Middle English.doc

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1、Middle English1066-1500The Norman Conquest1066-1200A. The single most important event on the history of the English language is the Norman Conquest in 1066.B. In 1066 King Edward (the Confessor) died childless. Edwards chief advisor (earl of West Saxon), Godwin, had a son names Harold. Harold succee

2、ded his father Godwin and virtually ruled England the last 12 years of Edwards reign. Upon Edwards death, Harold was elected King.C. William, the duke of Normandy, was 2nd cousin to Edward, and Edward had promised him the throne upon Edwards death. Once William learns of Harolds succession to the th

3、rone, William begins a very detailed and careful plan to win the crown.1. First, William secured cooperation from his vassals by promising good rewards.2. He made peace with his enemies on the continent.3. He appealed to the Pope to sanction his plan and recieved the blessing of the Church.4. The en

4、d result was a massive number of people with questionable (greedy & ambitious) motives coming to the aid of William. By the time William invades England, he has a formidable army.5. When William landed (Sept. 1066 at Pevensy in the south of England), he was unopposed.6. Harold was busy in northern E

5、ngland trying to ward off an invaion by the king of Norway, who also wanted the throne.7. When Harold finally marshals his army, he didnt have the numbers that William did. However, the day of the big battle, Harold managed a valiant fight and actually held William off. According to history, militar

6、y might had nothing to do with Williams victory. Instead, Harold was killed, and in the confusion without a leader, the English troops fell apart. Thus, William was able to triumph at Hastings.8. However, William had to burn and pillage southeast England before the people gave in, and on Christmas D

7、ay 1066, William was crowned king.D. Williams reign virtually wipes out all of the old English nobility. In its place, a new nobility-of Norman descentE. With Norman nobility in place, nearly all great estates and important positions were held by Normans or other foriegners.F. The governing class in

8、 both church and state, then, was foreign, and their influence great.Language Use During ME1. Frencha. The ruling class continued to use their own language-French.b. For 200 years after the Conquest, the language of policy was French. And this was not a demarcation of ethnicity. Numerous English peo

9、ple (those of the upper classes) learned the language through marriage and by association.c. However, the language of the masses remained English.d. Until the beginning of the 13th century, French continued to dominate as the language of nobility. A very close connection existed between the continen

10、t and England . . . the nobility usually held land in both places: therefore, travel between the two was fairly common.e. Further, William was no exception tothis. In fact when William died, he left Normandy to his eldest son and England to his youngest son, William the Second. Later Normandy and En

11、gland were under one ruler, but not until Henry the First. Under Henry the Second, English possessions in France were even further broadened and enhanced.f. When Henry the 2nd marries Eleanor of Aquitaine, he increased his holdings so that by the time he became King of England, he controlled about 2

12、/3 of France.g. From William the Conqueror through Henry the 2nd, most kings spent at least 2/3 of their time in France. And besides Henry I, no other English king married an Englishwoman until Edward the 4th in the 1460s. The perpetuation of French was on. Too much time and too much money were inve

13、sted in France for the nobility not to have, as a natural course of events, used French as the language.*note: no evidence exists to suggest that English was a hated language. Most probably very little attention was paid to it because classes simply did not mix.2. Fusion of the French and English-ov

14、er time, the two cultures assimilated and adjusted to one another.3. Diffusion of Englisha. Some nobility spoke English. This would be a natural occurrence.b. Some clergy preserved English.c. Some of the educated, the nobility, and clergy, then, representing the upper social strata, were bilingual.4

15、. Diffusion of Frencha. Knights learned French.b. Merchants spoke both French and English.c. Managers (sheriffs, bailiffs, etc.) on large estates were bilingual.d. For the most part, bilingualism extended only down to the middle class.*Qualification: Bilingual as used above does not indicate fluency

16、.The Re-establishment of English1200-15001. The Loss of Normandya. King John lost Normandy in 1204b. King John fell in love with a French noblewoman-Isabel of Angouleme.c. He married her hastily without regard for her other suitor (to whom she was already engaged), Hugh of Lusignan.d. Hugh was the h

17、ead of a very powerful and ambitious family, but John chose to ignore these connections and, in anticipation of retaliation for stealing Isabel, attacked Hughs family.e. Hugh appeals to the King of all France, Philip, and Philip took advantage of the situation to embarrass the duke of Normandy (and

18、King of England), John. Since John was extremely irritating to Philip, it was with great delight that Philip summoned John to appear before him, answer charges, and submit to the judgement of the court.f. John maintained that, as King of England, he was exempt from subjugation and did not appear at

19、his trial. Hence, Philip stripped John of his dukedom and invaded Normandy.g. Philip succeeded, and Normandy returned solely to the French.h. John lost support: he was viewed as a scoundrel. There was even thought (with some basis) that he had his own cousin, prince Arthur, murdered.2. Separation of

20、 English and French nobilitya. With the loss of Normandy (some holdings were left in the south of France), many nobles had to decide where their allegiance lay . . . France or England.b. Philip, and later Louis, helped solve this problem: he confiscated the land of many nobles. Those who still had h

21、oldings in both places were forced to give up one or the other. There were some that were divided up by Philip, and in some instances, the nobles kept their larger landholdings in England and gave up the lesser in Normandy.c. By 1250 the holdings had been divided or the choice made to hold land eith

22、er in England or Normandy, and by 1250, there was no real reason for using French.d. During the breakup of holdings, an influx of French from the south was also occurring. There were three periods of infiltration by foreigners, all occurring during the reign of Henry the 3rd:1. -in 1233 under Peter

23、des Roches (a Frenchman made bishop of Winchester and later chancellor)2. -in 1236 when Henry married Eleanor of Provence, and he gave her many, many relatives land and positions3. -the last in 1246e. Not all infiltrators were French; some were Spanish3. Henry the 3eds reign was full of excesses and

24、 liberties. He freely gave to foreigners-land,etc.-and encouraged their influx. The hostilities that ensued were, in large part, due to Henrys catering tothe French. Resentment of the foreigners and of Henry was the attitude of the day.4. Promotion of National Feelinga. Opposition to foreigners help

25、ed promote national feelingb. Drove the barons and middle class together in a common causec. Ironically, one leader of the cause was Simon de Montfort-a Norman by birth.d. In line with these feelings, then, some knowledge of English would be regarded as desirable.5. French as supremea. Though Englan

26、d was beginning to unite, this did not mean French was given up overnight.b. In fact, French was considered the language of the continent. Even Germans and Italians spoke French.6. The 13th Centurya. French continued to be spoken by the upper class in England, but not for different reasons. No longe

27、r the mother tongue, French was spoken as a matter of social custom and administrative convention.b. However, with the separation of nobility from interests in France and Normandy, the upper classes were generally using it.c. Because French use was fading and English use becoming prevalent, the impa

28、ct of borrowing French vocabulary is major. When an English term was unknown and needed to be expressed, a French word or phrase was used.d. On the whole English use was steady.e. By the middle of the 13th century, French is considered a foreign language.f. Some attempt to preserve French existed in

29、 the clergy and from scholars, but not much.g. The French that had been spoken among Englishmen was considered by Francophiles to be a backard and butchered dialect. 7. Other factors contributing to the rise of Englisha. The 100 years War-promoted national unity against the French to a very intense

30、degree. Because the English came to hate the French, the French language was used less and less.b. The rise of the middle class-with the outbreak of The Black Death in 1348, approximately 30% of the population died. This brought a shortage of labor; consequently, the economic importance of the worki

31、ng class grew. Since English was the language of the common laborer, its use become even more widespread. 8. By the beginning of the 14th century, English was once again the dominant language. Futher, in 1362 Parliament enacted a law requiring all lawsuits to be conducted in English. English is, the

32、n, officially recognized. From here, the use of English filtered down to other branches of government and law.9. Henry Vs reign from 1413-1422 marked a turning point in English as a written language. Henry used English in writing letters, and the practice diffused among the English people.10. French

33、 literature was not so easily replaced, though, by English literature. Most of the literature in Middle English comes in the form of religious.11. The diffusion of hte language does extend eventually to literature. -Chaucer (1340-1400), Langland (Piers Plowman), and the author of Sir Gawain and the

34、Green Knight emerge, leading to the labeling of writing at the time as The Period of Great individual Writing (1350-1400).12. The 15th century literature of England becomes known as the Imitative Period or Transition Period, the period of imitators of Chaucer and before Shakespeare. Middle English D

35、ialects and The Rise of Standard EnglishA. ME was comprised of 5 distinct dialects (see p. 186 in book). These reflect :1. original settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Jutes2. the influence on ON on OE. The division between East & West Midland reflects the boundary of the Old DanelawB. As London develope

36、d into a major commercial city and seat of government, London English (which was a variety of East Midland English) became the language of literature & of widest use by the end of the 14th century C. However, the present day written standard English derives from the variety used in the Chancery (the

37、 national bureacracy). The written conventions & spelling adopted by the clerks of the Chancery provided a written standard that existed in spite of significant differences in the spoken language. Middle English Phonology 1. Vowel changes-simple vowels change in quality, and the 4 OE diphthongs beco

38、me monophthongs.a: b nb n(backing)鎉a捩tthat(backing): : s:s :(raising)yI synn s nne (unrounding)y: i: hy:dan hi:dan (unrounding)Diphthongs (smoothing): hearm harm : : stream streme o heofon hevene:oe: b on b n2.New diphthongs-6 new ones appear, but only one persists in Modern English: borrowed from F

39、rench (joie)3.Lengthening and Shorteninga. Vowels became long after ld, mb, and nd (but not if a third consonant followed)OEMEcildch ld (c.f. children)hundhoundb. The vowels a, e, and o became long in open syllables of disyllabic wordsOEMEnamana:menosuno:se (c.f. nostril)c. Vowels became short befor

40、e double consonants and consonant clusters other than ld, mb, and ndOE MEce:ptekeptble:ddebledde (c.f. bleed)d. Vowels become short in the first syllable of trisyllabic words (trisyllabic shortening)OEMEha:ligdaghalidai (c.f. holy)4. Consonant Changesa.hl, hn, and hr become l, n, and r respectively

41、OEMEhlu:dlu:dhneccaneckehringringb.w is lost between a consonant and a back vowel ( , , o, and u)OEMEModern Etwa:t :twoswords rdswordc. , is lost after unstressed vowels OEMErihtlirightlya:nlionlid.Voiced fricatives emerge as separate phonemes (v, 餧, z and ) as a result of:1.leveling OEMEnosu n zuno

42、se n :zrisan ri:zanrise ri:z2.French influencevat, vixen, verseMiddle English GrammarA. Leveling eliminates most of the inflectional systemB. As a consequence, word order and prepositions become increasing importantC. The loss of inflections leads to the replacement of grammatical gender with natura

43、l genderD. Dual number pronouns disappearE. Many strong verbs become regularized; in ME, many verbs are in a state of flux.F. The strong/weak adjective disappears as a result of the loss of inflectional endingsG. They begins to appear as a 3rd person plural nominativeFrench Influence on ME Vocabular

44、y-If two languages are spoken side by side, frequently transference of words from one language to another is inevitable. Again this process is called borrowing.-The borrowing that occurred was not an immediate process; rather, it occurred gradually.-We can trace the borrowings from French by two tim

45、e periods: before 1250 and after 1250.A. Prior to 1250 1.Approximately 900 French words borrowed 2.Most of the 900 came in through language contact between the nobility and the working class 3.baron, noble, dame, servant, feast, etc., all signifying the relationship between the classes 4.story, rime, etc., came in by way of literature 5.The largest number of words to enter during this period were, however, from the church. The need to convey doctrine and belief quickly accounts for this, the largest group. B. After 12501.Of the two periods, more words entered after 1250 when the language wa