Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly MIDDLE ENGLISH (ME) 1

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  Middle English (ME), is a kind of middle stage within the evolution of English  Lasting from about 1150 to about 1500  ME is the period that lies between Old English ( ) and (Early) Modern English (1500-today)  By the end of the ME stage, all the basic linguistic parameters that lead to its modern structure and anatomy are established 3

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly Marks the transformation of English from the Anglo Saxon to modern English 4

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly LANGUAGE CONTACTS IN MIDDLE AGE 5

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  In this period, English came into contact with many foreign languages resulted from invasion.  In the early OE, English co-existed with Latin. Eventually, Latin usage was restricted to monasteries only.  In the second half of OE, English came into contact with Old Norse, the language of Scandinavian. This language was brought in by the Vikings. 6

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  In ME period, English came into contact with French which was brought in by the Normans.  This invasion drove its development into a direction that was markedly different from the development of other West Germanic languages such as German. 8

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND 10

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly The invasion took place in 1066 led by the powerful William the conqueror who hailed from Normandy. Normandy is located at the French border, north of England 11

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly He killed King Harold in Battle of Hasting 12

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly The events at Hastings were woven into the famous Bayeux tapestry - a unique andBayeux tapestry extraordinary document to reflect this episode of English history. 13

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly NORMAN INFLUENCES ON ENGLISH CULTURE AND LIFE 14

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  During the period of their invasion which was about 200 years, the Normans have made tremendous impacts on the life of the English politically, linguistically and culturally  The Normans left behind their political system (feudal system) and religious influence for the English adoption 15

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  Since many of the Anglo-Saxon nobility were wiped out at Hastings, the English ruling class was replaced by Norman noblemen.  The Normans imported the feudal system and lordship by taking the key positions in the state and church.  These positions correspond to the high ranks of power in the medieval social order.  At that time, there were three strata of society which were the nobles, the clergy, and peasants. 16

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  Since the grammar schools also lay in the hands of the church in the Middle Ages, the Normans also controlled education.  In a nutshell, they established the new upper-class. 17

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF MIDDLE ENGLISH 18

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly The Norman Conquest influenced the linguistic landscape of England decisively. The following statement in the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester from around 1300 illustrates this nicely:Robert of Gloucester 19

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly Thus came, lo, England into Normandy's hand: and the Normans then knew how to speak only their own language, and spoke French as they did at home, and also had their children taught it, so that noblemen of this land, that come of their stock, all keep to the same speech that they received from them; for unless a man knows French, people make little account of him. But low men keep to English, and to their own language still. I think that in the whole world there are no countries that do not keep their own language, except England alone. But people know well that it is good to master both, because the more a man knows the more honoured he is. 20

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly Translation: Þus com, lo, Engelond in-to Normandies hond: And Þe Normans ne couÞe speke Þo bote hor owe speche, And speke French as hii dude atom, and hor children dude also teche, So Þat heiemen of Þis lond, Þat of ho blod come, HoldeÞ alle Þulke speche Þat hii of hom nom: Vor bote a man conne Frenss me telÞ Aof him lute. Ac lowe men holdeÞ to Engliss, and to hor owe speche-ute. Ich wene Þer ne beÞ in al the world contreyes none Þat ne holdeÞ to hor owe speche, bote Engelond one. Ac wel me wote uor to conne boÞe wel it is, Vor Þe more Þat a mon can, Þe more wurÞe he is. (Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, ~1300) 21

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly MIDDLE ENGLISH WRITING 22

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  The chronicle indicates that the Norman upper-classes, first and foremost, spoke French ;and they taught this language to their children. French was the prestigious H- language. English, however, was the language of the lower classes – the vernacular. But, English was spoken by the majority of the population of England. 23

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  The move from Old to Middle English was a gradual development. Nevertheless, there is a recognizable gap in the transition from the Old English to the Middle English text corpus. This is the consequence of the political changes after the Norman Conquest. Written English was basically non-existent for about years. Features of OE was still present in ME writing 24

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  Writing was dominated by the Norman French ruling class. As we have seen, this class used French or Latin and not English. As a consequence, the West-Saxon written standard was replaced by French and Latin texts. Literature in English only started to be written again from about 1150 onwards. 26

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  Due to the absence of a written standard for English, this literature is highly dialectal. Middle English writers used a dialectal pronunciation-based spelling. 27

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly  Middle English literature includes a variety of genres constituting an impressive corpus of Middle English literature, the most celebrated text being Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterpiece, the Canterbury Tales (1387, East Midland dialect) 28

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly MIDDLE ENGLISH DIALECTS 30

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly Traditionally, there are five major dialects of ME. They are: Middle English dialectOld English antecedent 1. NorthernNorthumbrian 2. MidlandMercian 3. East Anglian 4. South-easternKentish 5. South-westernWest Saxon 31

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly The Middle English texts reveal that English went through considerable internal developments irrespective of the language contact situation with French: The Old English dialects evolved and became ME dialects. 32

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly Apart from changes in pronunciation, the most striking characteristic of this process is the influence of Scandinavian in the Danelaw, which led to the division of the Midland dialects (the former Mercian dialects) into the East and West Midlands dialect areas. 34

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly Among many other features, the Scandinavian influence can be seen in the use of the plural 3rd person personal pronoun they, which was first used in the North and East Midlands and then spread to the other dialects from there. 35

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly A relatively large quantity of ME literature survives, especially after Printing presses developed in late ME, helped to preserve texts from this period. 36

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly THE DECLINE OF THE FRENCH 37

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly From around 1300 onwards, the status of French declined drastically due to political changes and the rise of the English middle-class. More awareness of self-identity, increase in English scholarly figures, & more widespread of reading material The ruling kings were Norman descendants who had their feet in two places, Normandy and United Kingdom. They were less patriotic to England 38

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly In 1348 English became the language of grammar-schools (excluding Oxford and Cambridge where Latin was used) and in 1362 the Language Act declared English the official language of the law courts. In 1399, Henry IV was the first man on the throne with English as his mother tongue. From 1423 onwards all parliament records were written in English. 39

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly Towards a new written standard for English 40

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly With the decline of French, English regained its social status as the language of the ruling class. As a consequence, a new written standard was necessary. Although the modern English standard, as we know it, was only established in the centuries to follow, a minimum standard had already developed towards the end of the Middle English period. The standard was based on the East Midland dialect. 42

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly The most important reason for this dialect to become the basis for the novel standard was the strong economic and cultural influence of the East-Midlands triangle: London-Oxford-Cambridge. This centre attracted a great number of people from all over England all of them contributing to the development of the new standard. 44

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly Many texts were written in Chancery Standard, which shows more Midland features and very different from Chaucery’s English. This dialect eventually became the basis of Modern Standard English. 45

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly A further important factor that supported the standardisation process was the introduction of the printing press by William Caxton in In addition,the writers of the royal administrative documents, had their office at Westminster very close to Caxton’s printing press. It is possible that their spelling influenced the written standard as well. 46

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly FUNDAMENTAL LINGUISTIC CHANGES FROM OLD ENGLISH TO MIDDLE ENGLISH 47

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly o The contact with French had a striking effect on English language. contact with French is the vast amount of French loan words that flooded the English language and transformed its lexicon. Example: 48

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly o A very similar process of code borrowing happened in the Middle English period. The French dominated the domains of courtly life, government, administration, the law court, and church. These are the domains where most loan words came from. 50

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly o Coming from the language of the upper social classes, French loan words penetrated the English language socially downwards from the prestige language to the vernacular. o In contrast, Scandinavian loan words entered the Northern and Mid-Eastern dialects and from there spread socially upwards. o The high social status of French loan words can still be perceived in Modern English. 51

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly o Words that entered the language from French have nobler and more formal connotations than their near-synonyms of Germanic origin: e.g., mansion, palace vs. house, home. 52

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly LEVELLING AND LOSS OF INFLECTIONS 53

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly In the Middle English period, English also went through a major structural change which was not the direct consequence of Norman dominion. It was a large scale transformation of the grammatical system that had its origin in pronunciation 54

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly The pitch timing of Indo-European languages was characterized by free stress (cf. Verner's Law). This, however, changed in Germanic languages, which put the stress on the first syllable of content words. The same was true for Old English. With the heavy stress on the first syllable, the vowel quality in the following unstressed syllables was weakened and gradually reduced to schwa. 55

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly This reduction of different vowel qualities is called levelling. The weakening process continued and lead to the loss of vowels and corresponding syllables. The unstressed vowels dropped of (apocope) or they were lost within the word (syncope).apocopesyncope 56

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly The inflectional system of English went through drastic changes. In Old English, all NP-constituents (articles, adjectives, nouns, pronouns) were sensitive to case, number, and grammatical gender distinctions. In most nouns and adjectives, these distinctions were marked by inflectional affixes with distinctive vowel qualities. 58

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly The process of levelling led to the gradual loss of these distinctions. As a consequence, information concerning the grammatical relations established by NPs was lost. Nouns were only left with a marker for the genitive singular and a marker for the plural, –es, which was the reduced form of the nominative and accusative plural and was generalized for the whole plural by analogy 59

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Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly The process of levelling and the loss of inflectional distinctions had far-reaching consequences on the English grammar. English moved away from a synthetic language to becoming an analytical language. In analytical languages grammatical distinctions are not marked by inflectional morphemes but by auxiliary morphemes Synthetic language, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio for example, antidisestablishmentarianism 61

Technology Oriented Business Driven Sustainable Development Environmental Friendly THANK YOU 62