Name : Maida S.

Albanjar

Class : VI-B

NPM : 0621-1711-016

BAB III

FROM OLD ENGLISH TO MIDDLE ENGLISH

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. 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 Norman French vocabulary, especially in the areas of politics, law, the
arts, and religion.

BAB IV

MIDDLE ENGLISH – SOUTHERN AND KENTHIS DIALECTS

John of Trevisa wrote of the many peoplE and tonges of the British, not just in the form of
the Welsh Language and among the Scots, but also among the Germanic and Danish English.
This ‘diversity of tongues’ can be found in writings from different parts of the country in the ME
period, revealing variations in the spelling of words. There are also inconsistencies within
dialectal areas and even within the same manuscript. Conversely, some spellings remained the
same, despite alterations in pronunciation. Writing in the 1380s, John of Trevisa described the
linguistic situation at the time. His complete work is a translation of a history written in Latin
earlier in the century. He was the vicar of Berkeley in Gloucestershire when he translated
Polychronicon. The work is a reminder of the origins of the historical origins of English and its
dialects. Trevisa’s attitude is not unlike that of some scholars today, in his talk of the
‘deterioration’ of the language, but the reason he gave for its decline in his time was the fashion
for speaking French. He wrote in the Southern, ‘Wessex’ dialect of ME, although his use of the
dialect is said to be ‘impure’.
 Many of the contrasts between older and present-day English are matters of style rather
than significant grammatical differences. We can read Trevisa’s text without much difficulty, but
it does not transcribe word for word into Modern English (MnE). The phrase a child hys broche
(a child’s toy) was a new construction for the possessive which did not derive from OE which
survived for some time but has now been replaced by the apostrophe. The use of the infinitive
construction ‘for to’ is still present in some dialects, and as a device in folk songs old and new,
but is now non-standard. Prepositions were also used at the end of sentences as in told of
(spoken of), considered ungrammatical in MnE.

And This is as near to a ‘pure’ dialect as we can get, remembering that the written form can
never really provide an accurate idea of how the spoken dialect sounded. Also, as Michael was
translating from French, it is possible that some idioms as from that language, rather than being
genuine ME expressions. Nevertheless, we can identify differences in word order and
collocation which highlight differences between dialects and between ME and MnE. Even
limited observations suggest that Kentish was a ‘conservative’ dialect, retaining more features
of the OE system of inflections, even though greatly reduced. Many of these features were
similar those found in the ‘Wessex’ texts of John of Trevisa. This is to be expected when one
considers the way that the Thames, with few crossings between London and Oxford, acted as a
barrier between the South as a whole, especially Kent, and the Midlands.

BAB V

MIDDLE ENGLISH – NORTHERN DIALECTS

The Northern dialects of ME came from the Northumbrian dialects of OE. The present-day
dialects of Scotland and the North of England are still markedly distinct from Standard English
and other dialects in grammatical features and vocabulary, and from RP, Midlands and Southern
English accents in pronunciation. John of Trevisa’s remarked that the citizens of fourteenth
century York spoke in a way which was ‘scharp slyttyng and frotyng and unschape’. The modern
equivalents of these descriptions can be heard today among southerners unfamiliar with
Geordie, Glaswegian and North Yorkshire accents, and Northerners make equally disparaging
remarks about RP speakers from the South. One person’s ‘thick accent’ is another person’s
familiar speech, and beauty is in the ear of the listener rather than an objective standard.
Besides, television series and films in the 1990s made regional varieties of English more
accessible to the country as a whole, and radio announcers now speak with a wider range of
regional accents than in the last century.
 As we cannot reproduce the actual sound of the dialects of the past, we cannot follow up
this aspect of linguistic diversity. The only evidence we have of the phonics which once existed
is in their transcription into manuscripts. Since spellings are not always phonetic and are
inconsistent even in their reproduction by a single scribe, we can only speculate about
pronunciation in the abstract, recognising some of the major shifts, but not properly hearing
them. Most of the linguist’s focus must therefore be on grammar and vocabulary.

BAB VI

MIDDLE ENGLISH – WEST MIDLANDS DIALECTS

Most people generally associate the West Midlands with large, industrial areas such as
those centring upon the cities of Birmingham and Coventry. Indeed, the area was home to the
Industrial Revolution, containing within its boundaries the town of Ironbridge in Shropshire.
Linguistically, the dialects associated with Birmingham and the Black Country link back to the
Middle English West Midlands dialect, which covered a much wider geographical area.

Of the two varieties, the Black Country dialect is often considered to be particularly
distinctive, as it has retained traditional dialect forms which have disappeared from the rest of
the Midlands.

BAB VII

EAST MIDLANDS AND LONDON DIALECTS

This defines the literary language already in use in the 16th century, and clearly describes
is as the prestigious language of the educated classes of london and the south east. London was
the centure of goverment, trade commerce, and so the language of the ‘dominant forces’ in
society would carry prestige, and others would seek to copy it.

This is a simplified explanation of a complex state of affairs, but it the helps to explain why
the educated London Dialect formed the basis of the standard language as it developed. If the
centre of government and commerce had been york, no doubt the Northern dialect would have
formed the basis for standard english. The london dialect in the later 14th century derived from
a mixture of ME dialects, but was strongly influenced by the east Midlands dialect in particular.