Middle English English
Period	XI to XV century
Daughter languages	Early Modern English
Region	England
Typology	inflectional aimed at insulating
Classification by family
- Indo-European - Germanic languages - West Germanic languages - Anglo-Frisian languages - Middle English
Language codes
ISO 639-2	enm
ISO 639-3	enm
IETF	enm
change

Middle English is the name given by linguists to the various forms of the English language spoken between the Norman Conquest of England ( 1066 ) and the second half of XV ^century , when the Chancery Standard , English spoken London , became the model throughout the kingdom, a process facilitated by the introduction of printing in England by William Caxton in the 1470s and later by Richard Pynson.

At the same time, the dialect of Northumbria , spoken in south-east of Scotland , is moving to give birth to the Scots.

The language spoken in England from the late ^fifteenth century to 1650 is approximately known under the name of Early Modern English.

Unlike Old English , which tends largely to adopt the conventions of writing in the late West Saxon period immediately preceding the Conquest, Middle English, as written language, has a wide range of written forms (and probably also dialects). Nevertheless, the diversity of forms of Middle English writing does not mean that there is a wide variety of forms in English before 1066. This diversity tends to mean the end of the role of Wessex as a center of activity scriptural and the emergence of several distinct centers of written English or dialects. Over the centuries, areas such as Northumbria, the East Anglia and London will gradually emerge and establish themselves as indispensable centers of literary production, with their characteristics.

Middle English was one of five languages spoken in medieval England. Having never been adopted by the Roman Catholic Church , which has always preferred the Latin , Middle English lost its status as a language of the Court of literature and documentation , being largely supplanted by the Anglo-Norman. He remained, however, the language spoken by the people and can, therefore, be considered the only vernacular English, which was also taught to the Court from the mid- ^twelfth century , as Anglo-Norman Latin. In western regions, we also spoke other vernacular languages like Welsh and Cornish. The English did not cease to be employed at the Court - it was used in particular in the drafting of most charts - neither in literary production. Even during what was called the era "lost" in English literary history - from the late ^eleventh century to the middle of the ^twelfth century - in Old English texts continued to be copied, used and adapted by copyists , including homilies , the hagiographies and text grammar. From the late ^twelfth century to the ^thirteenth century were produced enormous masses of written works such as songs, hagiographies , books of devotion, of encyclopedias , of poems about the morality (and often also on the immorality ), trade and other texts, mostly unstudied, partly because it patterns out classics.

Middle English is more familiar than the language used in poetry Riccardiano and those who followed him - the literary cultures of the ^fourteenth century and ^fifteenth century formed around the West Midlands and in East Anglia and in the London area. This includes the works of William Langland , Geoffrey Chaucer , Lydgate , Gower , Malory , Caxton , and Hoccleve. The best known of these authors is probably Chaucer for his Canterbury Tales and other short poems, in which he reinvents on the basis of old traditions without abandoning them altogether.

History

The ^Eleventh Century

Although it is difficult to estimate the culture shock has represented the transfer of power in England in 1066, the loss of Old English at the top of the highest institutions of the country, both political and ecclesiastical, and substituting by Anglo-Norman, opened the way for the introduction of French in the arts and literature and oratory altrrent basically its role in education and administration. Although Old English was not in any way as standardized as modern English, its written forms were subject to less variation than English by 1066.

Even today, nearly a thousand years later, the Norman influence is still seen in the English language. The pairs of words after the show. The first word comes from Old English and the second is of Franco / Anglo-Norman: pig / pork - cow / beef - wood / forest - sheep / mutton - house / mansion - Worthy / honors - Bold / Courageous.

The role of the Anglo-Norman as the language of governance and law are also noted in the abundance of words that has the modern English to describe forms of government inspired by the Normans: court, judge, jury, appeal, parliament. Other areas are covered, such as chivalry , which was founded in XII ^century in response to feudalism and the Crusades. From the outset, this vocabulary of civilized behavior begins to make its way into the English language: the word appears debonaire in 1137 in the Peterborough Chronicle , as well as castle , another import Norman imposing its mark on the territory of the language English as that of England itself.

This period of three languages coexist simultaneously promotes the development of synonyms in modern English. Thus, English has three words which mean "a king" (or "bound to a king"):

• Kingly, derived from Old English,
• Royal, derived from French and
• Regal, derived from Latin.

More radical changes still appear in the grammar. Gradually, as we have seen, wants to anglicize everyday life, despite the predominance of French, which remains the language of literature and justice for even centuries, and despite the loss of most of the possessions English on the continent. The new English does not resemble the old. Old English had a complex system of endings inflected , but they disappear progressively become simpler in the dialects of English spoken. Gradually, the change is felt in the written forms of language. This fixing of the terminations is not only due to the Francophone population living on English soil. At the same time, other Germanic languages undergo the same transformation. English remains the common language, and most likely also a literary language, on par with the Anglo-Norman and Latin from the ^twelfth century to the ^fourteenth century. At the end of the ^fourteenth century , the standard of Chancery (The Chancery Standard), also called "English in London" - a phenomenon caused by the concentration of the bureaucracy in London and a concomitant increase in the London literary production - tends to standardize the spelling of English. While in Middle English literature tends to be popularized in the late ^fourteenth century with the works of Chaucer and Gower , an immense body of literature gets past centuries.

The ^fourteenth century

The ^fourteenth century marks a stronger job of English, even among the upper strata of society. Since 1360 , the Parliament of England, employing more and more English, while the Court of King speaks mostly in English since the days of Henry V ( crowned in 1413 ). With the standardization of the language, English is beginning to present a syntax and form grammatical recognizable, that we will return later in the dialects ^Construction

With its simplified endings , Middle English is closer to modern English as its equivalent before 1066.

Names

Despite the abandonment of the system slightly more complex inflected endings, Middle English retains two distinct forms of endings borrowed from the Old English. Compare, for example, the words of Middle English engel (angel) and nome (name):

The plural-sa fort survived into modern English, while the low-n plural is more rare these days, although he remained: oxen (oxen), children ("children"), brethren (" brothers "), and in some dialects: Eyen (instead of eyes," eyes "), Shoon (instead of shoes," shoes ") and kine (instead of cows," cows ").

Verbs

In general, the first person singular in verbs in the present of the indicative ending in-e (ich here), the second person in - (e) st (thou spekest), and the third person-ETH (he COMETH) . In the past , weak verbs have endings in-ed (e)-d (e) or-t (e). The strong verbs form their hand in time by changing the vowel of the root (eg. Binden bound), as in modern English.

Pronouns

English after 1066 inherited from its Old English pronouns:

Pronouns of the first and second persons have survived without major change, although with slight spelling changes. For the third person, masculine singular accusative HIM has become in modern English. The feminine form was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that has gradually evolved into the modern feminine pronoun she . The lack of a standard written between the ^eleventh century and the ^fifteenth century to date prevents precisely this evolution.

Pronunciation

In general, all letters are pronounced in Middle English . Thus, the word Knight ("Knight") is pronounced (if k of the word is more pronounced today, it was then), the digraph gh is pronounced like the German ch nicht. In modern English, this name is pronounced

A word like straunge is disyllabic; palmeres is trisyllabic.

Characters archaic

Subsequent characters can surprise a modern reader. They were nevertheless employed in Middle English texts:

The standard of the Chancellery

The standard of the Chancery was a written form of English used in the government bureaucracy and other official purposes, in the late ^fourteenth century. It is estimated that this standard has contributed significantly to the emergence of modern English. Because of the many dialects of English spoken and written at that time in the country, the government needed a clear and unambiguous standard for the writing of official documents. With this in mind that the standard was created by the Chancellery.

History of Standard of Chancery

This standard was developed during the reign of King Henry V ( 1413 - 1 422 ) to meet its commitment in favor of the governing body's use of English to that of the Anglo-Norman or Latin. This standard was highly standardized in the 1430s. It was inspired mainly dialects spoken in London and the East Midlands who were major regions in terms of demographics and politics. Nevertheless, some elements from other dialects there were incorporated that allowed to clarify expressions. For example, forms the north that are Theys, and Their themes were preferred to the hi / they, ahem hir and London, probably because there was a likelihood of confusion with words like he, HIM or Her.

In the early stages of its development, the clerics who used it were more familiar with French and Latin. Fixed grammars of these languages influenced the formation of the standard for the English language. It was not the only influences which contributed to the formation of this standard, but it allowed to create a nucleus around which the Middle English could crystallize.

In the mid- ^fifteenth century , the standard of Chancery was used in all official documents, except the church, which continued to speak Latin, and in some areas of law, where it employed preferably French and Latin. This "new English" was gradually spread throughout the country by bureaucracy and gradually gained popularity.

In addition, the standard of Chancery had the advantage of providing a widely understandable English and whose first printers ( XV ^century ) favored the expansion.

Sample text

The following are the opening sentences of the prologue of the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. The first column provides the text in Middle English, the second in modern English:

References

Source

• (In) This article is partially or entirely from the article in English entitled " Middle Franais "(see the list of authors )

See also

• Fernand Moss, Handbook of English Middle Ages, Volume II, 1945.
• Marguerite-Marie Dubois , English literature of the Middle Ages, Paris, PUF, 1962.
• Andr Crpin , Two thousand years of English, Paris, Nathan, 1994.
• Chevillet Francis, History of the English language, al. What Do I know?, No. 1265, Paris, PUF, 1994.
• Leo Carruthers , The Medieval English: An Introduction, translated and annotated texts, Workshop medievalist, No. 4, Paris & Turnhout, Brepols, 1996.
• Hlne Dauby, Exercises on the history of English, Paris, AMAES, Occasional Paper No. 3 , 1997.

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External link

• (In) Middle English Dictionary Online.

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