The Middle English period 

(1066–1500) was marked by great changes in the

English language, some of them were the result of the Norman Conquest and others
were a continuation of tendencies of Old English. The changes of this period affected
English in both its grammar and its vocabulary.  Those in the grammar reduced
English from a highly inflected language to an extremely analytic one. Those in the
vocabulary involved the loss of a large part of the Old English word-stock and the
addition of thousands of words from French and Latin. 
 
1. Historical Background of the ME period 
 
The end of the Old English period and the beginning of Middle English is
marked by two outstanding political events – the Scandinavian invasion and the
Norman conquest.  
Scandinavian Invasion 
The Scandinavian invasion began in the end of the 8th century at Lindisfarne.
At first, the invaders fought with the natives, robbed and plundered the country,
but later they began to settle on the lands they had managed to conquer.

The influence of Scandinavian conquest is seen in three areas:

a. Certain place names and proper names. Whitby, Goldthorp; Gibson, Thomson

b. Introduction of new words of Danish origin. Law sky want they

c. Modification in respect to grammar and syntax as well as pronunciation. Relative

clauses without any pronoun are very rare in O.E but they become very common in
Middle English due to Scandinavian influence. The use of “shall” and “will” in
Middle English corresponds to Scandinavian usage.

The Norman Conquest. Norman influences on English culture and life 

In 1066, the Duke of Normandy, William "the Conqueror", sailed across the
British Channel and defeated King Harold of England in the battle of Hastings. Later
William was crowned King of England. The Norman Kingdom was now established.
The Anglo-Saxon period was over.  
The Norman Conquerors of England had originally come
from Scandinavia. First, they had seized the valley of the Seine and settled in what is
known as Normandy. They were swiftly assimilated by the French and in the 11th,
c. came to Britain as French speakers. Their tongue in Britain is often referred to as
“Anglo-French” or “Norman French”

After the Norman Conquest:

  French became the official language of administration (it was used in the
king’s court, in the law courts, in the church (as well as Latin), in the army, by
the nobles in the south of England). It was also used as a language of writing
and teaching as well as Latin.
 English was the language of common people in the Midlands and in the north
of England. It still remained the language of the majority who were the
representatives of the lower classes of society and never learned French, so the
Norman barons had to learn English to be able to communicate with locals.
 Celtic Dialects were still used by the Celtic population in the remote areas of
the country.

Actually, during the presence of the Normans the country experienced the period of
bilingualism (French and English were both used in the country and started to
intermix, i.e. a lot of the French words crept into the Middle English Dialects and it
came to resemble present-day English a lot).

There are several categories of French borrowings:

 Government and social class (duke, count, servant, peasant)

 Church (religion, prayer, abbey, saint)
 Law (justice, crime, pardon, evidence)
 War (captain, sergeant, combat, defense)
 Fashion (gown, robe, collar, embroidery)
 Food (beef, salmon, bacon, mince)
 Learning and medicine (paper, logic, surgeon, remedy, poison)

The pronunciation of English changed to some extent under the influence of French,
as did the spelling. For example, the Old English spellings cw, sc and c became qu,
sh and ch, so we now write queen rather than cwen, ship rather than scip, and should
rather than scolde.

English grammar did take on a few French structures, such as putting in adjectives
after nouns in some expressions – attorney general, secretary general, surgeon
general.

The gradual decline of the English singular pronouns thou and thee and their
replacement with ye and later you have been linked to the parallel French use of vous
in formal settings

The decline of French

When King John lost Normandy in the years following 1200, the links to the French-
speaking community subsided. English then slowly started to gain more weight as a
common tongue within England again. In 1348 English became the language of
grammar-schools (excluding Oxford and Cambridge where Latin was used) and in
1362 the Language Act declared English the official language of the law courts. In
1399, Henry IV was the first man on the throne with English as his mother tongue.
From 1423 onwards all parliament records were written in English. A hundred years
later, English was again spoken by representatives of all social classes, this new
version of the English language being strikingly different, of course, from the Old
English used prior to the Norman invasion. The English spoken at this turn of events
is called Middle English.