History of English Languag

Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

History of English
Language

MIDDLE ENGLISH
PERIOD
(1100 A.D. -1500 A.D.)
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

Phases of English Language

Development
 Before English (Prehistory – 500 AD)

 Old English (500 – 1100)

 Middle English (1100 – 1500)

 Early Modern English (1500 – 1800)

 Late Modern English (1800 – Present)

 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

Introduction
 Toward the close of the Old English period an
event occurred that had a greater effect on the
English language than any other in the course of
its history.

 It changed the whole course of the English

language.

 This event was the Norman Conquest in 1066.

 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Norman
Conquest
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Norman Conquest

 The event that began the transition from Old
English to Middle English was the Norman
Conquest.

 William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy and,

later, William I of England) defeated the English
and their King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in
1066.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Norman Conquest

 The Normans came from a district extending
some seventy-five miles back from the Channel
and known as Normandy.

 The name Normandy derives its name from the

bands of Northmen who settled there in the ninth
and tenth centuries, at the same time that similar
bands were settling in the north and east of
England.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Norman Conquest

On Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned king
of England.

He crushed the opposition with a brutal hand and

deprived the Anglo-Saxon earls of their property,
distributing it to Normans (and some English) who
supported him.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Norman Conquest

The conquering Normans were themselves
descended from Vikings who had settled in northern
France about 200 years before.

However, they had completely abandoned their Old

Norse language and wholeheartedly adopted French
(which is a so-called Romance language, derived
originally from the Latin), to the extent that not a
single Norse word survived in Normandy.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Norman Conquest

However, the Normans spoke a rural dialect of
French with considerable Germanic influences,
usually called Anglo-Norman or Norman French,
which was quite different from the standard French
of Paris.

The members of the new ruling class were

sufficiently predominant to continue to use their
own language.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Norman Conquest

 English culture changed under French influence,
most visibly in the construction of churches and
castles, but it retained a distinctively English
flavour.

The Norman French dialect spoken by the invaders

developed in England into Anglo-Norman, a
variety of French.

For 200 years after the Norman Conquest, French

remained the language of ordinary intercourse
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Resurgence of
English
 For a long time after the Norman Conquest,
England was trilingual.

Latin Norman English

French

the language of the the language of the the language of the

Church government and the majority of the
upper ruling class country’s population
and it was considered
a vulgar tongue
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Resurgence of
English
 The loss of Normandy in 1204 by King John, a
descendant of the Conqueror, removed an important
tie with France, and subsequent events were to
loosen the remaining ties.

By the fourteenth century, several things happened

that promoted the use of English.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Resurgence of
English
1. The Hundred Years’ War, beginning in 1337,
saw England and France bitter enemies in a long,
drawn-out conflict that gave the deathblow to the
already moribund use of French in England.

o Those whose ancestors were Normans

eventually came to think of themselves as
English.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Resurgence of
English
2. The Black Death, perhaps reinforced by
pneumonia, raged during the middle of the
fourteenth century, killing a third to a half of the
population.

o It produced a severe labor shortage that led to

demands for higher wages and better treatment
of workers.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Resurgence of
English
3. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, led by Wat Tyler
and sparked by a series of poll taxes (fixed taxes
on each person).
o It was largely unsuccessful, but it presaged
social changes that were fulfilled centuries
later.
o After the plague, the English-speaking
labouring and merchant classes grew in
economic and social importance and, within the
short period of a decade, the linguistic division
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Resurgence of
English
4. The Translation of the Bible: John Wycliffe had
challenged the authority of the Church in both
doctrinal and organizational matters as part of a
movement called Lollardy (a derogatory term for
heresy), which translated the Bible into English and
popularized doctrines that anticipated the
Reformation.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Resurgence of
English
5. The Statute of Pleading, which made English the
official language of the courts and Parliament
(although, paradoxically, it was written in French),
was adopted in 1362, and in that same year
Edward III became the first king to address
Parliament in English, a crucial psychological
turning point.
o By 1385, English had become the language of
instruction in schools.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Resurgence of
English
o By the end of the fourteenth century, public
documents and records began to be written in
English, and Henry IV used English to claim
the throne in 1399.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Influence of the

Anglo-Norman
 The Normans bequeathed over 10,000 words to
English (about three-quarters of which are still in
use today), including a huge number of abstract
nouns ending in
o The suffixes “-age”, “-ance/-ence”, “-ant/-ent”,
“-ment”, “-ity” and “-tion”, or

o starting with the prefixes “con-”, “de-”, “ex-”,

“trans-” and “pre-”.
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Influence of the

Anglo-Norman
o Perhaps predictably, many of them related to
the following fields:
1. Crown and nobility (e.g. crown, castle, prince, count,
duke, viscount, baron, noble, sovereign, heraldry)
2. Government and Administration (e.g. parliament,
government, governor, city)
3. Court and Law (e.g. court, judge, justice, accuse,
arrest, sentence, appeal, condemn, plaintiff)
4. War and Combat (e.g. army, armour, archer, battle,
soldier, guard, courage, peace, enemy)
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Influence of the

Anglo-Norman
o Perhaps predictably, many of them related to
the following fields:
5. Authority and Control (e.g. authority, obedience,
servant, peasant, vassal, serf, labourer)
6. Fashion and High level (e.g. mansion, money, gown,
boot, beauty, mirror, jewel, appetite)
7. Art and Literature (e.g. art, colour, language,
literature, poet, chapter, question)
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Influence of the

Anglo-Norman
 Humble trades retained their Anglo-Saxon names (e.g.
baker, miller, shoemaker, etc).

 The more skilled trades adopted French names (e.g. mason,

painter, tailor, merchant, etc).

 Animals in the field generally kept their English names

(e.g. sheep, cow, ox, calf, swine, deer),

 Cooked and served animals often had French names (e.g.

beef, mutton, pork, bacon, veal, venison, etc).
 History of English Languag
Dr. Mayada F. Elhaddad

The Influence of the

Anglo-Norman
 Sometimes a French word completely replaced an Old
English word (e.g. crime replaced firen, place replaced
stow, people replaced leod, beautiful replaced wlitig).

 Sometimes French and Old English components combined

to form a new word, such as the French gentle and the
Germanic man combined to form gentleman.

 Sometimes, both English and French words survived, but

with significantly different senses (e.g. the Old English
doom and French judgment, hearty and cordial, house and
mansion, etc).