Detailed description of Middle English Period including vowel and consonant changes, inflectional endings, loss of grammatical gender and French influence in English language.

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SARAH NAZ SAYED
ID# 1431373
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2. Letter ‘v’: -
• No standard English word starts with ‘v’.
• ‘Very’ is not an English word.
• It was introduced in Middle English.
• Before 1066, we had only ‘f’.
• Ex: drifan driven
‘v’ & ‘u’:-
• When ‘v’ comes in the middle of a word, it was written ‘u’.
• Ex: ever  euen
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3. ‘hw’ to ‘wh’
• Ex: cild  child
• This change was introduced by Norman tribes.
Addition of ‘h’ after ‘c’:-
‘sc’ (sounds ‘sk’) to ‘sh’
• Ex: sceal (OE)  sheal (ME)  shall (MnE)
• This was introduced by Norman tribes as well.
Omission of ‘h’ from ‘hl’, ‘hn’, ‘hr’
• Ex: hwat  what
• ‘hw’ is phonetically more accurate as ‘wh’.
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• Ex: hleapen  leapen (to leap)
• ‘h’ got omitted.
• ‘en’ was no more in use (inflectional endings). So it got omitted later as well.
• leapen  leap

4. Omission of ‘w’ between a consonant and a back vowel
• Consonant, particularly ‘s’ or ‘t’.
• Ex: swa  so twa  to
Transformation of ‘g’
• ‘g’ became ‘w’ placed after the consonant ‘l’ or ‘r’.
• ‘g’ got it original sound in ME.
• Ex: morgen  morwen (morrow)
OE prefix ‘ge’ became ‘i’
Inflectional ‘n’ was lost
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• Ex: gelimpan  ilimpan (to happen)
• Ex: min faðer  my fader an ewte  a newt

5. ‘ӯ’ [ü:] changed to [i:]
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• OE long vowel sounds ē, ī, ō, ū remained unchanged but their spelling changed.
 Ex: fēt  feet
fōda  food
• Ex: hӯdan (OE)  hīden (ME)
‘y’ [ü] changed to [i]
• Same as above.

6. ‘ā’ became [ɔ:]
• [ɛ:] were written both ‘e’ and ‘ee’ in ME.
• Later in MnE, [ɛ:] was written as ‘ea’.
• Ex: brɛ:θ  breath
‘æ’ became ‘a’
• ‘e’ was dropped.
• Ex: glæd  glad
[æ:] became [ɛ:]
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• It was spelt with ‘o’ or double ‘o’ (oo).
• Ex: stān (OE)  st[o/oo]n (ME, pronounced [ɔ])  stone (MnE, pronounced [o]).

7. NOUN
• In the strong masculine declension, singular mūð, mūðes, mūðe, mūð and plural
mūðas, mūða and mūðum, mūðas were reduced to only three forms : mūð, mūðes,
and mūðe (to the mouth).
• ‘-s’ and ‘-es’ refer to plurality in MnE.
• Exception of plural nouns: deer, feet, oxen, childen
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Middle English was known as ‘The Period of Leveled Inflection’ because most of the
inflections were lost during that time.

8. ADJECTIVE
• all adj. inflections fall together as -e;
• The indication of number, gender and case were lost.
• The declensions were gradually lost
• Ex: blinda blind blinde  blind
PRONOUN
• ‘this’ is a MnE word.
• In OE, it has 3 forms : þēs, þēos, þis
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9. • ‘woman’ was a masculine gender in OE.
 Ex: wīf-mann (because the 2nd element of the word is masculine)
• ‘woman’ was a feminine gender in ME.
• The role of grammatical gender in OE was beginning to decline by 11th century.
• ‘the’ came to be used generally as a definite article.
• ‘that’ is used as a demonstrative article.
• There was not any grammatical gender in ME.
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ASSIMILATION
• The new French words were quickly assimilated.
• Ex: gentle (French)  gently (English)
faith (French)  faithful (English)
SYNONYMS
• Sometimes a French word completely replaced an Old English word .
Ex: firen was replaced by crime.
eam was replaced by uncle.
 The French language didn’t retain its originality after it entered into English
Language
 French language didn’t change the grammar of English Language but OE started
to lose its features.

11. PREFIX & SUFFIX
• Many of the Old English prefixes gradually lost their vitality, their ability to enter
into new combinations.
• Prefixes no more in use: to-, be-, a-
• Prefixes used today: un-, im-, counter-, dis-, re-, trans-, over-, under-
• A similar decline is observable in the formative power of certain suffixes that
were widely used in Old English.
• Suffixes no more in use: -de, -by
• Suffixes which are still in use: noun suffix –ness
adjective endings -ful, -less, -some, -ish
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Below are some of the French words widely used in English Language today.
Governmental &
administrative words
• govern
• noble
Ecclesiastical
words
• religion
• theology
Law
• crime
• banish

13. Social Life
• curtain
• couch
Art
• painting
• sculpture
Medicine
• physician
• remedy
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Army and Navy
• battle
• combat
Fashion
• gown
• cape
Meals
• mackerel
• mutton

14. THANK
YOU!
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