Middle English was spoken between 1100-1500 AD in England. It was a period of great change for the English language following the Norman Conquest of 1066. The document discusses several changes that occurred in Middle English, including the decay of inflectional endings in nouns, adjectives, and verbs. It also discusses the large influence of French and Latin vocabulary entering the English language during this time due to political and social factors. Middle English dialects also developed and the language transitioned from an inflected to an analytic structure.

1. Middle English
1100-1500
Prepared by Hajat Hussain)

2. Middle English
• Started with Norman Conquest
• A period of great change
• Decay of inflectional ending
• English grammatical changes
• New language introduced
• Loss of Old English Words
• French words borrowing in English
• Latin words borrowing in English
• Dialects of Middle English

3. A Period of Great
Change
Remarkable changes in the English Language
The causes of changes
The Norman Conquest
Conditions that followed the Conquest

4. Cont..........
These changes affected English in both grammar
and its vocabulary.
Loss of a large part of Old English words
Add thousands of words from French and Latin

5. Decay of Inflectional Endings
The changes in English grammar described as a
general reduction of inflectional endings of the noun
Adjective marking distinctions of number , case and
gender were altered in pronunciation as lose their
distinctive form.
The loss of inflection also appeared in verbs

6. Cont.............
• The reasons of loss of inflectional endings
1. The phonetic changes
2. The operation of analogy
 The Earliest was the change of final -m to -n either for
plural nouns or adjectives
e.g mūðum(mouths)>mūðun, gōdum>gōdun
 -n of inflectional endings was later dropped (gōdu,
mūðu)

7. Cont........
• The vowels (a,o,u,e) in inflectional endings were
transferred to a sound called indeterminate vowel
which came to be written as “e” and rarely (i,y,u).
• As a result a number of originally distinct
endings(a,u,e,an,um) reduced to a unifom -e

8. The Noun
 The most distinctive termination is the possessive
singular and of the nominative and accusative plural.
Since these two cases of the plural , were those most
frequently used. The –s came to be thought of as
the sign of the plural.
 In early Middle English only two methods of indicating
the plural remained the –s or -es (from the strong
declension and -en (oxen) from the weak declension.
 -s has become the universal sign of the plural. -s is
considered as an example of survival of fittest in language.

9. The Adjectives
• The form of the nominative singular was extended to all
cases of the singular
• In weak declensions, no longer any distinction between
singluar and plural (e.g blinda>blinde and
blindan>blinde)
• Distinctions only remained in certain monosyllabic
adjectives until around 1300

10. • In the fourteenth century final –e ceased to be
pronounced yet it was maintained in writing .
• Thus the adjective became uninflected word by the
end of the middle period.

11. The Pronouns
• The reduction of inflection was apparent in the
demonstratives
• The and that surviving through Middle English and use
today.
• A plural tho (those) survived to Elizabethan times.
• In the personal pronoun the losses were not so great.

12. • The changes happened earlier were the combination
of the dative and accusative cases under that of the
dative (him, her, them)
• The pronoun she had the form hēo in Old English. The modern
form developed from the hēo,
• By the end of the Middle English period the forms they,
their, them may be regarded as the normal English plurals.

13. The Verbs
• the verb during the Middle English period were the
serious losses suffered by the strong conjugation
• Nearly a third of the old English strong verbs died
out early in the Middle English.
• Today more than half of the Old English strong verbs
have disappeared completely from the standard language

14. • Since English was at that time the language of the lower
class and it was removed from the restraining influences of
education and literary standard, it was natural
that many speakers wrongly apply the pattern of weak
verbs to some which have been strong
• Such verbs as bow, brew, burn, climb, flee, flow, help, mourn, row, step,
walk,
• Past tense were lost and become weak
• Many strong verbs also had weak forms (blowed for blew, knowed
for knew, teared for tore) that did not survive in the standard
speech

15. Loss of Grammatical Gender
• There was not any grammatical gender in ME.
• In OE woman ( wīf-mann) was masculine, because the second
element in the compound was masculine;
• When the inflections of gender-distinguishing words were
reduced to a single ending for the adjective, and the fixed
forms of the, this, that, these, and those for the demonstratives, the
support for grammatical gender was removed.

16. • With the disappearance of grammatical gender, sex
became the only factor in determining the gender of
English nouns.

17. French Influence on Vocabulary
• Normans brought French in England. Thousands of
French words added in English Vocabulary
• French influence is much more direct and observable
upon the vocabulary. French and English Peoples lived
side by side a long time
• French words poured into English with a momentum that
continued until toward the end of the Middle English
period

18. Governmental and Administrative
Words
• English would owe many words dealing with
government and administration. It would include
crown, state, empire, reign, royal, authority, sovereign, court,
council, parliament, assembly, treaty, alliance, tax.
• The word office and the titles of many offices are likewise
French: chancellor, treasurer, chamberlain, marshal, governor,
councilor, minister, mayor
• Most designations rank are French: noble, nobility, prince,

19. Ecclesiastical Words
• we find in English such French words as religion, theology, sermon,
homily, baptism, communion, confession, penance, prayer, orison,
• indications of rank or class as clergy, clerk, prelate, cardinal, legate,
dean, chaplain, parson, pastor, vicar, sexton,novice, friar, hermit
• fundamental religious or theological concepts as creator, savior,
trinity, virgin, saint, miracle, mystery, faith, heresy, schism, reverence,
devotion,sacrilege,

20. Law
• French was so long the language of the law courts in
England
• It includes bar, suit,defendant, judge, advocate, attorney, bill,
petition, complaint, jury, panel, evidence, proof, bail, judgment,
verdict, sentence, punishment, prison,
• The names of many crimes are French: felony, trespass,
assault, arson, larceny, fraud, libel, slander, perjury, adultery,

21. Army and Navy.
• The control of the army and navy was in the hands
of those who spoke French,
• French words when we speak of the army and the navy,
of peace, enemy, arms, battle, combat, skirmish, siege, defense,
ambush, stratagem, retreat, soldier, garrison, guard, spy, and
we have kept the names of officers such as captain, lieutenant,
sergeant.

22. Fashion, Meals, and Social Life.
• The words fashion and dress are themselves French, as are
apparel, habit, gown, robe, garment, attire, cape, cloak, coat,
frock, collar, veil, train, petticoat lace, embroidery, pleat,
gusset, buckle, button,
• Meals words are toast, biscuit, cream, sugar, olives, salad,
lettuce, raisin, fig, date, grape, orange, lemon, pomegranate,
cherry, peach, spice, herb, mustard, vinegar, marjoram,
cinnamon, nutmeg.

23. Art, Learning, Medicine.
• Such words as art, painting, sculpture, music, beauty, color, figure,
image,
• Literature is represented by the word itself and by poet,
rime, prose, romance, lay, story, chronicle, tragedy, prologue, preface,
title, volume, chapter, quire, parchment, vellum, paper, and pen,
• the word medicine chirurgy, physician, surgeon, apothecary,
malady, debility, distemper, pain, ague,S paralytic, plague,anatomy,
stomach, pulse, sulphur, alkali, poison.

24. Assimilation
• Adopted French words were assimilated rapidly
• English endings were added to them
• For example gentle becomes gentleman, gentlewoman ,gentlness and gently
• Similarly faith becomes faithless, faithful, faithfulness
• The adverb ending –ly added to adjectives
• E.g commonly, courteously, feebly, peacefully

25. Loss of Native Words:
• French words came into use after Norman Conquest
• Old English words died out
• E.g O.E eam replaced by french uncle.
• Dema became judge , firen was replaced by crime.
• Many verbs died out
• E.g andettan became confess, beorgan  defend

26. Prefixes
• Old English prefixes gradually lost their vitality
• The Old English prefix for- was used
e.g. forhang, forcleave and forshake
• The only verbs in which it occurs in Modern English are
forbear, forbid, fordo, forget, forgive, forgo, forsake, forswear,
• Prefixes used today: un-, im-, counter-, dis-, re-, trans-,
over-, under-

27. Suffixes
• Decline in suffixes was less noticeable than prefixes
because some important ending have remained active
• E.g. Suffixes which are still in use: noun suffix –ness
adjective endings -ful, -less, -some, -ish
The endings -hood and -ship have had a similar history.
Manhood, womanhood, likelihood are new formations in
Middle English,

28. Latin Borrowing
in Middle English
• The influence of the Norman Conquest is generally
known as the Latin Influence
• the large number of words borrowed directly from Latin
in Middle English
• Latin was a spoken language among religious men and
men of learning
• fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were especially prolific
in Latin borrowings

29. • list of examples: abject, allegory, conspiracy, custody,
distract, frustrate, genius, gesture, history, immune, incarnate,
include,, inferior, magnify, mechanical, minor,, nervous, picture,
polite, popular,, quiet, rational, reject, subscribe, summary,,
temporal, testify, tract,
• endings like -able, -ible, -ent, -al, -ous, -ive,

30. • In addition unusual words from Latin by writers
of prose (stylistic) were borrowed.
• such words as abusion, dispone, diurne, equipolent,
palestral, and tenebrous,

31. Synonyms
• English in synonyms is largely due to the happy
mingling of Latin, French, and native elements
• E.g. ask—question— interrogate, time—age—epoch holy—
sacred—consecrated
• these sets of three words the first is English, the
second is from French, and the third from Latin

33. The Middle English Dialects
• We can distinguish four principal dialects of
Middle English Northern, East Midland, West
Midland and southern.
• Generally speaking, the Northern dialect extends as
far south as the Humber; East Mid-land and West
Midland together cover the area between the
Humber and the Thames; and Southern occupies the
district south of the Thames,

34. • These dialects differ in respect of pronunciatio
n, vocabulary and inflection
• ended in -th with some variation of the preceding vowel.
In Middle English this ending was preserved as -eth in
the Southern dialect. In the Midland district, it was
replaced by -en the north it was altered to -es,
• Thus we have loves in the north, loven in the Midlands,
and loveth in the south

35. The Rise of Standard English
• Out of this variety of local dialects emerged toward
the end of 14th century a written language
which became recognized as the standard in
speech and writing. This dialect was very close to
the East Midland dialect
• the causes for the standarization of East Midland
dialect

36. • The English of this region occupied a middle
position. Less conservative than the southern dialect and
less radical than the Northern.
• The East Midland dialect district was the largest and most
populous(inhabitance).
• The presence of the universities Oxford, Cambridge in
this region

37. London English
• The most influential factor in the rise of standard
English was the importance of London as the
capital of England. London was the political and
commercial center of England.
• In the latter part of the 15th century London English
had been accepted at least in writing in most parts of the
country
• The standarization of London dialect promoted by"
the introduction of printing in 1476.