The document discusses the Middle English period (1100-1500), focusing on the Norman Conquest and its impact on England and the English language. It details the background of King Harold's election and William the Conqueror's invasion in 1066, which led to the introduction of a significant number of French words into English. Additionally, it touches on changes in English spelling and phonetics that occurred throughout the Middle English period.

1. MIDDLE-ENGLISH
PERIOD
(1100-1500)

2. THE BACKGROUND OF THE NORMAN
CONQUEST
Af ter the death wi thout issue of Edward the confessor the last king in
the di rect male l ine of descent from Al fred the great ,Harold, son of
the power ful Ear l Godwin was elected to the kingship. Almost
immediately his possession of the crown was chal lenged by Wi l l iam
the seventh duke of Normandy, who was distantly related to Edward
the Confessor and who fel t that he had a bet ter claim to the throne
for a number of tenuous reasons. The Norman conquest for tunately
for Anglo Amer ican cul ture and civi l ization the last invasion of
England - was l ike the ear l ier harassments car r ied by Nor thmen who
under the leadership of Wi l l iam the conqueror defeated the Engl ish
under the hapless king Harold at the bat t le of Hast ings in 1066.
Those Scandinavians who set t led in France are commonly designated
by an Old French from of Nor thmen that is Normans
, and the sect ion of France that they set t led and governed was cal led
Normandy.

3. THE DECLINE OF FRENCH IN ENGLISH
For a long time af ter Norman Congest French was the language
of the governing classes in England.
The loss of Normandy in 1204 by king John, a descendant of the
conqueror removed an impor tant tie with France, and
subsequent events were to loosen those that remained.
The Hundred years War :
Beginning in 1337, saw England and France bitter enemies in a
long drawn-out confl ict though it actually fel l somewhat shor t of
a hundred years which gave the death blow to the already
moribund use of France in England.

4. THE LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE OF THE
CONQUEST
The impact of the Notman Conquest on the Engl ish language,
l ike that made by earl ier Norse –speaking invaders, was to a
large extent confined to the word stock , though Middle Engl ish
also showed some instances of the influence of French.
A huge body of French words were ultimately become par t of
the Engl ish vocabulary, many of them replacing Engl ish words
that would have done for us just as wel l.
OE F ME
æhta catel Property
Burhsittende man Citeseyn citizen

5. MIDDLE ENGLISH SPELLING
Consonants :
1-The digraph (th) had been used in some of the ear l iest Engl ish texts
those wr i tten before 900, but was replaced in later Old Engl ish wr i t ten
by( Þ) .
2- The( ų ų ) used for (w) in the ear ly manuscr ipts was supplanted by
the runic wynn, but was brought back to England by Norman scr ibes in
a l igatured f rom as ( w)
3- The OE symbol ( ३ ) was in an I r ish form ;g entered Engl ish wr i ting
later f rom the cont inent in the middle Engl ish the ( ३ ) had three values
as we have seen (p.105) in middle Engl ish i t acqui red a somewhat
di f ferent from ( ३ ) cal led yogh and was used for two sounds that came
to be spel led( y) and( gh)
Goose Yield Draw
OE ३õs(g) ३eldan(y) dra३an
ME goos ३elden(y) Drawen(w)

6. 4- The consonant sound (v) did not occur initially in OE which
used( ƒ) for the (v) that developed internally, as in drifen
‘ d ri ven’ haefde had ;and scofl ‘ s h ove l’ . E xc e p t fo r a ve r y few
words that have entered standard Engl ish from southern Engl ish
dialects in which initial (f) became (v) for insurance vixen thr
feminine of vox- ’ fox ’ no standrad Engl ish words of native origin
begin with (v) .

7. Vowels:
-To indicate vowel length, Middle Engl ish writing frequently
employed double letters , par ticularly (ee) and (oo) thr practice
becoming general in the east Midland dialect late in the period
As a matter of fact both ee and oo were ambiguous in the
Middle Engl ish period , as every student of Chaucer must learn.
-Double o came to be commonly used in later Middle Engl ish
times for the long low back rounded vowel ( ३) the vowel that
developed out of OE long (a) .
-Final unstressed (e) fol lowing a single consonant also indicated
vowel length in Middle Engl ish as in fode ‘food’ and fede ‘to
feed’ this corresponds to the ‘si lent e’ of Modern Engl ish as in
case ,mete ,bite , rote , and rule .

8. THE END
By : Abdul Rahman Malek AL-Khalaf