Test Your Knowledge of Middle English

Middle English: A Summary

• Middle English (ME) was spoken from the 12th to the 15th centuries and followed the Old English period.

• During this stage, there were significant changes to vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography.

• Writing conventions varied widely, and the language became fragmented and localized.

• A standard based on the London dialects (Chancery Standard) became established by the end of the period.

• Scots developed concurrently from a variant of the Northumbrian dialect.

• Many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether.

• Norse had a significant impact on Middle and Modern English development.

• The loss of case endings was part of a general trend from inflections to fixed word order.

• Geoffrey Chaucer is the most well-known writer of Middle English.

• The Chancery Standard emerged in the late Middle English period and was used by bureaucrats for most official purposes.

• The main changes in sound systems from Old English to Middle English include vowel changes and the Great Vowel Shift.

• Middle English retains only two distinct noun-ending patterns from the more complex system of inflection in Old English.Overview of Middle English Language

• Middle English nouns are inflected for case and gender. Masculine nouns are referred to with the accusative adjective ending -ne.

• Adjectives are inflected with -e when modifying a noun in the plural, after the definite article, after a demonstrative, after a possessive pronoun, or with a name or in a form of address.

• Comparatives and superlatives are usually formed by adding -er and -est. Adjectives with long vowels sometimes shorten these vowels in the comparative and superlative.

• Middle English personal pronouns were mostly developed from those of Old English. The third-person plural is a borrowing from Old Norse. The nominative form of the feminine third-person singular was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into sche (modern she).

• Verbs in the present tense end in -e, -(e)st, and -eþ for the first, second, and third-person singular, respectively. Plural forms vary by dialect.

• The past tense of weak verbs is formed by adding an -ed(e), -d(e) or -t(e) ending. Strong verbs form their past tense by changing their stem vowel.

• Middle English orthography was based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Spelling was mostly regular, except for the silent letter ⟨e⟩, which indicated a lengthened and modified pronunciation of a preceding vowel.

• The basic Old English Latin alphabet had 20 standard letters plus four additional letters: ash ⟨æ⟩, eth ⟨ð⟩, thorn ⟨þ⟩ and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩. Yogh, written ⟨ȝ⟩, was used for a variety of sounds.

• Middle English spelling was never fully standardized. Many scribal abbreviations were used, and the Lollards often abbreviated the name of Jesus to ihc.