Middle English

The french was the main influence of English

Strictly, Norman French was introduced by the invader

FRENCH &
The sudden emergence of French and Latin literacy
French was established in the corridors of power
Several new foundations were solely French

English
English people learning French to gain advantages from the
aristocracy
English during the 12th century became more widely used
among the upper classes
12th Century some children spoke English as mother tongue
and the teaching of French in school

• There were manuscripts with a considerable linguistic

The transition
variety
• The decay of Anglo-Saxon traditions and literally practices
• Inflectional system, became increasing difficult to hear

from the old

• The evolution of Germanic languages
•Several endings which are phonetically similar such as: -en, -
on - an

English
• Fundamental change in the estructure of English took place
dividing the 11th & 12th centuries
•The roots of many words were the same
•Old English tendency to put the object before the verb
(S+V+O)

The period runs from the beginning of the 12th century until the middle of the

The Middle
15th
Change which began affected southern areas later
This period has a much richer documentation that is found in Old English

English
This is a partly result of the post-conquest political situation
There is a marked increase in the public & private documents
Tje 14th century there's a marked increase of translated writings from

corpus
French and Latin, and texts for teaching these languages
The Anglo-Saxon poetic dies out in the 12th century
Poetry was influenced by French literally traditions, in content style

The Owl and Nightingale Sir Gawain and the green

The first example to appear knight

Written in English of the debate Shows the influence of the

verse form French country tradition

works It displays French-inspired

scheme.
Written in a West Midland
dialect
Written in a Southern dialect Probably written towards the
and composed in c. 1200 end of the 14th century

John Gower, William Langland, John Wycliff, John Lydgate, Thomas Malory,
and William Caxton.

Remarkable
Geoffrey Chaucer works
Book of the Duchess Parliament of Fowls The House of Fame

authors
The legend of God Women

Chaucer's best-known work: The Canterbury Tales

Regular metrical structure Rhyme scheme Variations in word order
Reflect the natural features of colloquial speech

· In Middle English spelling some words Here we have some Examples:

have a dozen or more variants.
The use of "u" instead of "v"

Spelling
It results from a combination of evre- ever
historical, linguistic, and social factors, gyven- give
such as: The various spellings of might
>The sociolinguistic of the french invasion mahte-mihhte
> The process of sound change mayht-mihte
>The growth and movement in population micht-mist
during the medieval period etc.

Consonants: The “v” sound became more

sc (OE) - sh or sch (ME) ship important

Sounds
c (OE) – ch or cch (ME) church “s” and “z” became
cg or gg (OE) – dg (ME) bridge contrastive
Vowels:
The final “e” sound Depending on the dialect area:
disappeared: different pronunciation of letters
Stone, rule different spelling of sounds
The endings of the verb remained
The most important grammatical
close to those of Old during this
development was the
period.
establishment of fixed patterns of
word order to express the

Grammar
relationship between clause
elements.
Preposítions became particularly
critical when noun endings were
lost.
Middle English came to say to the
shippes, using a preposition and the
common plural ending.
 Middle English

There is little sign of the French vocabulary which was to be

the distinctive characteristic of the era.

Vocabulary For example, we no 1onger use pines "cruelties" or named

"1ook".
Of the words which are still found today, several have altered
meanings: wonder could mean 'atrocities' as well as
'marvels', and fresh had the general sense of 'meat'.

Vocabulary During the 13th century. lt has been estimated that some 10,000
French words Came into English at that time
Over 70 percent were nouns. A large number were abstract
terms, constructed using such new French affixes as con-, trans-,
pre-, -tion, and ment.

The role of Latin: Some latin loans in Middle English:

Professional or technical terms
Administration and law: alias, arbitrator, client,
Religion, medicine, law and literature conspiracy,custody,testimony
Words borrowed by a writer (high style)
Religion: Collect, diocese, inmortal, incarnate...
Other sources:
Scandinavian invasions Science and Learning: abacus, allegory,
Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, etcetera,comet, desk
Russian. Arabic. General: admit, adjacent, collision,combine

New word formation: The famous word pairs:

Compounding: Affixation: Attributed to Sir Walter Scoot

bagpipe uncover (Influx of romance words)
birthday unknowable
blackberry withdraw begin............commence
child.............infant
craftsman discourage doom............judgment
grandfather
disagree freedom.......liberty

Middle
The Mercian dialect area has split in two:
The main dialect divisions traditionally there is now an eastern dialect (East
recognized in Middle English broadly Midland) and a western one (West

English
correspond to those found in Old English, but
Midland). And the East Anglian region is
scholars have given different names to some
sometimes separately distinguished.
of the dialects, and there has been one

dialects
important development. Kentish remains the What evidence is there for dialect
same, but West Saxon is now referred to as difference? The evidence lies in the
Southern, and Northumbrian as Northern. distinctive words, grammar, and spellings
found in the manuscripts.

The dialects of Middle English are usually divided into three

large groups:

Middle
(1) Southern (subdivided into Southeastern, or Kentish, and
Southwestern), chiefly in the counties south of the River Thames;

English
(2) Midland (corresponding roughly to the Mercian dialect
area of Old English times) from the Thames to southern South

dialects
Yorkshire and northern Lancashire;
(3) Northern, in the Scottish Lowlands, Northumberland,
Cumbria, Durham, northern Lancashire, and most of Yorkshire.

Rise: Scots literature reached its peak with

Scots:
the "Scottish Chaucerians Roberr Henryson,
William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas.

Rise and
Fall: The crowns of Scotland and England
were united in 1603 under King James I who

Fall.
authorized a translation of The Bible which
further increased the influence of Standard
English.

Moving the capital from

Standard
Winchester to London.

English Immigration to london area from

the East midlands.

The development of the printing

press.
 Middle English

Language was being influenced by

Middle
different set of factors, and
developing its own distinctive

Scots
character. The number of English
speakers in the souther part of the
country increased greatly in the 11th
century, following the Norman
Conquest

Middle
These places were largely English-speaking, and
gradually English spread through the wole
lowlands area, whith Gaelic remaining beyond
thew Highland line. The English calendar

Scots
replaced the Celtic one, and the Anglo - Norman
feudal system replaced traditional patterns of
land holding.

The scot english became increasingly

Middle
different from the english used in England,
especially in pronunciation and vocabulary,
and many of these differences are still found
today.
There were some distinctive grammatical

Scots
features such as the past tense ending - ist
/wantit for wanted/, forms of expressing
negation /nae, nocht, na/, and the indefinite
article /for a,an/

A number of loan words arrived

Middle
wich did no enter the lenguage
further south.Examples of French

Scots
include bonny /beautiful,
handsome/., flash /to bother/, and
ashet /a serving dish/.

References

Crystal, D. (n.d.). The Cambridge Encyclopede of the English Language.

Litschko, N. (2003). The French Influence on Middle English. Retrieved from
https://www.grin.com/document/23606#:~:text=The%20influence%20of%20French
%20is,way%20into%20the%20Middle%20English
Qreshat, J. Y. (2019). The history of loan words in English and its impact on the
English Lexicon. SAUDIA ARABIA: Journal of Critical Reviews. Retrieved from
http://www.jcreview.com/fulltext/197-1577637305.pdf
Scott Kleinman. (2009). California State University, Northridge. Retrieved from
http://www.csun.edu/~sk36711/WWW/Common%20Files/megrammar.pdf
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Britannica. Retrieved from
https://www.britannica.com/science/science
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Britannica. Retrieved from
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Canterbury-Tales

Team:
German Zamora Angeles
Ana Ruth Iturria Cedillo
Sahamantha Araujo Carrasco
Araceli Aguilar Mendoza
Yulisa del Pilar Salas Santiago
Abigaíl Ureña Salas