Middle English

Short description: English language during the Middle Ages

Middle English

Englisch
English
Inglis

A page from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, published in the late 14th century

Region| England (except for west Cornwall), some localities in the eastern fringe of Wales, south east Scotland and Scottish burghs, to some extent Ireland
Era| developed into Early Modern English, Early Scots, Fingallian and Yola by the 15th century

Language family

Indo-European

* Germanic
* West Germanic
* North Sea Germanic
* Anglo-Frisian
* Anglic
* Middle English

Early form

Old English

Writing system

| Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-1| `enm`
ISO 639-3| `enm`
ISO 639-6| `meng`
Glottolog| `midd1317`[1]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Middle English (abbreviated to ME)[2] is the forms of the English language that were spoken in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century, roughly coinciding with the High and Late Middle Ages.[3] The Middle English dialects displaced the Old English dialects under the influence of Anglo-Norman French and Old Norse, and were in turn replaced in England by Early Modern English.

Middle English had significant regional variety and churn in its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography.[4] The main dialects were Northern, East Midland, West Midland, and Southern in England, as well as Early Scots and the Irish Fingallian and Yola.

During the Middle English period, many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether. Noun, adjective, and verb inflections were simplified by the reduction (and eventual elimination) of most grammatical case distinctions. Middle English also saw considerable adoption of Anglo-Norman vocabulary, especially in the areas of politics, law, the arts, and religion, as well as poetic and emotive diction. Conventional English vocabulary remained primarily Germanic in its sources, with Old Norse influences becoming more apparent. Significant changes in pronunciation took place, particularly involving long vowels and diphthongs, which in the later Middle English period began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift.

Little survives of early Middle English literature, due in part to Norman domination and the prestige that came with writing in French rather than English. During the 14th century, a new style of literature emerged with the works of writers including John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales remains the most studied and read work of the period.[6]

By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, a standard based on the London dialects (Chancery Standard) had become established. This largely formed the basis for Modern English spelling, although pronunciation has changed considerably since that time. In England, Middle English was succeeded by Early Modern English, which lasted until about 1650. In Scotland, Scots developed concurrently from a variant of the Northumbrian dialect (prevalent in Northern England and spoken in southeast Scotland).

## Contents

* 1 History
* 1.1 Transition from Old English
* 1.2 Early Middle English
* 1.3 Late Middle English
* 1.4 Transition to Early Modern English
* 2 Phonology
* 3 Morphology
* 3.1 Nouns
* 3.2 Adjectives
* 3.3 Pronouns
* 3.4 Verbs
* 4 Orthography
* 4.1 Alphabet
* 4.2 Other symbols
* 4.3 Letter-to-sound correspondences
* 5 Sample texts
* 5.1 Ormulum, 12th century
* 5.2 Epitaph of John the smyth, died 1371
* 5.3 Pre-Wycliffite Bibles
* 5.4 Wycliffite Bibles
* 5.5 Chaucer, 1390s
* 5.6 Gower, 1390
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 External links

## History

### Transition from Old English

The dialects of Middle English c. 1300

The transition from Late Old English to Early Middle English had taken place by the 1150s to 1180s, the period when the Augustinian canon Orrm wrote the Ormulum, one of the oldest surviving texts in Middle English.[7]

Contact with Old Norse aided the development of English from a synthetic language with relatively free word order to a more analytic language with a stricter word order, as both Old English and Old Norse were synthetic languages with complicated inflections. Communication between Vikings in the Danelaw and their Anglo-Saxon neighbours resulted in the erosion of inflection in both languages; this effect was characterized as being of a "substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic" manner. Like close cousins, Old Norse and Old English resembled each other, and with a lot of vocabulary and grammatical structures in common, speakers of each language roughly understood each other, but according to the historian Simeon Potler, the main difference lay in their inflectional endings, which led to much confusion within the mixed population that existed in the Danelaw, thus endings tended gradually to become obscured and finally lost, "simplifying English grammar" in the process,[4][8][9][10] leading to the emergence of the analytic pattern.[11][12] The dramatic changes that happened in English contribute to the acceptance of the hypothesis that Old Norse had a more profound impact on the development of Middle and Modern English than any other language.[13][14][15]

Viking influence on Old English is most apparent in pronouns, modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like hence and together), conjunctions, and prepositions show the most marked Danish influence. The best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in extensive word borrowings; however, texts from the period in Scandinavia and Northern England do not provide certain evidence of an influence on syntax.

While the Old Norse influence was strongest in the dialects under Danish control, which approximately covered Yorkshire, the central and eastern Midlands, and the East of England, words in the spoken language emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries near the transition from Old to Middle English. Influence on the written languages only appeared from the beginning of the 13th century onwards;[8] this delay in Scandinavian lexical influence in English has been attributed to the lack of written evidence from the areas of Danish control, as the majority of written sources from Old English were produced in the West Saxon dialect spoken in Wessex, the heart of Anglo-Saxon political power at the time.[16]

The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 saw the replacement of the top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by Norman rulers who spoke a dialect of Old French, now known as Old Norman, which developed in England into Anglo-Norman. The use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on the clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number of Norman words were borrowed into English and used alongside native Germanic words with similar meanings. Examples of Germanic/Norman pairs in Modern English include pig and pork, calf and veal, wood and forest, and freedom and liberty.[17] The role of Anglo-Norman as the language of government and law can be seen in the abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of government that are derived from Anglo-Norman, such as court, judge, jury, appeal, and parliament. There are also many Norman-derived terms relating to the chivalric cultures that arose in the 12th century, an era of feudalism, seigneurialism, and crusading.

Words were often taken from Latin, usually through French transmission. This gave rise to various synonyms, including kingly (inherited from Old English), royal (from French, inherited from Vulgar Latin), and regal (from French, which borrowed it from Classical Latin). Later French appropriations were derived from standard, rather than Norman, French. Examples of the resulting doublet pairs include warden (from Norman) and guardian (from later French; both share a common ancestor loaned from Germanic).[18]

The end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not result in immediate changes to the language. The general population would have spoken the same dialects as they had before the Conquest. Once the writing of Old English came to an end, Middle English had no standard language, only dialects that evolved individually from Old English.[19]

Ralph d'Escures’ Homily on the Virgin Mary, a French work translated into Latin and then English in the first half of the 12th Century, was either one of "the very latest compositions in Old English, or, as some scholars would have it, the very earliest in Middle English," having an Old English vocabulary co-existing with simplified inflexion.[20]

### Early Middle English

Early Middle English (1150–1350)[21] has a largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary (with many Norse borrowings in the northern parts of the country) but a greatly simplified inflectional system. The grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by the dative and instrumental cases were replaced in Early Middle English with prepositional constructions. The Old English genitive -es survives in the -'s of the modern English possessive, but most of the other case endings disappeared in the Early Middle English period, including most of the roughly one dozen forms of the definite article ("the"). The dual personal pronouns (denoting exactly two) also disappeared from English during this period.

The loss of case endings was part of a general trend from inflections to fixed word order that also occurred in other Germanic languages (though more slowly and to a lesser extent). Therefore, it cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking sections of the population; English did, after all, remain the vernacular. It is also argued[22] that Norse immigrants to England had a great impact on the loss of inflectional endings in Middle English. One argument is that, although Norse and English speakers were somewhat comprehensible to each other due to similar morphology, the Norse speakers' inability to reproduce the ending sounds of English words influenced Middle English's loss of inflectional endings.

Important texts for the reconstruction of the evolution of Middle English out of Old English are the Peterborough Chronicle, which continued to be compiled up to 1154; the Ormulum, a biblical commentary probably composed in Lincolnshire in the second half of the 12th century, incorporating a unique phonetic spelling system; and the Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine Group, religious texts written for anchoresses, apparently in the West Midlands in the early 13th century.[23] The language found in the last two works is sometimes called the AB language, one of a range of regional dialects: East Midlands (London), South West (Kentish), Western (AB) and Northern.[24]

Additional literary sources of the 12th and 13th centuries include Layamon's Brut and The Owl and the Nightingale.

Some scholars[25] have defined "Early Middle English" as encompassing English texts up to 1350. This longer time frame would extend the corpus to include many Middle English Romances (especially those of the Auchinleck manuscript c. 1330).

### Late Middle English

Gradually, the wealthy and the government Anglicised again, although Norman (and subsequently French) remained the dominant language of literature and law until the 14th century, even after the loss of the majority of the continental possessions of the English monarchy.

In the aftermath of the Black Death in the 14th century, there was significant migration into London, particularly from the counties of the East of England and the East Midlands and, to a lesser extent, from the West Midlands and the North of England,[26][27] and a new prestige London dialect began to develop as a result of this clash of the different dialects,[28] that was based chiefly on the speech of the East Midlands (roughly corresponding to the official regions of the East of England and the East Midlands) but also influenced by that of other regions.[29] The writing of this period, however, continues to reflect a variety of regional forms of English. The Ayenbite of Inwyt, a translation of a French confessional prose work, completed in 1340, is written in a Kentish dialect. The best known writer of Middle English, Geoffrey Chaucer, wrote in the second half of the 14th century in the emerging London dialect, although he also portrays some of his characters as speaking in northern dialects, as in "The Reeve's Tale".

In the English-speaking areas of lowland Scotland, an independent standard was developing, based on the Northumbrian dialect. This would develop into what came to be known as the Scots language.

A large number of terms for abstract concepts were adopted directly from scholastic philosophical Latin (rather than via French). Examples are "absolute", "act", "demonstration", and "probable".[30]

### Transition to Early Modern English

The Chancery Standard of written English emerged c. 1430 in official documents that, since the Norman Conquest, had normally been written in French.[29] Like Chaucer's work, this new standard was based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Clerks using this standard were usually familiar with French and Latin, influencing the forms they chose. The Chancery Standard, which was adopted slowly, was used in England by bureaucrats for most official purposes, excluding those of the Church and legalities, which used Latin and Law French respectively.

The Chancery Standard's influence on later forms of written English is disputed, but it did undoubtedly provide the core around which Early Modern English formed. Early Modern English emerged with the help of William Caxton's printing press, developed during the 1470s. The press stabilized English through a push towards standardization, led by Chancery Standard enthusiast and writer Richard Pynson.[31] Early Modern English began in the 1540s after the printing and wide distribution of the English Bible and Prayer Book, which made the new standard of English publicly recognisable and lasted until about 1650.

## Phonology

The main changes between the Old English sound system and that of Middle English include:

* Emergence of the voiced fricatives /v/, /ð/, /z/ as separate phonemes, rather than mere allophones of the corresponding voiceless fricatives
* Reduction of the Old English diphthongs to monophthongs and the emergence of new diphthongs due to vowel breaking in certain positions, change of Old English post-vocalic /j/, /w/ (sometimes resulting from the [ɣ] allophone of /ɡ/) to offglides, and borrowing from French
* Merging of Old English /æ/ and /ɑ/ into a single vowel /a/
* Raising of the long vowel /æː/ to /ɛː/
* Rounding of /ɑː/ to /ɔː/ in the southern dialects
* Unrounding of the front rounded vowels in most dialects
* Lengthening of vowels in open syllables (and in certain other positions). The resultant long vowels (and other preexisting long vowels) subsequently underwent changes of quality in the Great Vowel Shift, which began during the later Middle English period.
* Loss of gemination (double consonants came to be pronounced as single ones)
* Loss of weak final vowels (schwa, written ⟨e⟩). By Chaucer's time, this vowel was silent in normal speech, although it was normally pronounced in verse as the meter required (much as occurs in modern French). Also, nonfinal unstressed ⟨e⟩ was dropped when adjacent to only a single consonant on either side if there was another short ⟨e⟩ in an adjoining syllable. Thus, every began to be pronounced as evry, and palmeres as palmers.

The combination of the last three processes listed above led to the spelling conventions associated with [[silent e|silent Template:Vr]] and doubled consonants (see under Orthography, below).

## Morphology

### Nouns

Middle English retains only two distinct noun-ending patterns from the more complex system of inflection in Old English:

Middle English nouns  Nouns  | Strong nouns  | Weak nouns

|
|

Singular  | Plural  | Singular  | Plural
Nominative  | -(e)  | -es | -e | -en
Accusative  | -en
Genitive  | -es[31] | -e(ne)[32]
Dative  | -e | -e(s)

Nouns of the weak declension are primarily inherited from Old English n-stem nouns but also from ō-stem, wō-stem, and u-stem nouns, which did not inflect in the same way as n-stem nouns in Old English, but joined the weak declension in Middle English. Nouns of the strong declension are inherited from the other Old English noun stem classes.

Some nouns of the strong type have an -e in the nominative/accusative singular, like the weak declension, but otherwise strong endings. Often, these are the same nouns that had an -e in the nominative/accusative singular of Old English (they, in turn, were inherited from Proto-Germanic ja-stem and i-stem nouns).

The distinct dative case was lost in early Middle English, and although the genitive survived, by the end of the Middle English period only the strong -'s ending (variously spelled) was in use.[33] Some formerly feminine nouns, as well as some weak nouns, continued to make their genitive forms with -e or no ending (e.g., fole hoves, horses' hooves), and nouns of relationship ending in -er frequently have no genitive ending (e.g., fader bone, "father's bane").[34]

The strong -(e)s plural form has survived into Modern English. The weak -(e)n form is now rare and used only in oxen and as part of a double plural, in children and brethren. Some dialects still have forms such as eyen (for eyes), shoon (for shoes), hosen (for hose(s)), kine (for cows), and been (for bees).

Grammatical gender survived to a limited extent in early Middle English[34] before being replaced by natural gender in the course of the Middle English period. Grammatical gender was indicated by agreement of articles and pronouns (e.g., þo ule "the feminine owl") or using the pronoun he to refer to masculine nouns such as helm ("helmet"), or phrases such as scaft stærcne (strong shaft), with the masculine accusative adjective ending -ne.[35]

### Adjectives

Single-syllable adjectives added -e when modifying a noun in the plural and when used after the definite article (þe), after a demonstrative (þis, þat), after a possessive pronoun (e.g., hir, our), or with a name or in a form of address. This derives from the Old English "weak" declension of adjectives.[36] This inflexion continued to be used in writing even after final -e had ceased to be pronounced.[37] In earlier texts, multisyllable adjectives also receive a final -e in these situations, but this occurs less regularly in later Middle English texts. Otherwise, adjectives have no ending and adjectives already ending in -e etymologically receive no ending as well.[37]

Earlier texts sometimes inflect adjectives for case as well. Layamon's Brut inflects adjectives for the masculine accusative, genitive, and dative, the feminine dative, and the plural genitive.[38] The Owl and the Nightingale adds a final -e to all adjectives not in the nominative, here only inflecting adjectives in the weak declension (as described above).[39]

Comparatives and superlatives were usually formed by adding -er and -est. Adjectives with long vowels sometimes shortened these vowels in the comparative and superlative (e.g., greet, great; gretter, greater).[39] Adjectives ending in -ly or -lich formed comparatives either with -lier, -liest or -loker, -lokest.[39] A few adjectives also displayed Germanic umlaut in their comparatives and superlatives, such as long, lenger.[39] Other irregular forms were mostly the same as in modern English.[39]

### Pronouns

Middle English personal pronouns were mostly developed from those of Old English, with the exception of the third person plural, a borrowing from Old Norse. (The original Old English form clashed with the third person singular and was eventually dropped.) Also, the nominative form of the feminine third person singular was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into sche (modern she), but the alternative heyr remained in some areas for a long time.

As with nouns, there was some inflectional simplification (the distinct Old English dual forms were lost), but pronouns, unlike nouns, retained distinct nominative and accusative forms. Third person pronouns also retained a distinction between accusative and dative forms, but that was gradually lost: The masculine hine was replaced by him south of the River Thames by the early 14th century, and the neuter dative him was ousted by it in most dialects by the 15th.[40]

The following table shows some of the various Middle English pronouns. Many other variations are noted in Middle English sources because of differences in spellings and pronunciations at different times and in different dialects.[41]

Template:Middle English personal pronouns (table)

### Verbs

As a general rule, the indicative first person singular of verbs in the present tense ended in -e (e.g., ich here, "I hear"), the second person singular in -(e)st (e.g., þou spekest, "thou speakest"), and the third person singular in -eþ (e.g., he comeþ, "he cometh/he comes"). (þ (the letter "thorn") is pronounced like the unvoiced th in "think", but under certain circumstances, it may be like the voiced th in "that"). The following table illustrates a typical conjugation pattern:[42][43]

Middle English verb inflection  Verbs inflection  | Infinitive  | Present  | Past

|
|
|

Participle  | Singular  | Plural  | Participle  | Singular  | Plural
1st person  | 2nd person  | 3rd person  | 1st person  | 2nd person  | 3rd person
Regular verbs
Strong  | -en | -ende, -ynge | -e | -est | -eþ (-es)  | -en (-es, -eþ)  | i- -en | –  | -e (-est)  | –  | -en
Weak  | -ed | -ede | -edest | -ede | -eden
Irregular verbs
Been "be"  | been | beende, beynge | am | art | is | aren | ibeen | was | wast  | was | weren
be | bist | biþ | beth, been | were
Cunnen "can"  | cunnen | cunnende, cunnynge | can | canst | can | cunnen | cunned, coud | coude, couthe | coudest, couthest | coude, couthe | couden, couthen
Don "do"  | don | doende, doynge | do | dost | doþ, doth | doþ, don | idon | didde | didst | didde | didden
Douen "be good for"  | douen | douende, douynge | deigh | deight | deigh | douen | idought | dought | doughtest | dought | doughten
Durren "dare"  | durren | durrende, durrynge | dar | darst | dar | durren | durst, dirst | durst | durstest | durst | dursten
Gon "go"  | Gon | goende, goynge | go | gost | goþ | goþ, gon | igon(gen)  | wend, yede, yode | wendest, yedest, yodest | wende, yede, yode | wenden, yeden, yoden
Haven "have"  | haven | havende, havynge | have | hast | haþ | haven | ihad | hadde | haddest | hadde | hadden
Moten "must"  | –  | –  | mot | must | mot | moten | –  | muste | mustest | muste | musten
Mowen "may"  | mowen | mowende, mowynge | may | myghst | may | mowen | imought | mighte | mightest | mighte | mighten
Owen "owe, ought"  | owen | owende, owynge | owe | owest | owe | owen | iowen | owed | ought | owed | ought
Schulen "should"  | –  | –  | schal | schalt | schal | schulen | –  | scholde | scholdest | scholde | scholde
Þurven/Þaren "need"  | –  | –  | þarf | þarst | þarf | þurven, þaren | –  | þurft | þurst | þurft | þurften
Willen "want"  | willen | willende, willynge | will | wilt | will | wollen | –  | wolde | woldest | wolde | wolden
Witen "know"  | witen | witende, witynge | woot | woost | woot | witen | iwiten | wiste | wistest | wiste | wisten

Plural forms vary strongly by dialect, with Southern dialects preserving the Old English -eþ, Midland dialects showing -en from about 1200, and Northern forms using -es in the third person singular as well as the plural.[44]

The past tense of weak verbs was formed by adding an -ed(e), -d(e), or -t(e) ending. The past-tense forms, without their personal endings, also served as past participles with past-participle prefixes derived from Old English: i-, y-, and sometimes bi-.

Strong verbs, by contrast, formed their past tense by changing their stem vowel (e.g., binden became bound, a process called apophony), as in Modern English.

## Orthography

With the discontinuation of the Late West Saxon standard used for the writing of Old English in the period prior to the Norman Conquest, Middle English came to be written in a wide variety of scribal forms, reflecting different regional dialects and orthographic conventions. Later in the Middle English period, however, and particularly with the development of the Chancery Standard in the 15th century, orthography became relatively standardised in a form based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Spelling at the time was mostly quite regular. (There was a fairly consistent correspondence between letters and sounds.) The irregularity of present-day English orthography is largely due to pronunciation changes that have taken place over the Early Modern English and Modern English eras.

Middle English generally did not have silent letters. For example, knight was pronounced enm (with both the Template:Vr and the Template:Vr pronounced, the latter sounding as the ⟨ch⟩ in German Knecht). The major exception was the silent ⟨e⟩ – originally pronounced but lost in normal speech by Chaucer's time. This letter, however, came to indicate a lengthened – and later also modified – pronunciation of a preceding vowel. For example, in name, originally pronounced as two syllables, the /a/ in the first syllable (originally an open syllable) lengthened, the final weak vowel was later dropped, and the remaining long vowel was modified in the Great Vowel Shift (for these sound changes, see Phonology, above). The final ⟨e⟩, now silent, thus became the indicator of the longer and changed pronunciation of ⟨a⟩. In fact, vowels could have this lengthened and modified pronunciation in various positions, particularly before a single consonant letter and another vowel or before certain pairs of consonants.

A related convention involved the doubling of consonant letters to show that the preceding vowel was not to be lengthened. In some cases, the double consonant represented a sound that was (or had previously been) geminated (i.e., had genuinely been "doubled" and would thus have regularly blocked the lengthening of the preceding vowel). In other cases, by analogy, the consonant was written double merely to indicate the lack of lengthening.

### Alphabet

The basic Old English Latin alphabet consisted of 20 standard letters plus four additional letters: ash ⟨æ⟩, eth ⟨ð⟩, thorn ⟨þ⟩, and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩. There was not yet a distinct j, v, or w, and Old English scribes did not generally use k, q, or z.

Ash was no longer required in Middle English, as the Old English vowel /æ/ that it represented had merged into /a/. The symbol nonetheless came to be used as a ligature for the digraph ⟨ae⟩ in many words of Greek or Latin origin, as did ⟨œ⟩ for ⟨oe⟩.

Eth and thorn both represented /θ/ or its allophone /ð/ in Old English. Eth fell out of use during the 13th century and was replaced by thorn. Thorn mostly fell out of use during the 14th century and was replaced by [[th (digraph)|Template:Vr]]. Anachronistic usage of the scribal abbreviation 10px (þe, "the") has led to the modern mispronunciation of thorn as ⟨y⟩ in this context; see ye olde.[45]

Wynn, which represented the phoneme /w/, was replaced by ⟨w⟩ during the 13th century. Due to its similarity to the letter ⟨p⟩, it is mostly represented by ⟨w⟩ in modern editions of Old and Middle English texts even when the manuscript has wynn.

Under Norman influence, the continental Carolingian minuscule replaced the insular script that had been used for Old English. However, because of the significant difference in appearance between the old insular g and the Carolingian g (modern g), the former continued in use as a separate letter, known as yogh, written ⟨ȝ⟩. This was adopted for use to represent a variety of sounds: [ɣ], [j], [dʒ], [x], [ç], while the Carolingian g was normally used for [g]. Instances of yogh were eventually replaced by ⟨j⟩ or ⟨y⟩ and by ⟨gh⟩ in words like night and laugh. In Middle Scots, yogh became indistinguishable from cursive z, and printers tended to use ⟨z⟩ when yogh was not available in their fonts; this led to new spellings (often giving rise to new pronunciations), as in McKenzie, where the ⟨z⟩ replaced a yogh, which had the pronunciation /j/.

Under continental influence[clarification needed], the letters Template:Vr, Template:Vr, and Template:Vr, which had not normally been used by Old English scribes, came to be commonly used in the writing of Middle English. Also, the newer Latin letter Template:Vr was introduced (replacing wynn). The distinct letter forms [[v|Template:Vr]] and [[u|Template:Vr]] came into use but were still used interchangeably; the same applies to [[j|Template:Vr]] and [[i|Template:Vr]].[46] (For example, spellings such as wijf and paradijs for "wife" and "paradise" can be found in Middle English.)

The consonantal Template:Vr/Template:Vr was sometimes used to transliterate the Hebrew letter yodh, representing the palatal approximant sound /j/ (and transliterated in Greek by iota and in Latin by Template:Vr); words like Jerusalem, Joseph, etc. would have originally followed the Latin pronunciation beginning with /j/, that is, the sound of Template:Vr in yes. In some words, however, notably from Old French, Template:Vr/Template:Vr was used for the affricate consonant /dʒ/, as in joie (modern "joy"), used in Wycliffe's Bible.[47][48] This was similar to the geminate sound [ddʒ], which had been represented as Template:Vr in Old English. By the time of Modern English, the sound came to be written as Template:Vr/Template:Vr at the start of words (like "joy"), and usually as Template:Vr elsewhere (as in "bridge"). It could also be written, mainly in French loanwords, as Template:Vr, with the adoption of the soft G convention (age, page, etc.)

### Other symbols

Many scribal abbreviations were also used. It was common for the Lollards to abbreviate the name of Jesus (as in Latin manuscripts) to ihc. The letters Template:Vr and Template:Vr were often omitted and indicated by a macron above an adjacent letter, so for example, in could be written as ī. A thorn with a superscript Template:Vr or Template:Vr could be used for that and the; the thorn here resembled a Template:Vr, giving rise to the ye of "Ye Olde". Various forms of the ampersand replaced the word and.

Numbers were still always written using Roman numerals, except for some rare occurrences of Arabic numerals during the 15th century.

### Letter-to-sound correspondences

Although Middle English spelling was never fully standardised, the following table shows the pronunciations most usually represented by particular letters and digraphs towards the end of the Middle English period, using the notation given in the article on Middle English phonology.[49] As explained above, single vowel letters had alternative pronunciations depending on whether they were in a position where their sounds had been subject to lengthening. Long vowel pronunciations were in flux due to the beginnings of the Great Vowel Shift.

Symbol | Description and notes

|

a  | /a/, or in lengthened positions /aː/, becoming [æː] by about 1500. Sometimes /au/ before Template:Vr or nasals (see Late Middle English diphthongs).
ai, ay  | /ai/ (alternatively denoted by /ɛi/; see vein–vain merger).
au, aw  | /au/
b  | /b/, but in later Middle English became silent in words ending -mb (while some words that never had a /b/ sound came to be spelt -mb by analogy; see reduction of /mb/).
c  | /k/, but /s/ (earlier /ts/) before Template:Vr, Template:Vr, Template:Vr (see C and hard and soft C for details).
ch  | /tʃ/
ck  | /k/, replaced earlier Template:Vr as the doubled form of Template:Vr (for the phenomenon of doubling, see above).
d  | /d/
e  | /e/, or in lengthened positions /eː/ or sometimes /ɛː/ (see ee). For silent Template:Vr, see above.
ea  | Rare, for /ɛː/ (see ee).
ee  | /eː/, becoming [iː] by about 1500; or /ɛː/, becoming [eː] by about 1500. In Early Modern English the latter vowel came to be commonly written Template:Vr. The two vowels later merged.
ei, ey  | Sometimes the same as Template:Vr; sometimes /ɛː/ or /eː/ (see also fleece merger).
ew  | Either /ɛu/ or /iu/ (see Late Middle English diphthongs; these later merged).
f  | /f/
g  | /ɡ/, or /dʒ/ before Template:Vr, Template:Vr, Template:Vr (see [[g|Template:Vr]] for details). The Template:Vr in initial gn- was still pronounced.
gh  | [ç] or [x], post-vowel allophones of /h/ (this was formerly one of the uses of yogh). The Template:Vr is often retained in Chancery spellings even though the sound was starting to be lost.
h  | /h/ (except for the allophones for which Template:Vr was used). Also used in several digraphs (Template:Vr, Template:Vr, etc.). In some French loanwords, such as horrible, the Template:Vr was silent.
i, j  | As a vowel, /i/, or in lengthened positions /iː/, which had started to be diphthongised by about 1500. As a consonant, /dʒ/ ((corresponding to modern Template:Vr); see above).
Used sometimes for /ɛː/ (see ee).
k  | /k/, used particularly in positions where Template:Vr would be softened. Also used in Template:Vr at the start of words; here both consonants were still pronounced.
l  | /l/
m  | /m/
n  | /n/, including its allophone [ŋ] (before /k/, /ɡ/).
o  | /o/, or in lengthened positions /ɔː/ or sometimes /oː/ (see oo). Sometimes /u/, as in sone (modern son); the Template:Vr spelling was often used rather than Template:Vr when adjacent to i, m, n, v, w for legibility, i.e. to avoid a succession of vertical strokes.[50]
oa  | Rare, for /ɔː/ (became commonly used in Early Modern English).
oi, oy  | /ɔi/ or /ui/ (see Late Middle English diphthongs; these later merged).
oo  | /oː/, becoming [uː] by about 1500; or /ɔː/.
ou, ow  | Either /uː/, which had started to be diphthongised by about 1500, or /ɔu/.
p  | /p/
qu  | /kw/
r  | /r/
s  | /s/, sometimes /z/ (formerly [z] was an allophone of /s/). Also appeared as ſ (long s).
sch, sh  | /ʃ/
t  | /t/
th  | /θ/ or /ð/ (which had previously been allophones of a single phoneme), replacing earlier eth and thorn, although thorn was still sometimes used.
u, v  | Used interchangeably. As a consonant, /v/. As a vowel, /u/, or /iu/ in "lengthened" positions (although it had generally not gone through the same lengthening process as other vowels – see Development of /juː/).
w  | /w/ (replaced Old English wynn).
wh  | /hw/ (see [[English wh|English Template:Vr]]).
x  | /ks/
y  | As a consonant, /j/ (earlier this was one of the uses of yogh). Sometimes also /ɡ/. As a vowel, the same as Template:Vr, where Template:Vr is often preferred beside letters with downstrokes.
z  | /z/ (in Scotland sometimes used as a substitute for yogh; see above).

## Sample texts

Most of the following Modern English translations are poetic sense-for-sense translations, not word-for-word translations.

### Ormulum, 12th century

This passage explains the background to the Nativity (3494–501):[51]

Forrþrihht anan se time comm

þatt ure Drihhtin wollde

ben borenn i þiss middellærd

forr all mannkinne nede

he chæs himm sone kinnessmenn

all swillke summ he wollde

and whær he wollde borenn ben

he chæs all att hiss wille.

| Forthwith when the time came

that our Lord wanted

be born in this earth

for all mankind sake,

He chose kinsmen for Himself,

all just as he wanted,

and where He would be born

He chose all at His will.

|

### Epitaph of John the smyth, died 1371

An epitaph from a monumental brass in an Oxfordshire parish church:[52][53]

Original text | Word-for-word translation into Modern English  | Translation by Patricia Utechin[53]

|
|

man com & se how schal alle dede li: wen þow comes bad & bare

noth hab ven ve awaẏ fare: All ẏs wermēs þt ve for care:—

bot þt ve do for godẏs luf ve haue nothyng yare:

hundyr þis graue lẏs John þe smẏth god yif his soule heuen grit

| Man, come and see how shall all dead lie: when thou comes bad and bare

naught have when we away fare: all is worms that we for care:—

but that we do for God's love, we have nothing ready:

under this grave lies John the smith, God give his soul heaven grith  | Man, come and see how all dead men shall lie: when that comes bad and bare,

we have nothing when we away fare: all that we care for is worms:—

except for that which we do for God's sake, we have nothing ready:

under this grave lies John the smith, God give his soul heavenly peace

### Pre-Wycliffite Bibles

James 1:5,6  West Midlands (Herefordshire) dialect

(Selwyn College lOS. L. 1.)[54]

| Southern dialect

(MS. Bodl. Douce 250.)

| Early Modern English

(KJM 1611)

| Modern English

|
|
|

5\. And who-efere of ȝou nedeþ wysdom, axe he of God, þat graunteþ eferich man plentyuouslyche and obbraydeþ no man.
6\. & axe he in feiþ & trust, doutynge no þing: For he þat douteþ is lyche to þe flod of þe see þat is y-mefed & y-boren aboute of þe wynd. | 5\. & whuche of ȝow so haþ nede of wysdom, aske of God þat ȝeveþ plentyuously to alle, & withstonde him nouȝte, & it schal be ȝove to him.
6\. Aske he soþely in feiþ, nouȝte faylynge: for soþely he þat is faylynge (þat is, faylynge in þe feiþ) he is lyke to þe flowynge of þe see þe whuche is mevyd wiþ þe wynde & bore a-boute. | 5\. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

6\. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

| 5\. Any of you who lacks wisdom must ask God, who gives to all generously and without scolding; it will be given.

6\. But the prayer must be made with faith, and no trace of doubt, because a person who has doubts is like the waves thrown up in the sea by the buffeting of the wind.

### Wycliffite Bibles

From the Wycliffe's Bible:

Luke 8:1–3  Early version (c. 1380s)  | Later version (c. 1390s)  | Translation

|
|

1And it was don aftirward, and Jhesu made iorney by citees and castelis, prechinge and euangelysinge þe rewme of God, 2and twelue wiþ him; and summe wymmen þat weren heelid of wickide spiritis and syknessis, Marie, þat is clepid Mawdeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis wenten 3 out, and Jone, þe wyf of Chuse, procuratour of Eroude, and Susanne, and manye oþere, whiche mynystriden to him of her riches. | 1And it was don aftirward, and Jhesus made iourney bi citees and castels, prechynge and euangelisynge þe rewme of 2God, and twelue wiþ hym; and sum wymmen þat weren heelid of wickid spiritis and sijknessis, Marie, þat is clepid Maudeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis 3wenten out, and Joone, þe wijf of Chuse, þe procuratoure of Eroude, and Susanne, and many oþir, þat mynystriden to hym of her ritchesse. | 1And it was done afterwards, that Jesus made a journey by cities and castles, preaching and evangelising the realm of 2God: and with him (the) Twelve; and some women that were healed of wicked spirits and sicknesses; Mary who is called Magdalene, from whom 3seven devils went out; and Joanna the wife of Chuza, the procurator of Herod; and Susanna, and many others, who ministered to Him out of her riches.

### Chaucer, 1390s

The following is the very beginning of the General Prologue from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The text was written in a dialect associated with London and spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard.

First 18 lines of the General Prologue  Original in Middle English  | Word-for-word translation into Modern English[55] | Translation into Modern U.K. English prose[56]

|
|

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote | When [that] April with his showers sweet  | When April with its sweet showers
The droȝte of March hath perced to the roote | The drought of March has pierced to the root  | has drenched March's drought to the roots,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour, | And bathed every vein in such liquor,  | filling every capillary with nourishing sap
Of which vertu engendred is the flour; | From which goodness is engendered the flower;  | prompting the flowers to grow,
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth | When Zephyrus even with his sweet breath  | and when Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth | Inspired has in every holt and heath  | has coaxed in every wood and dale, to sprout
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne | The tender crops; and the young sun  | the tender plants, as the springtime sun
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, | Has in the Ram his half-course run,  | passes halfway through the sign of Aries,
And smale foweles maken melodye, | And small birds make melodies,  | and small birds that chirp melodies,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye | That sleep all night with open eyes  | sleep all night with half-open eyes
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages); | (So Nature prompts them in their courage);  | their spirits thus aroused by Nature;
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages | Then folk long to go on pilgrimages.  | it is at these times that people desire to go on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes | And pilgrims (palmers) [for] to seek new strands  | and pilgrims (palmers) seek new shores
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; | To far-off shrines (hallows), respected (couth, known) in sundry lands;  | and distant shrines venerated in other places.
And specially from every shires ende | And specially from every shire's end  | Particularly from every county
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, | Of England, to Canterbury they went,  | from England, they go to Canterbury,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke | The holy blissful martyr [for] to seek,  | in order to visit the holy blessed martyr,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke. | That has helped them, when [that] they were sick.  | who has helped them when they were sick.

### Gower, 1390

The following is the beginning of the Prologue from Confessio Amantis by John Gower.

Original in Middle English  | Near word-for-word translation into Modern English:  | Translation into Modern English: (by Richard Brodie)[57]

|
|

Of hem that written ous tofore
The bokes duelle, and we therfore
Ben tawht of that was write tho:
Forthi good is that we also
In oure tyme among ous hiere
Do wryte of newe som matiere,
Essampled of these olde wyse
So that it myhte in such a wyse,
Whan we ben dede and elleswhere,
Beleve to the worldes eere
In tyme comende after this.
Bot for men sein, and soth it is,
That who that al of wisdom writ
It dulleth ofte a mannes wit
To him that schal it aldai rede,
For thilke cause, if that ye rede,
I wolde go the middel weie
And wryte a bok betwen the tweie,
Somwhat of lust, somewhat of lore,
That of the lasse or of the more
Som man mai lyke of that I wryte:

Of them that wrote us before
The books dwell, and we therefore
Been taught of that was written then:
For it is good that we also
In our time among us here
Do write some new matter,
Exampled by these old ways
So that it might in such a way,
When we be dead and elsewhere,
Be left to the world's ear
In time coming after this.
But for men say, and so it is,
That who that all of wisdom writes
It dulls often a man's wit
To him that shall it every day read,
For that like cause, if that you read,
I would go the middle way
And write a book between the two,
Somewhat of lust, somewhat of lore,
That of the less or of the more
Some man may like of that I write:

Of those who wrote before our lives
Their precious legacy survives;
From what was written then, we learn,
And so it's well that we in turn,
In our allotted time on earth
Do write anew some things of worth,
Like those we from these sages cite,
So that such in like manner might,
When we have left this mortal sphere,
Remain for all the world to hear
In ages following our own.
But it is so that men are prone
To say that when one only reads
Of wisdom all day long, one breeds
A paucity of wit, and so
If you agree I'll choose to go
Along a kind of middle ground
Sometimes I'll write of things profound,
And sometimes for amusement's sake
A lighter path of pleasure take
So all can something pleasing find.

Translation in Modern English: (by J. Dow)

> Of those who wrote before we were born, books survive,

> So we are taught what was written by them when they were alive. So it's good that we, in our times here on earth, write of new matters – Following the example of our forefathers – So that, in such a way, we may leave our knowledge to the world after we are dead and gone. But it's said, and it is true, that if one only reads of wisdom all day long It often dulls one's brains. So, if it's alright with you, I'll take the middle route and write a book between the two – Somewhat of amusement, and somewhat of fact.

> In that way, somebody might, more or less, like that.

## See also

* Medulla Grammatice (collection of glossaries)
* Middle English creole hypothesis
* Middle English Dictionary
* Middle English literature
* A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English

## References

1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Middle English". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/midd1317.
2. ↑ Simon Horobin, Introduction to Middle English, Edinburgh 2016, s. 1.1.
3. ↑ Fuster-Márquez, Miguel; Calvo García de Leonardo, Juan José (2011). A Practical Introduction to the History of English. [València]: Universitat de València. p. 21. ISBN 9788437083216. https://books.google.com/books?id=QQLBqKjxuvAC. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Horobin, Simon; Smith, Jeremy (2002). An Introduction to Middle English. Oup USA. ISBN 978-0-19-521950-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=LDBF5TJZHzQC&dq=middle+english&pg=PP9. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
5. ↑ Carlson, David. (2004). "The Chronology of Lydgate's Chaucer References". The Chaucer Review 38 (3): 246–254. doi:10.1353/cr.2004.0003.
6. ↑ The name "tales of Canterbury" appears within the surviving texts of Chaucer's work.[5]
7. ↑ Johannesson, Nils-Lennart; Cooper, Andrew (2023). Ormulum. Early English text society. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-289043-6. https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/download/20530/16515.
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Baugh, Albert (1951). A History of the English Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 110–130 (Danelaw); 131–132 (Normans).
9. ↑ Jespersen, Otto (1919). Growth and Structure of the English Language. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. pp. 58–82.
10. ↑ Potter, Simeon (1950). Our Language. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 33. https://archive.org/details/ourlanguage00pott.
11. ↑ Thomason, Sarah Grey; Kaufman, Terrence (1988). Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Anthropology: Linguistics (1. paperback print ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 303. ISBN 978-0-520-07893-2.
12. ↑ McCrum, Robert; Cran, William; MacNeil, Robert (1986). The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books (published 2002). pp. 79. ISBN 978-0-14-200231-5.
13. ↑ Crystal, David (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-521-40179-1. https://archive.org/details/cambridgeencyclo00crys.
14. ↑ McCrum, Robert (1987). The Story of English. London: Faber and Faber. pp. 70–71.
15. ↑ Birth of a Language. BBC. 27 December 2014. Event occurs at 35:00–37:20 - via YouTube.
16. ↑ Wright, Mary Anne (2022). The Old Norse Influence on English, the 'Viking Hypothesis', and Middle English Word Order Parallels with Icelandic (2nd ed.). Newcastle University: English Language & Linguistics Dissertation Repository (ELLDR). p. 11. https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/elldr/files/2022/09/Wright2022.pdf. Retrieved August 24, 2024.
17. ↑ White, Taylor (1901). "A Philological Study in Natural History". Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 34. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/TPRSNZ1901-34.2.8.1.9.
18. ↑ "Garder" (in fr). Dictionnaire Étymologique de l'Ancien Français (DEAF). https://deaf-server.adw.uni-heidelberg.de/book/garder.
19. ↑ "From Old to New: How the English Language Evolved Throughout History". Odessa, Texas: University of Texas Permian Basin. 12 April 2023. https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/humanities/from-old-to-new-how-the-english-language-evolved-throughout-history/.
20. ↑ Treharne, Elaine (2006). "The Life of English in the Mid-Twelfth Century: Ralph d'Escures's Homily on the Virgin Mary". Writers of the Reign of Henry II. pp. 169–186. doi:10.1007/978-1-137-08855-0_8. ISBN 978-1-349-73340-8.
21. ↑ Fuster-Márquez, Miguel; Calvo García de Leonardo, Juan José (2011). A Practical Introduction to the History of English. [València]: Universitat de València. p. 21. ISBN 9788437083216. https://books.google.com/books?id=QQLBqKjxuvAC. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
22. ↑ McWhorter, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, 2008, pp. 89–136.
23. ↑ Burchfield, Robert W. (1987). "Ormulum". in Strayer, Joseph R.. Dictionary of the Middle Ages. 9. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 280. ISBN 978-0-684-18275-9. , p. 280
24. ↑ Murchison, Krista. "Theme: Middle English Dialects". https://openmedieval.leidenuniv.nl/pages/dialects.html.
25. ↑ "Making Early Middle English: About the Conference". http://hcmc.uvic.ca/makingEME/about.html.
26. ↑ Upward & Davidson 2011, p. 76–77; 79–80.
27. ↑ Crystal, David (29 November 2018) (in en). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-42359-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=PBnCDwAAQBAJ&dq=great+vowel+shift+central+midlands&pg=PA55.
28. ↑ Montgomery, Martin; Durant, Alan; Fabb, Nigel; Furniss, Tom; Mills, Sara (24 January 2007) (in en). Ways of Reading: Advanced Reading Skills for Students of English Literature. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-28025-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=isd_AgAAQBAJ&dq=great+vowel+shift+londoners&pg=PA56. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Wright, L. (2012). "About the evolution of Standard English". Studies in English Language and Literature. Routledge. p. 99ff. ISBN 978-1138006935.
30. ↑ Franklin, James (1983). "Mental furniture from the philosophers". Et Cetera 40: 177–191. http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/mental.pdf. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 cf. 'Sawles Warde' (The protection of the soul)
32. ↑ cf. 'Ancrene Wisse' (The Anchoresses' Guide)
33. ↑ Fischer, O., van Kemenade, A., Koopman, W., van der Wurff, W., The Syntax of Early English, CUP 2000, p. 72.
34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 Burrow & Turville-Petre 2005, p. 23
35. ↑ Burrow & Turville-Petre 2005, p. 38
36. ↑ Burrow & Turville-Petre 2005, pp. 27–28
37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 Burrow & Turville-Petre 2005, p. 28
38. ↑ Burrow & Turville-Petre 2005, pp. 28–29
39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 39.2 39.3 39.4 Burrow & Turville-Petre 2005, p. 29
40. ↑ Fulk, R.D., An Introduction to Middle English, Broadview Press, 2012, p. 65.
41. ↑ See Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891). A Middle-English dictionary. London: Oxford University Press. https://archive.org/details/middleenglishdic00stra. and Mayhew, AL; Skeat, Walter W (1888). A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580. Oxford: Clarendon Press. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10625/10625-h/main.html.
42. ↑ Booth, David (1831). The Principles of English Composition.. Cochrane and Pickersgill. https://archive.org/details/principlesengli01bootgoog.
43. ↑ Horobin, Simon (9 September 2016). Introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9781474408462. https://books.google.com/books?id=sjVYDwAAQBAJ.
44. ↑ Ward, AW; Waller, AR (1907–21). "The Cambridge History of English and American Literature". Bartleby. http://www.bartleby.com/211/1905.html.
45. ↑ Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, [1] retrieved February 1, 2009
46. ↑ Salmon, V., (in) Lass, R. (ed.), The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. III, CUP 2000, p. 39.
47. ↑ "J", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989)
48. ↑ "J" and "jay", Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993)
49. ↑ For certain details, see "Chancery Standard spelling" in Upward, C., Davidson, G., The History of English Spelling, Wiley 2011.
50. ↑ Algeo, J., Butcher, C., The Origins and Development of the English Language, Cengage Learning 2013, p. 128.
51. ↑ Holt, Robert, ed (1878). The Ormulum: with the notes and glossary of Dr R. M. White. Two vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. https://archive.org/details/ormulum00holtgoog. Internet Archive: Volume 1; Volume 2.
52. ↑ Bertram, Jerome (2003). "Medieval Inscriptions in Oxfordshire". Oxoniensia LXVVIII: 30. ISSN 0308-5562. http://oxoniensia.org/volumes/2003/bertram.pdf.
53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 Utechin, Patricia (1990). Epitaphs from Oxfordshire (2nd ed.). Oxford: Robert Dugdale. pp. 39. ISBN 978-0-946976-04-1.
54. ↑ Kraebel, Andrew (6 September 2022). "Biblical Compilation, Regional Reading, and Tailored Texts: The Making of Selwyn College MS 108 L. 1". The Practice and Politics of Reading, 650-1500: 200–227. doi:10.1017/9781800106352.010.
55. ↑ This Wikipedia translation closely mirrors the translation found here:  Canterbury Tales (selected) (revised ed.). Barron's Educational Series. 1970. p. 2. ISBN 9780812000399. https://archive.org/details/canterburytaless0000chau. "when april, with his."
56. ↑ Sweet, Henry (2005). First Middle English Primer (updated). Evolution Publishing: Bristol, Pennsylvania. ISBN 978-1-889758-70-1.
57. ↑ Brodie, Richard (2005). "Prologue". John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis' Modern English Version. http://www.richardbrodie.com/Prologue.html.

* Brunner, Karl (1962) Abriss der mittelenglischen Grammatik; 5. Auflage. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer (1st ed. Halle (Saale): M. Niemeyer, 1938)
* Brunner, Karl (1963) An Outline of Middle English Grammar; translated by Grahame Johnston. Oxford: Blackwell
* Burrow, J. A.; Turville-Petre, Thorlac (2005). A Book of Middle English (3 ed.). Blackwell.
* Mustanoja, Tauno (1960) "A Middle English Syntax. 1. Parts of Speech". Helsinki : Société néophilologique.
* Upward, Christopher; Davidson, George (2011). The History of English Spelling. England. ISBN 978-1-4443-4297-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=fNfebt79zdwC. Retrieved 8 December 2024.

## External links

* A. L. Mayhew and Walter William Skeat. A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580
* Middle English Glossary (archived 22 February 2012)
* Oliver Farrar Emerson, ed (1915). A Middle English Reader. Macmillan. https://archive.org/details/amiddleenglishr01emergoog. With grammatical introduction, notes, and glossary.
* Middle English encyclopedia on Miraheze

Template:History of English

* v
* t
* e

Germanic languages

According to contemporary philology

West Germanic

| Anglo-Frisian|

| Anglic|

* English*
* dialects
* Yola
* Fingallian
* Old English
* Middle English
* Scots
* Early Scots
* Middle Scots

|

Frisian|

* East Frisian
* Ems
* Saterland Frisian
* Weser
* Wangerooge Frisian
* Wursten Frisian
* North Frisian
* Insular
* Eiderstedt
* Föhr–Amrum
* Föhr
* Amrum
* Heligolandic
* Sylt
* Mainland
* Bökingharde
* Mooring
* Halligen
* Goesharde
* Northern
* Central
* Southern
* Karrharde
* Strand
* Wiedingharde
* West Frisian
* Hindeloopen
* Schiermonnikoog
* Westlauwers–Terschellings
* Mainland West Frisian
* Clay Frisian
* Wood Frisian
* Westereendersk
* Terschelling
* Old Frisian
* Middle Frisian

Low German|

| Historical forms|

* Old Saxon
* Middle Low German

|

West Low German|

* Dutch Low Saxon
* Stellingwarfs
* Tweants
* Gronings
* Drèents
* Gelders-Overijssels
* Achterhooks
* Sallaans
* Urkers
* Veluws
* Northern Low Saxon
* East Frisian Low Saxon
* Schleswigsch
* Holsteinisch
* Hamburgisch
* Ollnborger
* North Hanoveranian
* Dithmarsch
* Emsländisch
* Westphalian
* Eastphalian

East Low German|

* Mecklenburg-Western Pomeranian
* Mecklenburgish
* West Pomeranian
* Brandenburgisch
* East Pomeranian–West Prussian
* Western East Pomeranian
* Eastern East Pomeranian
* Bublitzisch
* Pommerellisch
* Central Pomeranian
* West Central Pomeranian
* Low Prussian
* Mennonite Low German

Low Franconian|

| Standard variants|

* Dutch*
* Frankish
* Old Dutch
* Middle Dutch
* Afrikaans*

|

West Low Franconian|

* Hollandic
* West Flemish
* French Flemish
* Zeelandic
* East Flemish
* Brabantian
* Surinamese Dutch
* Jersey Dutch
* Mohawk Dutch
* Stadsfries
* Bildts
* Yiddish Dutch

East Low Franconian|

* Meuse-Rhenish
* Limburgish
* Southeast Limburgish
* South Guelderish

Transitional|

* Low Dietsch

High German|

| Standard variants|

* German*
* Namibian German
* Namibian Black German
* Brazilian German
* Unserdeutsch
* Barossa German
* Belgranodeutsch
* Parana Volga German
* Kiautschou Pidgin German
* Old High German
* Middle High German
* Early New High German
* Yiddish
* Eastern
* Western
* Litvish
* Poylish
* Ukrainish
* Galitzish
* Scots Yiddish
* Alsatian Yiddish
* Klezmer-loshn
* Ganovim
* Balagole
* Katsoves
* Lachoudisch
* Yenish
* Rotwelsch
* Lotegorisch

|

Central German|

| West Central German|

* Central Franconian
* Ripuarian
* Colognian
* Moselle Franconian
* Luxembourgish
* Transylvanian Saxon
* Hunsrückisch
* Hunsrik
* Rhine Franconian
* Lorraine Franconian
* Palatine
* Volga German
* Pennsylvania German
* Hessian
* Amana

|

East Central German|

* Thuringian
* Upper Saxon
* Ore Mountainian
* Lusatian-Neumarkish
* Berlinerisch
* Silesian German
* High Prussian
* Wymysorys
* Halcnovian
* Prague German

High Franconian|

* South Franconian
* East Franconian
* Main Franconian
* Vogtlandian

Upper German|

* Alemannic
* Low Alemannic
* Alsatian
* Coloniero
* High Alemannic
* Swiss German
* Highest Alemannic
* Walser German
* Swabian
* Bavarian
* Northern Bavarian
* Central Bavarian
* Viennese German
* Southern Bavarian
* South Tyrolean
* Cimbrian
* Mòcheno
* Hutterite German
* Langobardic

Standard German|

* German Standard German
* Austrian Standard German
* Swiss Standard German

North Germanic and East Germanic

| North Germanic|

| Historical forms|

* Proto-Norse
* Old Norse
* Old West Norse
* Old East Norse
* Old Gutnish

|

West Scandinavian|

* Norwegian*
* Spoken
* Bergensk
* Kebabnorsk
* Sognamål
* Trøndersk
* Valdris
* Vestlandsk
* Vikværsk
* Written
* Bokmål
* Nynorsk
* Old Norwegian
* Middle Norwegian
* Insular Scandinavian
* Faroese
* Icelandic
* Old Icelandic
* Middle Icelandic
* Gronlandsk
* Norn

East Scandinavian|

* Swedish*
* Åland
* Estonian
* Finlandic
* Gotlandic/Gutnish
* Jämtlandic
* Kalix
* Kiruna
* Luleå
* Norrland
* Ostrobothnian
* Småländska
* South Swedish
* Scanian
* Stockholm
* Rinkeby
* Uppländska
* Västgötska
* Westrobothnian
* Old Swedish
* Danish*
* Bornholmsk
* Gøtudanskt
* Insular Danish
* Jutlandic
* South Jutlandic
* Perkerdansk
* Old Danish
* Middle Danish
* Dalecarlian
* Elfdalian

East Germanic|

* Gothic
* Crimean Gothic
* Burgundian
* Vandalic

Philology

| Language subgroups|

* North
* East
* West
* Elbe (Irminonic)
* Weser-Rhine (Istvaeonic)
* North Sea (Ingvaeonic)

* Northwest
* Gotho-Nordic
* South

|

Reconstructed|

* Proto-Germanic
* Proto-Germanic grammar
* Germanic parent language
* Ancient Belgian language

Diachronic features|

* Grimm's law
* Verner's law
* Holtzmann's law
* Sievers's law
* Kluge's law
* Germanic substrate hypothesis
* West Germanic gemination
* High German consonant shift
* Germanic a-mutation
* Germanic umlaut
* Germanic spirant law
* Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law
* Great Vowel Shift

Synchronic features|

* Germanic verb
* Germanic strong verb
* Germanic weak verb
* Preterite-present verb
* Grammatischer Wechsel
* Indo-European ablaut

* Italics indicate extinct languages
* * (asterisks) indicates languages with more than 3 million speakers
* Languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left.

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Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle English. Read more

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