Lecture #10 The main historical events of Middle English period

The Middle English period (1150-1500) was marked by momentous changes in the English language, changes more extensive and fundamental than those that have taken place at any time before or since. Some of them were the result of the Norman Conquest and the conditions which followed in the wake of that event. Others were a continuation of tendencies that had begun to manifest themselves in Old English. These would have gone on even without the Conquest, but they took place more rapidly because the Norman invasion removed from English those conservative influences that are always felt when a language is extensively used in books and is spoken by an influential educated class. The changes of this period affected English in both its grammar and its vocabulary. They were so extensive in each department that it is difficult to say which group is the more significant. Those in the grammar reduced English from a highly inflected language to an extremely analytic one. Those in the vocabulary involved the loss of a large part of the Old English word-stock and the addition of thousands of words from French and Latin. At the beginning of the period English is a language that must be learned like a foreign tongue; at the end it is Modern English. Finally, the influence of French may be seen in numerous phrases and turns of expression, such as to take leave, to draw near, to hold one's peace, to come to a head, to do justice, or make believe, hand to hand, on tfie point of, accordlng to, subject to, at farge, by heart, in vain, without fail. In these and other phrases, even when the words are English the pattern is French. These four lists have been presented for the general impression which they create and as the basis for an inference which they clearly justify. This is, that so far as the vocabulary is concerned, what we have in the influence of the Norman Conquest is a merging of the resources of two languages, a merger in which thousands of words in common use in each language became partners in a reorganized concern.It will be observed that the French words introduced into English as a result of the Norman Conquest often present an appearance quite different from that which they have in Modern French. This is due first of all to subsequent developments that have taken place in the two languages. Thus the OE feste passed into Middle English as feste, whence it has become feast in Modern ­English, while in French the s disappeared before other consonants at the end of the twelfth century and we have in Modern French the form fete. The same difference appears in forest- foret, hostel-hotel, beast- bete, and many other words. The difference is not always fully revealed by the spelling but is apparent in the pronunciation. Thus the English words judge and chant preserve the early French pronunciation of j and ch, which was softened in French in the thirteenth century to [z] and [s] as in the Modern French juge and chant. Therefore we may recognize charge, change, chamber, chase, chair, chimney, just, jewel, journey, majesty, gentle, and many other words as early borrowings, while such words as chamois, chaperon, chiffon, chevron, jabot, rouge, and the like, show by their pronunciation that they have come into the language at a later date.