MIDDLE ENGLISH

• The Scandinavian Conquest

• The Norman Conquest and Its Socio-Linguistic Consequences
• Middle English Dialects
• Spelling Rules
• Sound Changes
• Middle English Vocabulary
 THE SCANDINAVIAN CONQUEST
• The Scandinavian Conquest of England was a great military and
political event, which also influenced the English language.
Scandinavian inroads into England had begun as early as the 8th c.
• In the late 9th c., the Scandinavians had occupied the whole of
English territory north of the Thames. In 878, King Alfred made
peace with the invaders (the so-called Wedmore peace).
• The territory occupied by the Scandinavians was to remain in their power; it was
henceforward called Danela (literally Danish law). The Scandinavians, in their turn,
recognized the nominal supremacy of the king of England.
• Scandinavians most thickly settled the northern and eastern parts of England; there were
fewer of them in the central territories. About this very time, the Scandinavians invaded
Ireland and occupied some of its coastal regions.
• In the late 10th c., war in England was resumed, and in 1013, the whole country fell to the
invaders. King Ethelred fled to Normandy. In 1016, the Danish king Knut (or Canute)
became ruler of England. England became part of a vast Scandinavian empire in Northern
Europe.
• Scandinavian power in England lasted until 1042, when it was overthrown, and the power
of Old English nobility was restored under King Edward the Confessor.
 MIDDLE ENGLISH - PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM
SYNTHETICAL TO ANALYTICAL STRUCTURE OF
THE LANGUAGE

• comprises XIIth – mid of XVth century;

• 1150 – Earliest surviving manuscripts in Middle English
• 1348 – English replaces Latin as the language of instruction in most schools
• 1362 – English replaces French as the language of law.
• English is used in Parliament for the first time
• 1388 - Chaucer starts writing The Canterbury Tales
• 1400 - The Great Vowel Shift begins
 THE PHONETIC PROCESS OF REDUCTION

• brought serious changes in grammatical forms and their

losses
• the stress moved closer to the beginning of the word
• phonetically very similar endings such as –en, -on, -an were
difficult to distinguish
• a tendency to a fixed word order which started in OE
 DIALECTS APPEAR

• the formation of feudalism

• isolation of different parts of the country
• formation of the local dialects: Northern, West Midlands, East
Midlands, Southwestern, and Southeastern (Kentish)
 EDWARD THE CONFESSOR
• was an Anglo-Saxon ruler of England brought up in Normandy as after
the Scandinavian conquest the English king joined his sister who was
married to the Norman Duke
• Brought French councilors of French origin to England, knew French
better than English
• had no children, no direct heir to the throne, had not publicly designated
any heir, died in January 1066
• was succeeded by Harold Godwinson, a powerful earl of Wessex
 HAROLD GODWINSON

• Was Edward’s brother-in-law, his sister was married to Edward the

Confessor
• controlled a significant part of the territory
• claimed that Edward the Confessor had appointed him the successor
• received the approval of the Witan, the decision making body who
could decide who would be king
 WILLIAM DUKE OF NORMANDY

• Ruled in the region in Northern France

• was distantly related to Edward the Confessor
• claimed that Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne of England
• gained the victory over the English in the battle of Hastings on October, 14th
1066
• Killed Harold and proclaimed himself a king
• Brought 200 000 French settlers (2 mln people comprised English
population in 1086)
DOMESDAY BOOK
 THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS SOCIO-
LINGUISTIC CONSEQUENCES

• a turning point in the history of England

• lasted for three centuries
• all the important positions in church and state were held by the Normans
• French in the form of the Norman dialect was freely used by the upper
classes of England
• It became the language of the court, nobility, literature, political society,
though the main bulk of the population spoke English
 THE LINGUISTIC SITUATION AFTER THE
CONQUEST

• The nobility spoke Anglo-Norman dialect; the lower classes

spoke English.
• Territorial dialects were equal in status
• There were bilinguals those learning French to gain privileges
• Latin was used in the spheres of the Church and science
• most of the literate class were no longer taught to read and write
in English
• few writers could reproduce or even completely understand OE
• they tended to represent their own spoken dialects
• The first English king after the Conquest did not know English
 WHY DIDN’T ENGLISH DIE

• The English speakers demographically prevailed, the language

was well established
• The conquerors learned some English in order to survive
• When king John the Lackland lost possessions in France
England stopped being bilingual: French was restricted to the
upper class only
 ME DIALECTS

• Northern – more progressive

• West Midlands,
• East Midlands,
• Southwestern (Southern), Southeastern (Kentish) - preserve
phonological and morphological features of OE
 NORTHERN DIALECT
• sharply reduced inflectional systems of nouns and verbs by 1300
• innovative syntax
• Scandinavian influence: the Scandinavian settlers, who spoke Old
Norse added to English various features of Norse (such as, for
example, the pronoun they and the noun law) and simplified syntax
EAST-MIDLAND AND WEST-MIDLAND DIALECTS

• are intermediate between the Northern and Southern/Kentish

extremes
• well-to-do speakers of East-Midland began to move to London,
bringing their dialect with them
• the northern variety of East-Midland became the basis of standard
Modern English
 THE SOUTH-WESTERN ME DIALECT
• spoken in the area west of Sussex, south and southwest of the Thames
• the direct descendant of the West Saxon dialect of OE - the colloquial basis
for the Anglo-Saxon court dialect of OE
• conservative (though less than Kentish),
• shows little influence from other languages, no Scandinavian influence
• still survives in the working-class country dialects of the extreme southwest
of England
 SOUTH-EASTERN KENTISH
• originally spoken over the whole southeastern part of England,
including London and Essex
• during the ME period its area was diminished by the advance of the
East Midland dialect
• In Early NE died out, leaving no descendants
• its sound system shows distinctive innovations (already in the Old
English period)
• its syntax and verb inflection are extremely conservative
 THE DIALECT OF LONDON
• Is spoken in the capital which Is situated on the Thames, thus, it lies on
the boundary line between the Midland and the Southern dialects
• showed a mixture of Midland and Southern elements, first latter
prevailing, then the tendency changed in favour of Midland elements.
• Towards the end of the 14th century became influential in other parts of
the country
• became the base of the national English language
 THE DIALECT OF LONDON
• was a complex formation, reflecting various influences connected with
the social and political life of the period
• is represented by several important documents:
• Henry III’s Proclamation of 1258,
• poems by Adam Davy (early 14 th century),
• the works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340- 1400),
• John Gower (1325- 1408),
• John Wycliffe (1320- 1384).
• in the course of the 14th century the ending -eth of the present indicative plural was
superseded by the ending -en, typical of Midland dialects.
• The nominative case of the 3rd person plural personal pronoun hii was
• superseded by they (of the Midland dialects; the form is of Scandinavian origin
• the prefix -y from OE 3e- of the second participle was gradually dropped
• Towards the end of the century the London dialect had arisen as a
• type of language essentially corresponding to the Midland dialects.
• It became the base of the national language.
 SPELLING CHANGES

• the runic letters passed out of use. Thorn – Þ – and the crossed ð, đ
were replaced by the diagraph th, which retained the same sound
value: [θ] and [ð]; the rune wynn was displaced by double u – w; the
ligatures æ and oe fell into disuse. : æ>a, æ>e.
• French influence: the digraphs ou, ie, ch were adopted as new ways
of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:], [t∫].
• borrowed (Fr.) native NE
ME double [‚duble] ME out [u:t] double, out
(from OFr. – double [dublə]
ME chief [t∫e:f] ME thief [θe:f] chief, thief
(OE – Þēf)
ME chaumbre [t∫aumbrə] ME child [t∫i:ld] (OE –
cild) chamber, child
 LETTERS INDICATING
VOWELS CONSONANTS

• c [s] or [k]
• a [a]
• f [f]
• y as well as i [i] • g [dz] or [g]

• o [o] or [u] • j [dz]

• • k [k]
• s [s] or [z]
• v (often spelt as u) [v]
• y [j]
 DIGRAPHS
VOWELS CONSONANTS

• ch, tch [t∫]

• ee [e:] or [E:]
• dg [d3]
• ie [e:]
• gh [x] or [x‘]
• oo [o:] or [O:]
• qu [kw]
• ou [u:] or [ou] • th [θ ] or [ð]
• ow [u:] or [ou] • sh, sch, ssh [∫]
• wh [hw]
 OE ME
REDUCTION OF VOWELS IN UNSTRESSED ENDINGS

• nama • name [n a: m ə]
• tellan • tellen
• luf[V]u • love [l u v ə]
• stanas • stones
 SHORTENING LENGTHENING
• long vowels occurring before two • short vowels a, o, e were lengthened
consonants in closed syllables were in open syllables
shortened • OE 12th c. 13th c.
• cēpte - kepte • nos[z]u - nos[z](e) - nōs[z]e
• fēdde - fedde • narrow vowels i, u remained
• long vowels remained long before the unaffected OR widened into e or o
lengthening consonant groups ld, mb, (central dialects).
nd • e.g. duru - dōre (door)
• Development of individual vowel phonemes
• OE ā > ME ō (open) hām - hōm (spelling: ME hoom) (home)
• OE ō > ME ō (closed) tōÞ – tōth (ME sp. tooth) (tooth)
• OE ēa, æ > ME ē (open) sæ – sē (sea) ēast – ēst (east)
• OE ēo, ē > ME ē (closed) cēpan – kēpen sēon – sēn
• OE æ > ME a glæd – glad
 OE Y (SHORT), Y (LONG) > ME

• i, ī in Northern and East Midland

• > ME e, ē in the Kentish dialect
• > ME y, y in West-Midland and South-Western
• OE first – First (N.+E.M.), ferst (K.), fyrst (W.M. + S.)
• OE y [ü] > [i], letter y became equivalent of I
• Letter u was used to denote [ü]
• OE e, ē, i, ī, o were unchanged in ME (tellan – tellen; wrītan – wrīten).
• OE ō mostly remained unchanged (fōt, bōc – bōk)
• OE u, ū remained unchanged (sunu – so[u]ne / sunə) (son)
• All OE diphthongs were monophthongized in ME. They were contracted
into monophthongs, mostly variants [e]
• e.g. ēa > ē: ēald >eld (ē – often spelt ee: dēop > dēp, NE deep)
• ēo > ē: hēorte > hērte
 FORMATION OF NEW DIPHTHONGS
• emerged as a result of vocalization of the OE velar and palatal fricatives and a
semivowel [j], [w], [Ʒ]
• OE dæƷ [dei] – ME day [dai]
• OE weƷ [wei] – ME wei
• OE laƷy [lagu] – ME lowe [laue]- [law]
• OE snaw – ME snow
• entirely new system of diphthongs [ai], [ei], [au], [ou]
• Diphthong [oi] was borrowed from French in the phonetic structure of some French
words, e.g. boy
 CHANGES IN CONSONANT SYSTEM
• the fricative consonant [ʃ], the affricates [tʃ] and [ʤ]
• [ŋ] at the end of the word began to distinguish meanings (e.g. thing vs thin)
• phonemic voiced fricatives [v], [z] allophones of f, s in OE
• loss of long consonants (OE mann)
• unstressed final consonants tended to be lost after a vowel, e.g. OE ic > ME i, OE –
lic > ME ly
• final -n in verbal forms (infinitive, plural subjunctive, plural preterite) was lost
(remains in some past participles of strong verbs, e.g. seen, gone); in possessive
adjectives my and thy and indefinite article an before words beginning with
consonant (-n remained in the possessive pronouns)
 VOCABULARY
• 10,000 French words entered English only in the course of the XIIth century
• the mechanisms of law and administration, but they also included words from
such fields as medicine, art and fashion
• 70 percent – nouns
• abstract terms - constructed using French affixes as con-, trans-, pre-, -ance,
- tion
• three-quarters of all these French loans are still in use
• In most cases the French word (people) replaced an OE equivalent (leod)
• both words would co-exist, but develop slightly different meaning

French English

close shut

reply answer
 LATIN BORROWINGS

• professional or technical terms, belonging to such semantic

fields as religion (immortal, incarnate, scripture,
magnificent), medicine (diaphragm, ulcer, nervous,
dislocate), law (client, conspiracy, homicide, custody,
testimony), and literature (prosody)
 ETYMOLOGICAL DOUBLETS
Latin English from Latin English from French

uncia inch ounce

moneta mint money

camera camera chamber

Norman Dialect Parisian Dialect

canal channel

cattle chattle (belongings)

catch chase