Untitled Quiz

Middle English Period

• Began after the Norman Conquest of 1066
• Influenced by languages like Scandinavian and Norman French
• Norman French used in courts while English was spoken by common people
• Merged into Middle English in the 1300s
• Retained its Saxon character despite the influence of Norman French

Dialects

• Northern: North of the Humber and Lowlands of Scotland
• Midland: Vast central area, North of the Thames and South of the Humber
  • East Midland: Chaucer's dialect
  • West Midland
  • South Midland
  • North Midland
  • Central Midland
• Southern: South of the Thames
  • South-Eastern
  • South-Western

Grammar

• Period of leveled inflections
• Final unaccented syllables reduced to "-e" with phonetic value (e.g., "sweete")
• General plural marker in most dialects: "-en"
• Preferred plural marker in East Midland dialect: "-es"
• Suffix "-en" added to infinitive verbs, "to" was later added, then "-en" dropped (e.g., "To Sleep" = "To Sleepen", "To Sing" = "To Singen")
• Genderless indeclinable "the" introduced
• Gender became based on common sense and logic
• Personal pronoun "she" was introduced

Spelling

• French and Norman French orthography influenced spelling changes
• Old English phonetic habits disappeared due to French scribes who were copyists
• This caused confusion in spelling, introducing new spellings to words that retained their pronunciation (e.g., "ou" in "mouse" and "house")
• Many long vowel sounds were marked by double letters (e.g., "boc" = "booc", "se" = "see")
• Trailing "e" was often not pronounced but retained in spelling to indicate long vowels (e.g., Nose, Mole, Name)
• The long vowel "a" of Old English became more of an "o" in Middle English (e.g., "Ham" = "Home", "Stan" = "Stone", "Ban" = "Bone")
• Short vowels were identified by consonant doubling (e.g., "Siting" = "Sitting")
• "C" changed into "K" before front vowels (e.g., "Keep", "Kit", "Kelp")
• "C" retained its form before back vowels (e.g., "Cool", "Come", "Cope")
• "C" came to be pronounced as "S" before front vowels due to French influence (e.g., "City", "Receive", "Receipt")

Vocabulary

• French was used in Parliament, law courts, and schools
• English and French words side by side gave rise to synonyms, with different meanings (e.g., "Wed" and "Marry")
• Word Derivation
  • Based on Native Elements
  • Based on a mixture of elements
    • Native suffixes + Borrowed words (e.g., Unfaithful, beautiful, courtship)
    • Compounding (e.g., Gentle + Woman = Gentlewoman)
• Many cooking and food-related terms are French
• Domestic animals retained their English names in the fields, but gained French names when served on the table of Norman lords (e.g., Cow = Beef, Calf = Veal, Deer = Venison, Pig = Pork, Sheep = Mutton)
• Normans introduced words related to the feudal system (e.g., Prince, Peer, Duke, Baron, Castle)
• The English "Villain" came from the French "Villain" meaning "Labourer."

Literature

• Between 1100 and 1500
• Reflects historical, social, and linguistic transformations of the time
• Three main categories:
  • Religious: focused on Christianity, moral lessons, and religious teaching (e.g., medieval miracle plays, devotional texts, hagiographies, religious poetry)
  • Courtly Love: idealized and often illicit forms of love associated with nobility (e.g., love, chivalry, honor, idealization of the beloved)
  • Arthurian: revolved around the legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin, and the Quest for the Holy Grail (e.g., elements of history, mythology, and romance)
• Notable poets included Lydgate, Hoccleve, Skelton, Hawes

Pronunciation

• Vowel + consonant + vowel = Long First Vowel (e.g., Open, Irate, Unite)
• Vowel + consonant + consonant = Short Vowel (e.g., Offend, Instance, Upper)
• Vowel at the end of the word = Long Vowel (e.g., Anti, Multi, Fungi)
• "y" had a long "i" sound (e.g., "Knight" was often written as "Knyght")