Middle English

LECTURE 3
MIDDLE ENGLISH
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
List of principal questions:
1. Outer history
Scandinavian Invasion
Norman Conquest
Formation of the English national language
2. Inner history
Phonetics
Grammar
Word-stock
1. Outer history
LI. Scandinavian Invasion
The end of the Old English period and the beginning of Middle English is marked by two outstanding political events — the Scandinavian invasion and the
Norman conquest.
It is impossible to state the exact date of the Scandinavian invasion as it was a long process embracing over two centuries, the first inroads of the Scandinavian
Vikings having began as far back as the end of the 8th century. Various
Scandinavian adventurers at the head of their troops came to England wave after wave, although the English offered the invaders a stubborn resistance. At first the invaders fought with the natives, robbed and plundered the country, but later they began to settle on the lands they had managed to conquer. The part of England which suffered more from the invasion was the North-Eastern part of the country.
From that part the invaders trying to conquer the whole of the country gradually proceeded to the South-West.
The kingdom that was the strongest among many existing in Britain at that time and that could consequently withstand the invasion more successfully than any other was the Wessex kingdom, especially under the rule of King Alfred the
Great. King Alfred the Great was so powerful and successful in his struggle against the invaders that hostilities ceased for a time and a peace treaty was concluded — the Treaty of Wedmore, in accordance with which the territory of the country was subdivided into two parts: the south-western part remained English under the rule of King Alfred and the north-eastern part was to be Scandinavian. That part was referred to as Danela or Danelaw, i.e. the territory which was under the rale of
Scandinavians, or "Danes". The Scandinavians in England remained very strong through centuries, and at the beginning of the II"1 century, namely in the period between 1016 and 1042 the whole of England came under the Scandinavian rule — the conquest was completed and the Danish king was seated on the English throne. Although in 1042
England was back under English power, the English king who came to the throne
— Edward the Confessor — was to be the last English king for more than three centuries. The Scandinavian invasion and the subsequent settlement of the Scandinavian on the territory of England, the constant contacts and intermixture of the English and the Scandinavians brought about many changes in different spheres of the
English language: word-stock, grammar and phonetics. The influence of
Scandinavian dialects was especially felt in the North and East parts of England, where mass settlement of the invaders and intermarriages with the local population were especially common. The relative ease of the mutual penetration of the languages was conditioned by the circumstances of the Anglo-Scandinavian contacts, i.e.: a) There existed no political or social barriers between the English and the
Scandinavians, the latter not having formed the ruling class of the society but living on an equal footing with the English b) There were no cultural barriers between the two people as they were approximately the same in their culture, habits and customs due to their common origin, both of the nations being Germanic. c) The language difference was not so strong as to make their mutual understanding impossible, as their speech developed from the same source —
Common Germanic, and the words composing the basic word-stock of both the languages were the same, and the grammar systems similar in essence. understanding impossible, as their speech developed from the same source —
Common Germanic, and the words composing the basic word-stock of both the languages were the same, and the grammar systems similar in essence.
1.2. Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest began in 1066. The Normans were by origin a
Scandinavian tribe who two centuries back began their inroads on the Northern part of France and finally occupied the territory on both shores of the Seine. The
French King Charles the Simple ceded to the Normans the territory occupied by them, which came to be called Normandy. The Normans adopted the French language and culture, and when they came to Britain they brought with them the
French language. In 1066 King Edward the Confessor died, and the Norman Duke William, profiting by the weakness of King Harold who succeeded King Edward on the
English throne, invaded England. He assembled an army, landed in England and in a battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066 managed to defeat Harold and proclaimed himself King of England. The Norman conquest had far-reaching consequences for the English people and the English language. The English nobility perished through different reasons and was replaced by the Norman barons. The new king William confiscated the estates of the Anglo-
Saxons nobility and distributed them among the Norman barons. The Norman conquerors continued pouring into England thousands after thousands, years and years after the conquest, and during the reign of King William over 200,000
Frenchmen settled in England and occupied all positions of prominence in the country, be it in court, Parliament, Church or school. The heritage of the Norman Conquest was manifold. It united England to
Western Europe, opening the gates to European culture and institutions, theology, philosophy and science. The Conquest in effect meant a social revolution in
England. The lands of the Saxon aristocracy were divided up among the
Normans, who by 1087 composed almost 10% of the total population. Each
Great. King Alfred the Great was so powerful and successful in his struggle against the invaders that hostilities ceased for a time and a peace treaty was concluded — the Treaty of Wedmore, in accordance with which the territory of the country was subdivided into two parts: the south-western part remained English under the rule of King Alfred and the north-eastern part was to be Scandinavian. That part was referred to as Danela or Danelaw, i.e. the territory which was under the rale of
Scandinavians, or "Danes". The Scandinavians in England remained very strong through centuries, and at the beginning of the II"1 century, namely in the period between 1016 and 1042 the whole of England came under the Scandinavian rule — the conquest was completed and the Danish king was seated on the English throne. Although in 1042
England was back under English power, the English king who came to the throne
— Edward the Confessor — was to be the last English king for more than three centuries. The Scandinavian invasion and the subsequent settlement of the Scandinavian on the territory of England, the constant contacts and intermixture of the English and the Scandinavians brought about many changes in different spheres of the
English language: word-stock, grammar and phonetics. The influence of
Scandinavian dialects was especially felt in the North and East parts of England, where mass settlement of the invaders and intermarriages with the local population were especially common. The relative ease of the mutual penetration of the languages was conditioned by the circumstances of the Anglo-Scandinavian contacts, i.e.: a) There existed no political or social barriers between the English and the Scandinavians, the latter not having formed the ruling class of the society butliving on an equal footing with the Englishb) there were no cultural barriers between the two people as they were approximately the same in their culture, habits and customs due to their common origin, both of the nations being Germanic. c) The language difference was not so strong as to make their mutual

Landlord, in return for his land, had to take an oath of allegiance to the king and provide him with military services if and when required. The Saxon machinery of government was immensely reinforced, with a
Norman monarch and his officials as effective centralised controllers. Royal power was spread to provinces, royal justice was much more impartially done. The
Normans created a strong medieval monarchy which was gradually to complete the unification of England. The 13th century witnessed the appearance of the first Parliament, or a council of barons, which later was changed to a national Parliament, representing the nobility, clergy, knights of the shires and major cities. The Norman conquerors, though Germanic by origin, were French by their language, habits and customs. They were a people and a class that stood aloof from the conquered English, whose habits and customs they despised and whose language they could not understand. They spoke French and addressed people in French. They taught their phildren French — the only language they could speak, which is noticed by many writers and scholars. And for more than two centuries after the conquest the English country was ruled by French-speaking Kings and nobility, and t he French language was the state language of the country. The Norman Conquest put an end to the West Saxon literary language. But eventually after a prolonged struggle the English language got ascendance over French and again became the state language of the country. The victorious and defeated peoples continued to speak their own languages. The language spoken and written by the English continued to develop in accordance with tendencies already active before the conquest. The English language emerged after the struggle, but it came in a different position. Its vocabulary was enriched by a great number of French words and its grammatical structure underwent material changes. . They generally mention the following decisive steps in the way upward of the English language after the Norman conquest:
a) 1258 —Proclamation of King Henry III was published besides French also in English; b) 1362 — the English language became the language of Parliament, courts of law; later, at the end of the century — the language of teaching; c) the rule of King Henry IV (1399—1413) - the first king after the conquest whose native tongue was English.
The end of the 14th century also saw the first "English" translation of the Bible, and Chaucer was writing his "English" masterpieces. The new merchant class and the spread of lay learning were building a national civilisation, and by the end of the century French had probably died out as a spoken language.

1.3. Formation of the English national language We can speak about the English national language as a language understood and mainly used throughout the country beginning with late Middle English —
Early New English. They generally say that the end of the Middle English period and the beginning of New English is marked by the following events in the life of the'English people: 1. The end of the war between the White and the Red Rose — 1485 and the establishment of an absolute monarchy on the British soil with Henry Tudor as the first absolute monarch — the political expression of the English nation. The War of the Roses (1455—1485) was the most important event of the 15th century which marked the decay of feudalism and the birth of a new social order. It signified the rise of an absolute monarchy in England and a political centralisation, and consequently a linguistic centralisation leading to a predominance of the national language over local dialects.
2. The introduction of printing — 1477 by William Caxton (1422— 1490).
Printing was invented in Germany by Johann Gutenberg in 1438. It quickly spread to other countries and England was among them. The first English printing office was founded in 1476 by William Caxton, and in 1477 there appeared the first book to be printed in England called The Dictes and Sayings of the
Philosophers. The appearance of a considerable number of printed books contributed, to the normalisation of spelling and grammar forms fostering the

choice of a single variant over others. William Caxton established a printing-press at Westminster, from which he issued a stream of books, many of them translated from Latin and French by himself. Caxton, a native of Kent, acquired the London dialect and made a conscious choice from among competing variants, which he even described in a preface to one of his translations, saying that he had submitted it to princess Margaret, sister of the then king, and "anon she found a default in my
English which she commanded me to amend." Since that time — the end of the I5th century the English language began its development as the language of the English nation, whereas up to that time, beginning with the Germanic conquest of Britain in the 5th century and up to the
15th century, what we call the English language was no more than a conglomerate of dialects, first tribal and then local. Indeed, a notable feature of the Middle
English period is the dialectical variety that finds expression in the written documents. It was only late in the 14th century that the London dialect, itself a mixture of I he southern and south-eastern dialects, began to emerge as the dominant type.
Thus, the English national language was formed on the basis of the London
*
dialect which was uppermost among Middle English dialects due to the political, geographical, economic and "linguistic" position of London which became the capital of England already in the 11"1 century — before the Norman conquest and which was in the 15th century a thriving economic centre and port of England due to its geographical position near the estuary of the largest river in England. The geographical position of London as a large port and city in the centre of the country where people of the North mingled with people of the South, on the one hand, enabled the Londoners to acquire features of both southern and northern dialects, and on the other hand, the people coming to London helped to spread the
London dialect all over the country. The importance of the London dialect as the foundation of the English national language grew also because of the fact that many of the best writers of the
14th—15th centuries, and Geoffrey Chaucer among them, whose poetry achieved tremendous contemporary prestige and popularity, were Londoners or used the
London dialect in their writings. As we have said, the 15th century is generally referred to as the time of the beginning of the English national language. But the literary norm of the language was established later, already in Early New English, many English authors of the forthcoming centuries contributing to it, among them such as Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and, finally, William
Shakespeare.
2. Inner history The Middle English period was a time of unprecedentedly rapid development of the language. For the first three centuries English was only a spoken language, and as such had no norm and could develop without any restrain. All the elements of the language changed fundamentally.
2.1. Phonetics The stress is dynamic and fixed in the native words. But in the borrowed
French words the stress was on the last syllable: licour [li'ku:r], nature [na'tu:r], etc.
New consonant sounds developed in native words. The resonance of the consonant does not depend so much on the position of the consonant, and voiced consonants can appear not only in intervocal, but also in initial and other positions.
Vowels in unstressed position were reduced:
Old English Middle English
3. the English and the Scandinavians had similar culture, habits, customs, traditions; the French and the English — different; that is why the assimilation of the French words could not proceed so quickly and intensively as that of Scandinavian.
The principal means of enriching vocabulary were thus outer means, i.e. - - borrowings. A,O > E These sounds were in the end of the word, and it neutralised the difference between the suffixes — the main grammar means. Vowels under stress underwent mainly quantitative changes. In Middle
English we observe a rhythmic tendency, the aim of which is to obliterate overlong / and overshort sequences. The tendency is to have in the word one long vowel + one consonant or one short vowel + two consonants.

2.2. Grammar The grammar gradually but very quickly changed fundamentally. : the old ENGLISH was a synthetic language , the middle at the end of Period: analytical language. The principal grammatical means of Old English were preserved but were no longer principal. At the end of the Middle English period the anatytical mean, which began developing in the middle English are predominant:
1) analytical verb forms;
2) the use of the prepositions for grammatical purposes.
3) A fixed word order began to develop

2.3. Word stock

In the middle English it underwent fundamental changes and became almost new/ if in old english the word stock was almost completely native in the middle English there were many borrowings the principal sources of them were: 1) Scandinavian (those who came at the end of old period 500 words take, give, sky, wrong, ect)

2) French ( Normans conquerors) over 3500 words ( government, army, battle) the number of French words is greater all the Scandinavian word common an colloquial every day indispensable entered in every core of the language and their influence is very great.
The Scandinavian borrowings are intensive and French and French extencive

• Scandinavian+ English = very common similar linguistically ( bouth Germanic) English and French different ( German and Roman groups) • English and Scandinavian similar socially nations frmed upper class English and French – different class- English speaking class- the lower class • English_and Scandinavians has the similar culture, habits, customs,traditions,and French are different
That’s why French assimilation could not proceed so quickly and intensively as that Scandinavians the principal means of enriching vocabulary were thus outer means – borrowings