Middle English

Middle English was the language spoken in England from about 1100 to 1500. The
opinions about the exact chronological boundaries vary: in some sources, the beginning of the
Middle English is dated 1066, i.e. the Norman Conquest of England; in others it is about 1050,
when the synthetic character of Old English starts to change.

The Norman Conquest had an irreversible effect on the linguistic situation in Britain. As
the Normans emerged victorious after the battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066 and a new
French-speaking king, William the Conqueror, came to the throne, French together with Latin
became the languages of state, law, army, and church. Intellectual life, teaching and writing were
in the hands of French-speakers; that is why, a good deal of the English population were
gradually becoming bilingual. English, despite being disregarded by the state, remained alive in
the streets as the language of common people. Being almost exclusively a spoken language,
English was therefore more open to various kinds of changes as well as external influences and
could develop without any constraints. On the whole, we can suppose that during the first
centuries after the Conquest, English faced a potential threat of being engulfed by the
predominant language, but it was not the case. For over three hundred years, until the time came
for it to reemerge as the language of the nation, it continued to evolve and change in the form of
different dialects and resist the danger of disappearance.

The Norman Conquest created a new situation as many of the principal officers of church
and state were no longer English or English-speaking. The invaders brought with them their own
version of French as well as the motivation to reinvigorate the educational system in England by
incorporating it more firmly within the West European tradition. This meant that England
experienced a renaissance of Latin learning which had already got under way in other parts of
Europe. This did not happen immediately. Three languages became available for use in England:
Latin, French and English. From the twelfth century onwards it was Latin that was in most
respects the standard language of the country, and where Latin was not appropriate French was
used. The pull of Old English was still strong and at first survived as an ideal. Many Old English
manuscripts were copied in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the concept of Old English
must have been the inspiration behind the development of the local standardised forms of
English that we find at this time.
 About 1400 the importance of French and Latin began to wane, and the need for a new
standard in English emerged. In this era, the existing literature shows a more recent consolidation
of the English language. The version of English became the standard language used in literary
writing, taking over from French and Latin. This English version is also the origin of the
Chancery Standard. The language (dialect) that exist is very different from Old English and quite
different from English-Norman in the 12th century.

This period is marked by the literary life of Geoffrey Chaucer.. In the 14 th century,
Geoffrey Chaucer was very dominant compared to other writers in England. This is why this
period is called the “Chaucer Age (Chaucerian Age)”. His masterpiece is THE CANTEBURY
TALES, which was written since the 1380s. THE CANTEBURY TALES is a collection of
stories narrated by fictional pilgrims travelling to the Cathedral in Canterbury. These stories later
helped form the English literature. The end of this era was marked by the introduction of printing
technology for the first time.

Middle English period has affected the most important linguistic developments. Two very
important linguistic developments characterize Middle English are grammar and vocabulary. In
terms of grammar, for instance, Middle English gradually developed from a highly synthetic to
analytical language, relying more on word order than on inflectional endings to express relations
between words. The range of inflections peculiar to Old English was drastically reduced, and the
Middle English systems of noun, pronoun and adjective declension were hugely simplified. In
terms of vocabulary, English became much more heterogeneous, showing many borrowings
from French, Latin, and Scandinavian. Large-scale borrowing of new words often had serious
consequences for the meanings and the stylistic register of those words which survived from Old
English. Eventually, various new stylistic layers emerged in the lexicon, which could be
employed for a variety of different purposes.

A brief chronology of English

55 BC Roman invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar Local inhabitants
speak Celtish
AD 43 Roman invasion and occupation. Beginning of Roman rule
of Britain

436 Roman withdrawal from Britain complete

449 Settlement of Britain by Germanic invaders begins

450-480 Earliest known Old English inscriptions Old English

1066 William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invades and

conquers England

c1150 Earliest surviving manuscripts in Middle English 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 the Parliament for the first time.

c1388 Chaucer starts writing The Canterbury Tales

c1400 The Great Vowel Shift begins

1476 William Caxton establishes the first English printing press Early Modern
English

1564 Shakespeare is born

1604 Tablet Alphabetical, the first English dictionary, is published

1607 The first permanent English settlement in New World

(Jamestown) is established

1616 Shakespeare dies

1623 Shakespeare’s First Folio is published

1702 The first daily English-language newspaper, The Daily

Courant, is published in London

1755 Samuel Johnson publishes his English dictionary

1776 Thomas Jefferson writes the American Declaration of

Independence

1782 Britain abandons its colonies in what is later to become the

USA

1828 Webster publishes his American English dictionary Late Modern

English

1922 The British Broadcasting Corporation is founded

1928 The Oxford English Dictionary is published