟩ in initialgn- was still pronounced.
gh
[ç] or[x], post-vowel allophones of/h/ (this was formerly one of the uses ofyogh). The⟨gh⟩ is often retained in Chancery spellings even though the sound was starting to be lost.
h
/h/ (except for the allophones for which⟨gh⟩ was used). Also used in several digraphs (⟨ch⟩,⟨th⟩, etc.). In some French loanwords, such ashorrible, the⟨h⟩ was silent.
i, j
As a vowel,/i/, or in lengthened positions/iː/, which had started to be diphthongised by about 1500. As a consonant,/dʒ/ ((corresponding to modern⟨j⟩); see above).
/o/, or in lengthened positions/ɔː/ or sometimes/oː/ (seeoo). Sometimes/u/, as insone (modernson); the⟨o⟩ spelling was often used rather than⟨u⟩ when adjacent toi, m, n, v, w for legibility, i.e. to avoid a succession of vertical strokes.[48]
oa
Rare, for/ɔː/ (became commonly used in Early Modern English).
/θ/ or/ð/ (which had previously been allophones of a single phoneme), replacing earliereth andthorn, although thorn was still sometimes used.
u, v
Used interchangeably. As a consonant,/v/. As a vowel,/u/, or/iu/ in "lengthened" positions (although it had generally not gone through the same lengthening process as other vowels – seeDevelopment of /juː/).
As a consonant,/j/ (earlier this was one of the uses of yogh). Sometimes also/ɡ/. As a vowel, the same as⟨i⟩, where⟨y⟩ is often preferred beside letters with downstrokes.
z
/z/ (in Scotland sometimes used as a substitute for yogh; see above).
This passage explains the background to theNativity(3494–501):[49]
Forrþrihht anan se time commþatt ure Drihhtin wolldeben borenn i þiss middellærdforr all mannkinne nedehe chæs himm sone kinnessmennall swillke summ he wolldeand whær he wollde borenn benhe chæs all att hiss wille.
Forthwith when the time camethat our Lord wantedbe born in this earthfor all mankind sake,He chose kinsmen for Himself,all just as he wanted,and where He would be bornHe chose all at His will.
man com & se how schal alle dede li: wen þow comes bad & barenoth hab ven ve awaẏ fare: All ẏs wermēs þt ve for care:—bot þt ve do for godẏs luf ve haue nothyng yare:hundyr þis graue lẏs John þe smẏth god yif his soule heuen grit
Man, come and see how shall all dead lie: when thou comes bad and barenaught have when we away fare: all is worms that we for care:—but that we do for God's love, we have nothing ready:under this grave lies John the smith, God give his soul heaven grith
Man, come and see how all dead men shall lie: when that comes bad and bare,we have nothing when we away fare: all that we care for is worms:—except for that which we do for God's sake, we have nothing ready:under this grave lies John the smith, God give his soul heavenly peace
1And it was don aftirward, and Jhesu made iorney by citees and castelis, prechinge and euangelysinge þe rewme of God,2and twelue wiþ him; and summe wymmen þat weren heelid of wickide spiritis and syknessis, Marie, þat is clepid Mawdeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis wenten3 out, and Jone, þe wyf of Chuse, procuratour of Eroude, and Susanne, and manye oþere, whiche mynystriden to him of her riches.
1And it was don aftirward, and Jhesus made iourney bi citees and castels, prechynge and euangelisynge þe rewme of2God, and twelue wiþ hym; and sum wymmen þat weren heelid of wickid spiritis and sijknessis, Marie, þat is clepid Maudeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis3wenten out, and Joone, þe wijf of Chuse, þe procuratoure of Eroude, and Susanne, and many oþir, þat mynystriden to hym of her ritchesse.
1And it was done afterwards, that Jesus made a journey by cities and castles, preaching and evangelising the realm of2God: and with him (the) Twelve; and some women that were healed of wicked spirits and sicknesses; Mary who is called Magdalene, from whom3seven devils went out; and Joanna the wife of Chuza, the procurator of Herod; and Susanna, and many others, who ministered to Him out of her riches.
The following is the very beginning of theGeneral Prologue fromThe Canterbury Tales byGeoffrey Chaucer. The text was written in a dialect associated with London and spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard.
Near word-for-word translation into Modern English:
Translation into Modern English: (by Richard Brodie)[54]
Of hem that written ous tofore
The bokes duelle, and we therfore
Ben tawht of that was write tho:
Forthi good is that we also
In oure tyme among ous hiere
Do wryte of newe som matiere,
Essampled of these olde wyse
So that it myhte in such a wyse,
Whan we ben dede and elleswhere,
Beleve to the worldes eere
In tyme comende after this.
Bot for men sein, and soth it is,
That who that al of wisdom writ
It dulleth ofte a mannes wit
To him that schal it aldai rede,
For thilke cause, if that ye rede,
I wolde go the middel weie
And wryte a bok betwen the tweie,
Somwhat of lust, somewhat of lore,
That of the lasse or of the more
Som man mai lyke of that I wryte:
Of them that wrote us before
The books dwell, and we therefore
Been taught of that was written then:
For it is good that we also
In our time among us here
Do write some new matter,
Exampled by these old ways
So that it might in such a way,
When we be dead and elsewhere,
Be left to the world's ear
In time coming after this.
But for men say, and so it is,
That who that all of wisdom writes
It dulls often a man's wit
To him that shall it every day read,
For that like cause, if that you read,
I would go the middle way
And write a book between the two,
Somewhat of lust, somewhat of lore,
That of the less or of the more
Some man may like of that I write:
Of those who wrote before our lives
Their precious legacy survives;
From what was written then, we learn,
And so it's well that we in turn,
In our allotted time on earth
Do write anew some things of worth,
Like those we from these sages cite,
So that such in like manner might,
When we have left this mortal sphere,
Remain for all the world to hear
In ages following our own.
But it is so that men are prone
To say that when one only reads
Of wisdom all day long, one breeds
A paucity of wit, and so
If you agree I'll choose to go
Along a kind of middle ground
Sometimes I'll write of things profound,
And sometimes for amusement's sake
A lighter path of pleasure take
So all can something pleasing find.
Translation in Modern English: (by J. Dow)
Of those who wrote before we were born, books survive,
So we are taught what was written by them when they were alive.So it's good that we, in our times here on earth, write of new matters –Following the example of our forefathers –So that, in such a way, we may leave our knowledge to the world after we are dead and gone.But it's said, and it is true, that if one only reads of wisdom all day longIt often dulls one's brains. So, if it's alright with you,I'll take the middle route and write a book between the two –Somewhat of amusement, and somewhat of fact.
In that way, somebody might, more or less, like that.
^The name "tales of Canterbury" appears within the surviving texts of Chaucer's work.[4]
^Johannesson, Nils-Lennart; Cooper, Andrew (2023).Ormulum. Early English text society. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-289043-6.
^abBaugh, Albert (1951).A History of the English Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 110–130 (Danelaw), 131–132 (Normans).
^Jespersen, Otto (1919).Growth and Structure of the English Language. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. pp. 58–82.
^Potter, Simeon (1950).Our Language. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 33.
^Thomason, Sarah Grey; Kaufman, Terrence (1988).Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Anthropology: Linguistics (1. paperback print ed.). Berkeley:University of California Press. p. 303.ISBN978-0-520-07893-2.
^McCrum, Robert; Cran, William; MacNeil, Robert (1986).The Story of English. New York:Penguin Books (published 2002). p. 79.ISBN978-0-14-200231-5.
^Treharne, Elaine (2006). "The Life of English in the Mid-Twelfth Century: Ralph d'Escures's Homily on the Virgin Mary".Writers of the Reign of Henry II. pp. 169–186.doi:10.1007/978-1-137-08855-0_8.ISBN978-1-349-73340-8.
^McWhorter,Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, 2008, pp. 89–136.
^Burchfield, Robert W. (1987). "Ormulum". In Strayer, Joseph R. (ed.).Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Vol. 9. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 280.ISBN978-0-684-18275-9., p. 280
^abUtechin, Patricia (1990) [1980].Epitaphs from Oxfordshire (2nd ed.). Oxford: Robert Dugdale. p. 39.ISBN978-0-946976-04-1.
^This Wikipedia translation closely mirrors the translation found here:Canterbury Tales (selected). Translated by Foster Hopper, Vincent (revised ed.). Barron's Educational Series. 1970. p. 2.ISBN9780812000399.when april, with his.
^Brodie, Richard (2005)."Prologue".John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' Modern English Version. Archived fromthe original on Mar 29, 2013. RetrievedMarch 15, 2012.
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.
Mustanoja, Tauno (1960) "A Middle English Syntax. 1. Parts of Speech". Helsinki : Société néophilologique.
