The transition period in the history of English between Old English and Modern English

MIDDLE ENGLISH

The transition period in the history of English between Old English and Modern English is known as Middle English. Its chronological limits are, however, not easy to establish, because the changes transforming any language are always gradual and conspicuous only after some time. Nevertheless, it is often agreed that Middle English was the English spoken between 1100 – 1500.

1. Historical outline of the period

In order to understand the linguistic changes that took place in that period we shall outline the most important historical events of that time.

1.1. The Norman Conquest and its Consequences

Towards the end of the Old English period an event occurred, which had a very great effect on the English language, mainly on its vocabulary. This event was the Norman Conquest in 1066.

The Normans – who lived in Normandy, a district on the Northern Coast of France – were among the most advanced and progressive of the peoples of Europe. For some time before the Norman Conquest, the relations between England and France had been fairly close. When in 1066 Edward the Confessor died childless, England was faced with the choice of a successor. In the end, Harold, the son of a Saxon earl was elected king, but the election was challenged. William, the duke of Normandy, a cousin to the late king, believing himself entitled to the throne, decided to obtain the English crown by force. In September he landed on the southern coast of England; the battle was fought at Hastings ending with the victory of the Normans. On Christmas day 1066, William “The Conqueror” was crowned king of England.

The Norman Conquest was attended by several consequences:

a) At the time of the Conquest, the Normans had advanced feudal institutions and this fact accelerated the full establishment of feudalism in Britain. One of the most important consequences was the introduction of a new nobility. Many of the English higher class had been killed on the battlefield at Hastings, those who escaped were treated 616b18g as traitors and the places were filled by William’s Norman followers and for several generations after the Norman Conquest the important positions at the Court were almost always held by Normans.

b) The Norman clergy were given all the important positions in the Church.

c) Since the governing class in both State and Church was almost exclusively made up from among Normans, their influence was enormous. They used their own language, i.e. French and for 200 years after the Norman Conquest, French remained the language used among the upper classes in England. At first, those who spoke French were of Norman origin, but soon, social interests made the remnants of the English ruling class learn French. They realized that it was to their own advantage to learn the new language and before long the distinction between those who spoke English and those who spoke French was not ethnic, but largely social. French was the language of the Court and the upper classes, while English remained the language of the masses (of the lower classes). Thus, about 90 per cent of the population (peasants, craftsmen, tradesmen) continued to speak English.

The situation in the Middle English period is summed up by D. Giering as follows: “The French-speaking Normans had consolidated their political power and introduced their language into all important spheres of the feudal state. At court and in the church, in the law-courts and the army, in the schools and in the arts, in the nobility down to the country squire, everywhere a northern dialect of French (Norman became the dominant language. For almost three centuries English continued to be spoken only by the lower classes, the masses of the people” (Giering, 1979: 13).

After the Conquest, the Norman kings of England continued to be dukes of Normandy and many noblemen had estates on both sides of the Channel. Thus, there were economic links, which naturally implied the continued use of French.

1.2. The Reestablishment of English (1200 - 1500)

Several factors led to the reestablishment of English:

i. The loss of Normandy: In 1204 King John lost Normandy because he did not accept the king of France as his overlord. After the loss of Normandy, many noblemen had to give up their estates in Normandy. Towards the middle of the century, when they no longer had any economic interests in France, English began to come into general use again. They continued to speak French, but instead of using French as their mother tongue inherited from Norman ancestors, French became a fashionable language enjoying great prestige at most European courts.

English won back its leading role as the official language of the country only towards the end of the Middle English period. This was possible as a result of a gradual re-orientation on the part of the Norman upper classes who wanted to take a firmer hold of their English possessions and to unite with the remaining English nobility against their common feudal enemy, the French king. With the shift of their economic and political interest from Normandy to England, English became a patriotic symbol of their new identity as Englishmen. The first English king of Norman descent to open Parliament in English (in 1363) was Edward III (Giering, 1979: 13).

By the middle of the 13^th century English became the language used among the upper classes. It was at this time that the adoption of French words into the English language assumed large proportions. While trying to express their ideas in English, all those who had been usually speaking French, often simply had to transfer French words into English and the outcome was a large scale borrowing of French words.

ii. Besides the loss of Normandy, there were other factors (social, political and economic ones) which contributed to the disuse of French:

a) The Hundred Years’ War (1337 –1453) between England and France;

b) The Peasants’ Rising of 1381;

c) The gradual decline of feudalism and especially the rise of two important English speaking social strata: the small landowners and the town bourgeoisie, i.e. the rise of the middle class (A. Baugh, & T. Cable, 1978: 141). The economic importance of these two classes increased with it the importance of the language they spoke, i.e. English.

Such changes in the social and economic life enable us to understand the final triumph of English. Towards the close of the 14^th century English was restored in law courts, in schools and at Court.

The last step the English language had to make in its gradual ascent was its employment in writing (literature), for here it had to meet the competition of Latin as well as French. It was only in the second half of the 14^th century that English succeeded in taking the place of French and Latin in writing.

Middle English Literature

The literature written in England during the Middle English period reflects fairly accurately the linguistic situation shown above. Three periods can be distinguished:

a) During the first period (1150 –1250) ‘polite’ literature was written in French, while chroniclers and scholars used Latin. The only works written in English were almost exclusively religious such as the Ormulum. The outstanding exceptions to this kind of literature were Layamon’s Brut and The Owl and the Nightingale.

b) In the 13^th century romances began to be translated and adopted from the French.

c) The second half of the 14^th century is an outstanding period in Middle English literature owing to Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland and John Wycliffe. G. Chaucer is important not only as the founder of English poetry, but he is equally important because he firmly established the English literary language. The most famous of his work is The Canterbury Tales which, besides giving us in the General Prologue a matchless portrait gallery of contemporary types, constitutes in the variety of the tales a veritable anthology of medieval literature.

W. Langland is the author of a long social allegory, Piers the Plowman. J. Wycliff was the first to attempt the translation of the Bible into English.

Besides their literary value, these works prove the secure position the English language had attained in the 14^th century.

1.3. The Establishment (formation) of the National Language. The Rise of Standard

English

One of the striking characteristics of Middle English was its enormous variety in the different parts of the country. This variety was not confined to the forms of the spoken language, as it is to a great extent today, but appeared equally in the written literature.

Nevertheless, four main dialects are generally distinguished in Middle English: Northern (from the OE Northumbrian dialect), East Midland, West Midland (both coming from the OE Mercian dialect) and Southern (from the OE West Saxon).

In the 15^th century, from a country whose land was divided among great feudal lords, England started to become a national state. Bourgeois relations were developing rapidly. The economic relations between different parts of the country were getting stronger and it became both necessary and possible to establish a national language that should be above all dialects and should be understood all over the country.

Out of this variety of local dialects there emerged towards the end of the fourteenth century a written language that in the course of the fifteenth century won general recognition and has since become the recognized standard in both speech and writing.

Therefore, alongside the gradual victory of English in its struggle with French, another important process took place - the establishment (formation) of the national language.

The part of England that contributed most to the formation of this standard was the East Midland district, and it was the East Midland type of English that became its basis, particularly the dialect of the metropolis, London.

Several factors contributed to the attainment of this result:

a) In the first place, as a Midland dialect, the English of this region occupied a middle position between the extreme divergences of the north and the south. It was less conservative that the southern dialect, less radical than the northern. In its sounds and inflections it represents a kind of compromise, sharing some of the characteristics of both its neighbours (A. Baugh: 192).

b) In the second place, the East Midland district was the largest and most populous of the major dialect areas. The land was more valuable than the hilly country to the north and west, and in an agricultural age this advantage was reflected in both the number and the prosperity of the inhabitants.

c) A third factor was the presence of the universities, Oxford and Cambridge, in this region. In the fourteenth century the monasteries were playing a less important role in the dissemination of learning than they had once played, while the two universities had developed into important intellectual centres.

d) The popularity of G. Chaucer’s and J. Wyclif’s works supported the diffusion of standard English.

e) A very important contribution to the spread of Standard English was the introduction of printing in 1476. W. Caxton, the first English printer used the speech of London in all works he printed.

f) By far the most influential factor in the rise of Standard English was the importance of London as the capital of England. Indeed, it is altogether likely that the language of the city would have become the prevailing dialect without the help of any of the factors previously discussed. In doing so, it would have been following the course of other national tongues – French as the dialect of Paris, Spanish as that of Castile, etc. (Baugh: 194). London was, and still is, the political and commercial centre of England. It was the seat of the court, of the highest judicial tribunals, the focus of the social and intellectual activities of the country. The history of Standard English is almost a history of London English.

2. The linguistic characteristics of Middle English

2.1. Middle English Spelling and Pronunciation

In the 14^th and 15^th centuries paper began to be used for manuscripts instead of parchment which was very expensive. The growing number of schools implied an ever increasing necessity of manuscripts. But since most of the texts were written in French or Latin, whenever an English text was copied its spelling was influenced by these two languages. As most of the scribes were Norman, the French methods of representing sounds began to prevail. There were certain vowels and consonants which did not exist in French and which the Norman scribes found rather difficult to represent. That is why certain symbols which had existed in OE but did not exist in French spelling were discarded:

1. French had neither the symbol æ nor the sound [æ]. That is why the symbol æ gradually disappeared from texts and was replaced by a or e:

e.g. OE ʒlæd > Mi.E glad

OE slæpan > Mi.E slepan (later on the vowel e was doubled)

2. The symbols T and δ did not exist in French: these signs were replaced by th.

3. A new letter – g – was introduced at the beginning of the Middle English period (abbreviated to MiE) to replace ʒ in initial and final position. e.g. OE ʒod > Mi.E god

The group of consonants sc which rendered the sound [ in OE was replaced by sh in Mi.E:

e.g. OE. scip > Mi.E. ship

5. A number of French representations of sounds were introduced:

ou, ow (in final position) for the sound [u:]

e.g. OE lūd > MiE loud; OE cū > MiE cow

OE c was replaced by k after n and before front vowels (i) e.g. OE drincan > MiE drinkan

6. Long vowels were no longer indicated by a macron ) as they had been in Old English; they began to be doubled:

e.g. OE ʒ ōs > MiE goos; OE fōt > MiE foot

However, ī was not doubled because of the similarity of ü and ū, which would have brought about misunderstanding. In the 15^th century the scribes began to add a final e to the stem in order to show that i was long:

e.g. OE. wīf > MiE wife

By analogy with such spellings, other monosyllabic words such as goos, hors added a silent e to their stems: goose, horse.

Most of these changes in spelling were due to the respelling of English by Norman scribes according to French spelling traditions. Naturally, the falling out of use of special marks for long vowels, the introduction of new symbols weakened the phonetic character of English spelling: phonetic principles were mixed up with French spellings and with conservative Old English spellings.

2.2. Middle English Grammar

The most important changes affecting the language during the Middle English period were the further levelling and reduction of Old English inflectional endings (they were much reduced both in number and complexity). Some 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 after the Scandinavian invasion.

It was in this period that the change from a predominantly inflectional (or synthetic) to a more syntax-orientated (analytic) grammatical structure could be regarded as a breakthrough (D. Giering, 1979: 13).

The Noun

The process of the decay of the inflectional system of the noun developed more rapidly in the North, where it was supported by the mixing of English and Scandinavian dialects.

a) Gender. The inflections indicating the gender of a noun began to be discarded. In Middle English we witness the elimination of Old English grammatical gender (the weakening of inflections led to the loss of the old grammatical gender). In the North, where inflections were weakened earlier, grammatical gender disappeared first; in the South it lingered longer because the decay of inflections was slower.

b) Number. In early Middle English there remained only two methods of indicating the plural: the e)s for masculine nouns (strong declension) and the –en for weak declension. In late Middle English the e)s plural spread quickly and it became the normal plural ending of nouns, with a few exceptions: oxen, children, brethren and a few more which have changed in the meantime: eyen.

c) Case. The masculine nouns (those belonging to the strong declension) were reduced to two cases in Middle English: The common case (Nominative, Dative, Accusative) and the Possessive (Genitive) case. The neuter nouns (weak declension) had no case forms at all. The two main types of declension (strong and weak) of Middle English can be illustrated by two nouns ston (stone), masculine and eye, neuter.

Strong Decl. Weak Decl.

Sg. pl. sg. pl.

Common case ston stones eye eyen

Possessive stones stones eye eyen

(genitive)

The process of dropping the inflections was also due to the growth of other means of indicating grammatical relations, i.e. of indicating the function of words in the sentence. Prepositional phrases began to be used more and more often instead of case forms, namely the to-phrase instead of the Dative and the of-phrase instead of the Genitive.

In Old English the preposition to had generally indicated direction and the preposition of had meant ‘from’, ‘out of. In Middle English the meaning of both prepositions was weakened: to and sometimes for indicated the Indirect Object, i.e. the Object towards which the action was directed and for which it was performed. Of frequently indicated possession.

It is difficult to know whether these prepositional phrases came into use in order to compensate for the loss of inflections or just to make the meaning of cases clearer, thus rendering their inflection unnecessary, levelling them and finally discarding them. What is most probable is that at first, these prepositions began to be used to give more syntactic force to the inflections and when, in Middle English the inflections were levelled and therefore lost their distinctive power, the prepositions became absolutely necessary to show the respective syntactic relations.

The Adjective

The adjective was influenced by the loss of grammatical gender and by the loss of most case inflections of the noun. (In Old English the adjective had agreed with the noun in gender, case, number).

There remained only a few traces of the number distinctions and the distinctions between the strong and the weak declension. In Old English a weak adjective (i.e. an adjective accompanied by a determiner) had five distinct singular and plural forms which indicated both case and number by means of the endings: -a, -e, -an, -ene, -um. In Middle English all these endings were levelled to –e:

Strong declension Weak declension

(Det + Adj + Noun)

Singular hard harde

Plural harde harde

The result was that in the weak declension there was no longer any distinction between the singular and the plural, since both ended in –e. When in the 14^th century final -e ceased to be pronounced, it became a mere feature of spelling. The adjective had become an uninflected word by the close of the Middle English period.

Besides the synthetic comparison (formed by means of the suffixes –er, -est -ost) in the 14^th century, adjectives were often compared analytically (with more and most):

e.g…which partie is the bettre and more profitable. (G. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales)

The Pronoun

The Personal Pronoun In the Personal pronoun the losses were not so great. Here there was greater need for separate forms for the different genders, cases and accordingly, most of the distinctions that had existed in Old English were retained.

The Personal pronoun suffered the following changes in Middle English:

1. The dual number (wit = we two) disappeared in the 13^th century.

2. The forms of the Dative and Accusative cases merged into one form called the Objective case: me, him, her.

3. The forms they, them, which are due to the Scandinavian influence replaced the Old English pronouns hī, hem.

The Demonstrative Pronoun In Old English the Demonstrative Pronoun had two numbers, three genders and four or five cases. In Middle English the simplification of the inflectional system of the demonstrative pronoun consisted in the elimination of gender distinctions and the reduction of the number of cases. Of the numerous forms of sē (M), sēo (F), Tæt (N) for singular Nominative, we have only sē > the, and Tæt > that surviving through Middle English and continuing in use today. The form sē > the began to be used as a definite article; that continued to be used in the function of demonstrative pronoun.

The Verb

Apart from some levelling of inflections and the weakening of endings in accordance with the general tendency, the principal changes in the verb during the Middle English period were:

1. The conjugation of the verb was subjected to serious modifications in Middle English. Thus, owing to the weakening of vowels in unstressed syllables, the difference between the endings –an (in the Old English Imperative and Infinitive), -on (Indicative past plural), -en (Present and Past Subjunctive; also Past Participle of strong verbs) was lost. The final consonant –n was gradually weakened and lost in Middle English period, except in the Past Participle of certain strong verbs.

2. The serious losses suffered by the strong conjugation. The number of weak verbs became much larger than the number of strong verbs for the following reasons:

i. Nearly a third of the strong verbs in Old English died out in the Middle English period;

ii. The large number of French verbs which were borrowed during the Middle English period reinforced the weak conjugation;

iii. The pattern of analogy, i.e. the tendency of language to adapt a more complex form to a simpler one, is exemplified by the number of verbs which had belonged to the strong conjugation in Old English but which became weak in Middle English: climb, help, walk, etc.

iv. In a number of cases, some verbs which had belonged to the strong conjugation in Old English and which later became weak verbs, have preserved the strong form of Past Participle (in –(e)n ) only when they are used as adjectives: laden (<load), molten (<melt), rotten (<rot), shaven (<shave), misshapen, cloven.

3. The Old English prefix to the Past Participle 1e- was reduced to y- in Middle English (later on y- disappeared altogether leaving no traces of this prefix).

e.g. OE ʒesēon > Mi.E. yseon

The verbs shal and, to a certain extent, will were frequently used in Middle English to denote a future action: e.g. …of which I tolde yow and tellan shal.

5. The Continuous Aspect appeared in Middle English but it was not often resorted to.

Syntax

1. The decay of inflectional endings had an extensive influence on syntax, in particular on word order.

So long as inflections served to indicate the case of nouns (their function in the sentence), word order was comparatively unimportant, but when, for example, the Nominative and the Accusative came to be identical in form, a fixed word order was necessary as a means of denoting syntactic relations.

The subject generally preceded the predicate except when the sentence began with an adverbial modifier, e.g. Wel coude he sittan on hors. (‘Well could he sit on the horse’)

The pressure exerted by the more and more rigid character of word order accounts for certain changes connected with impersonal verbs: the former indirect objects preceding them became subjects:

OE Me wæs ʒeʒiefan a bōc → Late MiE I was given a book

2. In Middle English it was still possible to use several negative words in the same sentence:

e.g. Ye neshulen habben no best bute cat one. (‘You should have no animal but one

cat’)

The negative words no, noht (‘nought’) which were placed after the verb and emphasized the negative particle ne- preceding the verb, gradually became independent of the particle and ousted it completely.

2.3. Middle English Vocabulary

The development of the vocabulary in Middle English is due to the inner resources of the language, as well as to the borrowing of words from other languages.

2.3.1. The inner resources of the language in Middle English

They were represented by a) Affixation; b) Composition; c) Changes of meaning.

a)      Affixation

Old English had enlarged its vocabulary chiefly by a rich use of prefixes and suffixes. In the Middle English period there is a visible decline in the use of these old methods of word formation. Many of the Old English prefixes and suffixes gradually lost their productivity (partly or completely) because of the large influx of French words.

i. Prefixes. For example, the prefix for- (corresponding to the German ver-) which was used to intensify the meaning of a verb or to add the idea of something detrimental, destructive became obsolete in Middle English. The only verbs in which for- occurs had their origin in Old English: forgive, forget, forsake, forswear, forbid, forgo.

The prefix to- (corresponding to the German zer-) has left no traces at all.

Other prefixes have lost their productivity: be-, mis-, un-. Thus, the negative prefix un-, found in words such as unable, unbold (timid), unfrend (hostile), unhonourable (dishonourable), unmovable (immovable) – began to share its productive power with prefixes of French or Latin origin such as dis-, in-, re-.

ii. Suffixes. A similar decline is observable in the formative power of certain suffixes which were widely used in Old English. The loss here is perhaps less distinctly felt because some important suffixes remained in full force in Middle English, such as:

-er(e): formed agent nouns from verbs or other nouns: baker, fisher; -ness(e): formed nouns from adjectives: brihtnesse (brightness), frelnesse (frailty); -ful: was used to form adjectives from nouns and verbs: forgetful, rihtful (rightful, just).

But other suffixes, equally important were lost (e.g. –end which was used to form agent nouns from verbs) or were diminished in productivity: -dom, -hood, -ship.

b) Composition

Not only affixation but also composition lost some of its productive power in Middle English. The practice of combining native words into self-interpreting compounds was not abandoned in Middle English, but in many cases where a new word could have been easily formed on the native model, a ready-made French word was borrowed instead. For instance, in Middle English compound nouns were of two types:

- endocentric (one element of the compound determines another): rainbowe (rainbow), alehūs (alehouse), hangeman (hangman);

- exocentric (none/neither of the elements determines another): pickepurse (pickpocket), redbrest (redbreast).

c) Changes of meaning

Another important means of enriching the vocabulary was Change of meaning. The meanings of words are not fixed, they are liable to change. There are several causes for changes of meaning: some social, some psychological, some purely linguistic. It has been observed that, in their development of meaning words often pursue certain tendencies. The chief trends of semantic change are: extension of meaning, narrowing of meaning, elevation of meaning, degradation of meaning.

i. Extension of meaning (or Generalization) refers to the phenomenon when the meaning is widened, generalized from one narrow field to a wider one: e.g. husband originally meant “master of a house”; in Middle English it began to be used with the meaning of “a man to whom a woman is married”.

The word holiday originally meant ‘holy day’, a day of religious significance. But in Middle English semantic change extended the meaning of holiday to what it is in Modern English: ‘any day on which we do not have to work’.

Quarantine once had the restricted meaning of ‘forty days’ isolation’.

ii. Narrowing of meaning (or Specialization) refers to the case when the word acquires a more restricted, specialized sense.

e.g. meat originally meant ‘any kind of food’. Thus, in the Bible, God says of the herbs and trees, “to you they shall be for meat” (Genesis 1: 29, cited from Fromkin & Rodman, 1998: 463). To a speaker of Old English meat meant ‘food’ while flesh meant ‘meat’.

But in Middle English semantic change narrowed the meaning of meat to what it is in Modern English: it began to refer to one special type of food ‘edible flesh’. The earlier meaning still survives in the compound sweetmeat (a sweet or cake), also in the saying ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

Wade in Old English meant ‘to go’ but in Middle English it began to be used with the meaning of ‘to walk through water, mud’

iii. Elevation of meaning implies the process by which the new meaning of a word acquires a higher status in comparison with the initial one.

e.g. knight (OE cniht) originally meant ‘a boy’, ‘a servant’; in Middle English it began to be used with the meaning of ‘man raised to honourable military rank’.

iv. Degradation of meaning refers to the process when a neutral word becomes deprecating in meaning. Thus, cnafe (< G. Knabe) originally signified ‘a boy’ but in Middle English it began to be used with the meaning of ‘knave’.

2.3.2. Borrowings.

The greatest number of words borrowed in the Middle English period came from French and Latin.

The French influence on the vocabulary

The end of the Middle English period witnessed an enormous influx of thousands of French words. Since that time borrowing has won a favourite place in English word-formation.

French influence did not begin immediately after the Norman Conquest when there was a well-marked separation between the two languages. This influence was strongest in the years 1250 – 1400, i.e. after the loss of Normandy and the reestablishment of English.

French has enriched the English vocabulary by about ten thousand words, three quarters of which are still in current use. Besides, the importance of the French influence is not to be judged only by the number of the words borrowed, but also by their frequency of use and by their degree of assimilation.

Many of the words borrowed from French were connected with the development of feudalism, and with the life, ideas, customs and tastes of the Norman nobility. The French loan words may be divided into the following groups according to the main spheres of activity they belong to:

a) Words reflecting feudal administration: state (< état), mayor (< maire), realm, govern, government, court, prince, noble, duke, sovereign, majesty, reign, royal, revenue, etc.

b) Words connected with law. As French was the language of the law courts for a very long time, most legal terms are of French origin: justice, sentence, prison, defence, defendant, crime, accuse, plea, to plead, judge, judgment.

c) Words connected with army and military life. The important part played by war in feudalism, the control of the army and the navy by the French-speaking aristocracy, the wars waged with France, all these factors contributed to the adoption of numerous French military terms, such as: captain, lieutenant, spy, army, battle, siege, enemy, regiment, combat, etc.

d) Religious, ecclesiastical terms. The fact that the major part of the higher clergy were of Norman origin accounts for a large number of French words such as: religion, sermon, saint, miracle, clergy, friar, pray, baptism, hermit.

e) Terms connected with art, literature, science. The cultural and intellectual interests of the ruling class are reflected in words pertaining to the arts, architecture, science, medicine, etc: art, paint(ing), prose, pain, poison, ointment, logic, grammar, etc.

f) Terms reflecting fashion, meals, social life: dress, garment, robe, button, fashion, dinner, appetite, taste; beef, veal, mutton, pork, joy, pleasure, leisure, dance, music, ease, etc.

Many of the French words that were borrowed had a meaning already expressed by an English word. In such cases two linguistic phenomena happened: i. one of the two words disappeared; ii. where both survived, they were differentiated in meaning.

i. One of the two words (French or English) disappeared:

- Sometimes, after a time, it was the French word that went out of use:

e.g. OE amity was used for some time in MiE alongside friendship but was finally replaced by friendship; amity is now used in very formal style.

OE moiety (<F. moitié) was finally replaced by half.

- In a great many cases it was the Old English word that died out:

e.g. The O.E. æTele was replaced in Mi.E. by the French word noble, and æTeling became nobleman.

OE ʒoldhord was replaced in Mi.E by the French word tresor> treasure (Mod.E). Although the compound went out of use, the separate words have been retained: gold, hoard (“pile”).

OE ʒerihte was replaced in MiE by the French word justice.

The O.E. dōm was replaced in Mi..E. by the French word judgment. But the O.E. word has survived in some special senses: ‘the day of doom’ or ‘doomsday’ (= the day of judgment); ‘to be doomed to oblivion’ (= to be condemned by fate to…), or ‘to meet one’s doom’.

The O.E. dēman was replaced in Mi.E. by the French word to judge. The O.E. word has survived in some special senses: ‘to deem it right / proper’ (= to think / to hold an opinion).

ii. When both the English and the corresponding French words survived, they were maintained and they were generally differentiated in meaning. Thus, there appeared stylistic differences justifying the retention of both words in the language. As a rule, the native word - English - had a concrete character, it referred to everyday life and therefore it was preferred in informal style, having a more emotional sense; the loan-word - French - had a more bookish, more abstract character and it was preferred in formal style.

There are numerous examples of two lexical items, one Germanic and one Romance, for one single concept in English: hearty / cordial, help / aid, deep / profound, begin / commence, ask / demand, hide / conceal, wedding / marriage, wish / desire, freedom / liberty, child / infant, work / labour, life / existence, etc.

Referring to the pair of words hearty and cordial, A. Baugh & Th. Cable write: “In the fifteenth century hearty and cordial came to be used for feelings which were supposed to spring from the heart. Etymologically they are alike, coming respectively from the Old English and the Latin words for ‘heart’. But we have kept them both in the language because we use them with a slight difference in meaning, hearty implying a certain physical vigour, as in a hearty dinner, cordial a more quiet or conventional manifestation, as in a cordial reception. 1978: 180) Because of the concrete value, the English word has a stronger emotional colouring than the French one. Thus, hearty welcome is warmer than cordial welcome (O. Jespersen, 1955: 104).

Also, referring to the difference between help and aid, Otto Jespersen writes: “Help expresses greater dependence and deeper need than aid. In extremity we say ‘God help me!’ rather than ‘God aid me!’ In time of danger we cry ‘help! help!’ rather than ‘aid! Aid’ […]Help includes aid, but aid may fall short of the meaning of help.” (1955: 103)

In the same way, the English have kept a number of words for smell. The common word in Old English was stench. During the Middle English period this was supplemented by the word smell (of unknown origin) and the French words aroma, odour, and scent. To these the English have since added stink (from the verb) and perfume and fragrance, from French. Most of these have special connotations and smell has become the general word. Stench now always means an unpleasant smell (Baugh & Cable, 1978: 180).

Very often, the difference in origin has developed into a difference in meaning. An interesting group of words illustrating the principle is ox, sheep, swine, and calf beside the French equivalents beef, mutton, pork, and veal. The French words primarily denoted the animal, as they still do, but in English they were used from the beginning to distinguish the meat from the living beast.

Alongside of French words, many French word-building elements entered the English language:

Prefixes: dis- / des- (disdain, destroy; disown, dislike (with English roots); en- (enjoy, encircle).

Suffixes: -ence/ -ance (defence, obedience; ignorance, arrogance); -tion (corruption, attraction);-ment (treatment, government; fulfilment (hybrid); -ess (princess, goddess (hybrid); -able/ -ible: admirable, terrible, readable (hybrid).

It must not be thought that the extensive modification of the English language caused by the Norman Conquest had made of it something else than English. The language had undergone much simplification of its inflections, but its grammar was still English. It had absorbed several thousand French words as a natural consequence of a situation in which large numbers of people were for a time bilingual and then gradually turned from the habitual use of French to the habitual use of English. It had lost a great many native words and abandoned some of its most characteristic habits of word-formation. But great and basic elements of the vocabulary were still English. As A. Baugh and Th. Cable rightly point out, “While we are under the necessity of paying considerable attention to the large French element that the Norman Conquest brought directly and indirectly into the language, we must see it in proper perspective. The language which the Normans and their successors finally adopted was English, and while it was an English changed in many important particulars from the language of King Alfred, its predominant features were those inherited from the Germanic tribes that settled in England in the fifth century” (1978: 185).

The Latin influence on the vocabulary

A great number of words were borrowed from Latin in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. This is quite natural, for Latin was the language of theology and learning. Besides, the influence of French words facilitated the adoption of Latin words. The new borrowings were learned words and they penetrated into the language through literature, especially through the numerous translations from Latin made at that time. Latin borrowings in Middle English belong to different spheres, mainly social life, law, medicine, science, religion / theology, literature.

It is unnecessary to attempt a formal classification of these borrowings. Some idea of their range and character may be gained from a selected but miscellaneous list of examples:

e.g. abject, allegory, conspiracy, custody, homicide, immune, incredible, incumbent, index, infancy, inferior, infinite, innate, intellect, legal, promote, prosecute, prosody, rational, script, scripture, secular, solar, submit, summary, testify, testimony, tract, etc.

Many of these borrowings introduced into the language suffixes and prefixes which began to be used for forming derivatives (some of these affixes reinforcing the corresponding French ones):

Prefixes: ab-, ad-, con-, dis-, im- / in-, pro-, re-, sub-

Suffixes: -able / -ible, -ent, -al, -ous, -ive.

Synonyms at three levels

The richness of the English language in synonyms is largely due to the mingling of English (native), French and Latin elements. This may be seen in the groups of synonyms where a difference between colloquial, literary and learned terms is quite apparent. The English term is more colloquial in style, the French term is literary; the Latin term is generally more learned or bookish:

e.g. English French Latin

rise mount ascend

ask demand / question interrogate

fast firm secure

fire flame conflagration

holy sacred consecrated

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

1. What was the chief influence of the Norman Conquest on the English language?

2. Which variety of Middle English became the standard dialect and when did it become the literary standard?

3. What caused the decline of French as the language of the governing classes in England?

What are the chief differences between Old and Middle English grammar?