History of the English Language

Part II

Middle English

1066 AD - ~1500AD

From Old English to Middle English, only

two major consonant sounds were added: [v] and [z]. ex. view, have ex. size, wise

Vowels, on the other hand, went through a number of minor changes.

What did Middle English Sound Like?

While a number of OE vowel sounds

remained in use during the ME period, about half of the vowels became longer when people spoke, as compared to when the same word was spoken during the OE period. Ex. hus hūs house Ex. scinan scīn shine

Side note: this phenomenon is also why we have the words shine and sheen, which both mean essentially the same thing when used as nouns.

Middle English Vowels

The Middle English Alphabet looked a lot like

the Old English Alphabet, with the addition/subtraction of a few letters

What did Middle English Look Like?

abcdef gᵹhi/j

k l mnopqr s t þuvwxyz

Fairly early in the Middle English period, English-

speakers began to simplify their system of inflections. One of the easiest ways to see this is to compare the

Old English and Middle English pronouns:

What Happened to Inflections?

Singular Plural

Subject ObjectPossessiv

eSubject Object Possessive

FirstikichI

me my(n) we us oure

Secondþouthou

þeethee

þy(n) thy(n)

ȝeye

ȝowyou

ȝoweryour

Third

Impersonal hit hit / him his

heþeithey

hemþemthem

herþeirtheir

Masculine he him his

Feminineȝhoscho sche

hire hire

While many of the inflections from Old

English had been simplified, Middle English still retained a few and even added one very important new one from French: -ing

The Middle English period also saw the beginning of using verb phrases in sentences to substitute for the lack of inflections to mark tense. Ex. Ic cume I am com I have come

Middle English Verbs

Besides the obvious amount of French

loanwords due to the Norman Conquest of England, other languages like Old Norse also added to the English lexicon: Ex. anger, bad, cake, cast, clip, ransack, sale,

skin, thrive, thrust, ugly, window Old Norse was also a large influence around the

time the English began using surnames and is the origin of the suffix –son common even to this day.

Besides loanwords, English continued to make new words in a number of ways.

Where do New Words Come From?

While the processes used to form new words

was used during the Old English period as well, with the loss of inflections, English needed new words to fill the gap so English speakers began to use these more often. Compounding: combining two words together.

Ex. windfall, gentleman, quicksand, nosebleed, whirlwind, babysit, etc.

Affixing: adding prefixes or suffixes. Ex. withstand, forsake, motherhood, counterclaim,

restore, etc.

Forming New Words

By this period, the sentences and clauses of

Middle English were looking a lot like Modern English, with SVO emerging as the dominant structure.

There were a few exceptions, but one trend had its beginning in Middle English: the use of definite and indefinite articles.

Middle English Syntax

Definite Indefinite

þe, þat, þise, þo a, an

Middle English was the period that introduced the

consonants [v] and [z] to the language, and many vowels began being pronounced longer than they had previously.

Along with the addition of thousands of loanwords, Middle English also saw the loss of many Old English inflections, resulting in an increase in new word formation.

SVO became the dominant word-order and English writers began using verb phrases rather than single verbs to clarify tense.

Review

Quiz

Define the following terms:Compounding

Affixing