MIDDLE ENGLISH (ME)

1
MIDDLE ENGLISH (ME)
2
(No Transcript)
3

• Middle English (ME), is a kind of middle stage
  within the evolution of English
• Lasting from about 1150 to about 1500
• ME is the period that lies between Old English
  (650-1100) and (Early) Modern English
  (1500-today)
• By the end of the ME stage, all the basic
  linguistic parameters that lead to its modern
  structure and anatomy are established

4

• Marks the transformation of English from the
  Anglo Saxon to modern English

5
LANGUAGE CONTACTS IN MIDDLE AGE
6

• In this period, English came into contact with
  many foreign languages resulted from invasion.
• In the early OE, English co-existed with Latin.
  Eventually, Latin usage was restricted to
  monasteries only.
• In the second half of OE, English came into
  contact with Old Norse, the language of
  Scandinavian. This language was brought in by the
  Vikings.

7
(No Transcript)
8

• In ME period, English came into contact with
  French which was brought in by the Normans.
• This invasion drove its development into a
  direction that was markedly different from the
  development of other West Germanic languages such
  as German.

9
(No Transcript)
10
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND
11

• The invasion took place in 1066 led by the
  powerful William the conqueror who hailed from
  Normandy.
• Normandy is located at the French border, north
  of England

12
He killed King Harold in Battle of Hasting
13

• The events at Hastings were woven into the
• famous Bayeux tapestry - a unique and
• extraordinary document to reflect this
• episode of English history.

14
NORMAN INFLUENCES ON ENGLISH CULTURE AND LIFE
15

• During the period of their invasion which was
  about 200 years, the Normans have made tremendous
  impacts on the life of the English politically,
  linguistically and culturally
• The Normans left behind their political system
  (feudal system) and religious influence for the
  English adoption

16

• Since many of the Anglo-Saxon nobility were wiped
  out at Hastings, the English ruling class was
  replaced by Norman noblemen.
• The Normans imported the feudal system and
  lordship by taking the key positions in the state
  and church.
• These positions correspond to the high ranks of
  power in the medieval social order.
• At that time, there were three strata of society
  which were the nobles, the clergy, and peasants.

17

• Since the grammar schools also lay in the hands
  of the church in the Middle Ages, the Normans
  also controlled education.
• In a nutshell, they established the new
  upper-class.

18
THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF MIDDLE ENGLISH
19

• The Norman Conquest influenced the linguistic
  landscape of England decisively.
• The following statement in the Chronicle of
  Robert of Gloucester from around 1300 illustrates
  this nicely

20

• Thus came, lo, England into Normandy's hand
  and the Normans then knew how to speak only their
  own language, and spoke French as they did at
  home, and also had their children taught it, so
  that noblemen of this land, that come of their
  stock, all keep to the same speech that they
  received from them for unless a man knows
  French, people make little account of him. But
  low men keep to English, and to their own
  language still. I think that in the whole world
  there are no countries that do not keep their own
  language, except England alone. But people know
  well that it is good to master both, because the
  more a man knows the more honoured he is.

21

• Translation
• Þus com, lo, Engelond in-to Normandies hond And
  Þe Normans ne couÞe speke Þo bote hor owe speche,
  And speke French as hii dude atom, and hor
  children dude also teche, So Þat heiemen of Þis
  lond, Þat of ho blod come, HoldeÞ alle Þulke
  speche Þat hii of hom nom Vor bote a man conne
  Frenss me telÞ Aof him lute. Ac lowe men holdeÞ
  to Engliss, and to hor owe speche-ute. Ich wene
  Þer ne beÞ in al the world contreyes none Þat ne
  holdeÞ to hor owe speche, bote Engelond one.Ac
  wel me wote uor to conne boÞe wel it is, Vor Þe
  more Þat a mon can, Þe more wurÞe he is.
• (Chronicle
  of Robert of Gloucester, 1300)

22
MIDDLE ENGLISH WRITING
23

• The chronicle indicates that the Norman
  upper-classes, first and foremost, spoke French
  and they taught this language to their children.
  French was the prestigious H-language. English,
  however, was the language of the lower classes
  the vernacular. But, English was spoken by the
  majority of the population of England.

24

• The move from Old to Middle English was a gradual
  development. Nevertheless, there is a
  recognizable gap in the transition from the Old
  English to the Middle English text corpus. This
  is the consequence of the political changes after
  the Norman Conquest. Written English was
  basically non-existent for about 100-150 years.
• Features of OE was still present in ME
  writing

25
(No Transcript)
26

• Writing was dominated by the Norman French ruling
  class. As we have seen, this class used French or
  Latin and not English. As a consequence, the
  West-Saxon written standard was replaced by
  French and Latin texts. Literature in English
  only started to be written again from about 1150
  onwards.

27

• Due to the absence of a written standard for
  English, this literature is highly dialectal.
  Middle English writers used a dialectal
  pronunciation-based spelling.

28

• Middle English literature includes a variety of
  genres constituting an impressive corpus of
  Middle English literature, the most celebrated
  text being Geoffrey Chaucers masterpiece, the
  Canterbury Tales (1387, East Midland dialect)

29
(No Transcript)
30
MIDDLE ENGLISH DIALECTS
31

• Traditionally, there are five major dialects of
  ME. They are
• Middle English dialect Old English antecedent 1.
  Northern Northumbrian
• 2. Midland Mercian
• 3. East Anglian
• 4. South-eastern Kentish
• 5. South-western West Saxon

32

• The Middle English texts reveal that English went
  through considerable internal developments
  irrespective of the language contact situation
  with French The Old English dialects evolved and
  became ME dialects.

33
(No Transcript)
34

• Apart from changes in pronunciation, the most
  striking characteristic of this process is the
  influence of Scandinavian in the Danelaw, which
  led to the division of the Midland dialects (the
  former Mercian dialects) into the East and West
  Midlands dialect areas.

35

• Among many other features, the Scandinavian
  influence can be seen in the use of the plural
  3rd person personal pronoun they, which was first
  used in the North and East Midlands and then
  spread to the other dialects from there.

36

• A relatively large quantity of ME literature
  survives, especially after 1250. Printing presses
  developed in late ME, helped to preserve texts
  from this period.

37
THE DECLINE OF THE FRENCH
38

• From around 1300 onwards, the status of French
  declined drastically due to political changes and
  the rise of the English middle-class.
• More awareness of self-identity, increase in
  English scholarly figures, more widespread of
  reading material
• The ruling kings were Norman descendants who had
  their feet in two places, Normandy and United
  Kingdom. They were less patriotic to England

39

• 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.

40

• Towards a new written standard for English

41
(No Transcript)
42

• With the decline of French, English regained its
  social status as the language of the ruling
  class. As a consequence, a new written standard
  was necessary.
• Although the modern English standard, as we know
  it, was only established in the centuries to
  follow, a minimum standard had already developed
  towards the end of the Middle English period.
• The standard was based on the East Midland
  dialect.

43
(No Transcript)
44

• The most important reason for this dialect to
  become the basis for the novel standard was the
  strong economic and cultural influence of the
  East-Midlands triangle London-Oxford-Cambridge.
• This centre attracted a great number of people
  from all over England all of them contributing to
  the development of the new standard.

45

• Many texts were written in Chancery Standard,
  which shows more Midland features and very
  different from Chaucerys English.
• This dialect eventually became the basis of
  Modern Standard English.

46

• A further important factor that supported the
  standardisation process was the introduction of
  the printing press by William Caxton in 1476.
• In addition,the writers of the royal
  administrative documents, had their office at
  Westminster very close to Caxtons printing
  press. It is possible that their spelling
  influenced the written standard as well.

47
FUNDAMENTAL LINGUISTIC CHANGES FROM OLD ENGLISH
TO MIDDLE ENGLISH
48

• The contact with French had a
• striking effect on English language. contact
  with French is the vast amount of French loan
  words that flooded the English language and
  transformed its lexicon. Example

49
(No Transcript)
50

• A very similar process of code borrowing happened
  in the Middle English period. The French
  dominated the domains of courtly life,
  government, administration, the law court, and
  church. These are the domains where most loan
  words came from.

51

• Coming from the language of the upper social
  classes, French loan words penetrated the English
  language socially downwards from the prestige
  language to the vernacular.
• In contrast, Scandinavian loan words entered the
  Northern and Mid-Eastern dialects and from there
  spread socially upwards.
• The high social status of French loan words can
  still be perceived in Modern English.

52

• Words that entered the language from French have
  nobler and more formal connotations than their
  near-synonyms of Germanic origin e.g., mansion,
  palace vs. house, home.

53
LEVELLING AND LOSS OF INFLECTIONS
54

• In the Middle English period, English also went
  through a major structural change which was not
  the direct consequence of Norman dominion.
• It was a large scale transformation of the
  grammatical system that had its origin in
  pronunciation

55

• The pitch timing of Indo-European languages was
  characterized by free stress (cf. Verner's Law).
• This, however, changed in Germanic languages,
  which put the stress on the first syllable of
  content words.
• The same was true for Old English. With the heavy
  stress on the first syllable, the vowel quality
  in the following unstressed syllables was
  weakened and gradually reduced to schwa.

56

• This reduction of different vowel qualities is
  called levelling. The weakening process continued
  and lead to the loss of vowels and corresponding
  syllables.
• The unstressed vowels dropped of (apocope) or
  they were lost within the word (syncope).

57
(No Transcript)
58

• The inflectional system of English went through
  drastic changes.
• In Old English, all NP-constituents (articles,
  adjectives, nouns, pronouns) were sensitive to
  case, number, and grammatical gender
  distinctions.
• In most nouns and adjectives, these distinctions
  were marked by inflectional affixes with
  distinctive vowel qualities.

59

• The process of levelling led to the gradual loss
  of these distinctions.
• As a consequence, information concerning the
  grammatical relations established by NPs was
  lost.
• Nouns were only left with a marker for the
  genitive singular and a marker for the plural,
  es, which was the reduced form of the nominative
  and accusative plural and was generalized for the
  whole plural by analogy

60
(No Transcript)
61

• The process of levelling and the loss of
  inflectional distinctions had far-reaching
  consequences on the English grammar.
• English moved away from a synthetic language to
  becoming an analytical language. In analytical
  languages grammatical distinctions are not marked
  by inflectional morphemes but by auxiliary
  morphemes
• Synthetic language, is a language with a high
  morpheme-per-word ratio for example,
  antidisestablishmentarianism

62

• THANK YOU