A power point presentation on Middle English by the students of English dept. at Metropolitan University, Sylhet.
Pulak Barua Ex Lecturer Dept. of English Metropolitan University, Sylhet, Bangladesh
1. Presented by
Md. Anisul Haque
Fahmida Sharmin
Bushra E Tamanna
Rasel Shikdar
Shah Md. Mohsinul Haque
Sueb 1
2. History of English
Language has three periods
Old English (450-1150)
Middle English (1150-
1500)
Modern English (1500- ) 2
3. Middle
English
1150-1500 AD
Middle English started with the Norman
Conquest
English becomes official language of the law
courts. More and more authors are writing in
English
A Period of Great Change
Decay of Inflectional Endings
French Influence on the Vocabulary of Middle
English
The Period of Greatest Influence
Hw became Wh
3
4. Decay of Inflectional Endings
Middle English Grammar
Changes
Reduction of Inflections
Change in phonetics
Old English Manuscripts had
disappeared by the using of press
4
5. The Verbs
The original English verb
destroyed
French dominating
The weak verbs became
strong gradually
The strong verb declined
5
6. Losses among the
Strong Verbs
Almost one third strong verbs of OE
disappeared
No reference of strong verbs in the books
after 1150
Few strong verbs now use in spoken language
Some strong verbs were rare and other were
in competition.
About a dozen more strong verbs appeared in
twelfth century texts.
Today more than half of the strong verbs have
disappeared from the standard language. 6
7. Strong Verbs That
Became Weak
The weak conjugation offered a smoothly structure for
the past and past participle.
Past participle survive in the resemblance of past tense.
Past tense were lost and become weak.
The past participle were not used as past participle but
as adjective
For Example;
Laden- in OE Past participle
Laden- in Modern Adjective
Once a time English language was used only by the
people of lower classes.
Many strong verbs also had weak forms such as blowed
for blew and knowed for knew. 7
8. Survival of Strong Principle
Past form of the OE survived as the past
participles of strong verbs.
In the verb, beat the participle beaten has
remained the standard form.
Other verbs of the strong participle cloven,
laden are still used especially as adjectives.
8
9. Loss of Grammatical
Gender
Leaving of inflections, Grammatical gender become
ambiguous.
The gender of old English nouns did not depend on
meaning.
Sometimes it was in contradiction with the meaning.
Thus Woman ( Wif- mann in OE) was masculine because
the second element in the compound was masculine.
In the Middle English after the losing of inflections,
adjectives and demonstratives help to remove the
problem of masculine and feminine.
In the north, grammatical gender disappeared first.
In the south it long lasted because there the decay of
inflection was slower.
9
10. Middle English Syntax
Syntactic and Semantic relationship became complex
because of leaving inflections
Avoid the ambiguity word order of ME became limited
and restricted
Development of Middle English as a separate stage of the
language grammatically and phonologically in SV.
Development of grammar increased in the Middle English
after Norman Conquest
Burce Mitchell writes in book The Language of the
Peterborough Chronicle “Middle English is a process of
transition”
A Latin sentence – “Nero interfecit Agrippinam” is changed
it’s formation in ME
Language became syntactic to analytic
10
11. French Influence on the Vocabulary
French Language influenced in the Germanic Tribes
because of Norman Conquest
They transferred French to English in the case of
governmental, administrative, ecclesiastical, legal, military,
food & social life
Over 10000 French words entered in English gradually
The number of French word was so large because of it’s
domination
Most of the French word used till in present Modern English
The example of French borrowed word for animals and
their meat
Animal Meat
Sheep Mutton
Cow Beef
Swine Pork 11
12. Period of
Greatest Change
Otto Jespersen’s statistical study of 1000
words borrowed from French
Last half of 12 century- Slightly increased
1200-1250= more rapidity
After 1250- not great
1250- 1400= 40% French came
15000 words came and 75% still in use in
English
12
13. Assimilation
French words were assimilated
English words were added with French origin in ending
The compounds and derivatives occur with the
adaptations of adjectives. Ex- ‘Gentle’ recorded in 1225
The adverbial endings-ly have been adopted. Ex- ‘Gently’
recorded in 1330
Gentle recorded in 1225
gentlewoman recorded in 1230
Gentleman recorded in 1275
gentleness recorded in 1300
Gently recorded in 1330
13
14. Loss of Native
Words
Duplicate words appeared from French
Both English and French words used side
by side
After time being huge number of English
words died out
In the same way French words also
expired
Thus OE (Old English) eam meaning uncle
in French is still used in Scotland
14
15. The Prefixes
Some prefixes are still used
Some died out because readymade words
of French with same meaning added to
English: for example, the prefix ‘for’ was
formed at about 1300.
Prefix ‘to’ vanished completely
15
16. Suffixes
Some suffixes are still used
Some died out because readymade words
of French with same meaning added to
English
Some words newly formed by using the
suffix ‘dom’
But a few words formed with falsedom,
richdom died out
16
17. Middle English Dialects
Four Dialects in Middle English-
1. Northern
2.East Midland
3. West Midland
4.Southern
East Midland Dialect was
dominating 17
18. The Rise of Standard English
Four reason regarding The Rise of
Standard English
1. Flexibility of the Language
2. Regional Advantage
3. Because of Cambridge & Oxford
Universities.
4. Influence of Chaucer
18
19. Importance of
London English
The London English was the
language of the capital of England
London was politically and
commercially center of England
London English became the
language of court
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