Proper noun

Singular Middle English

Plural -

Middle English

1. The ancestor language of Modern English, spoken in England and parts of Scotland (where it became Lowland Scots) from about 1100 AD to 1500 AD. It developed from Anglo-Saxon, also called Old English, with heavy influence from French and Latin after the Norman invasion.

Synonyms

• Medieval English

Related terms

• English
• English language
• Modern English
• Old English

Middle English is the name given by historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and about 1470, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William Caxton in the late 1470s. By that time the variant of the Northumbrian dialect (prevalent in Northern England) spoken in southeast Scotland was developing into the Scots language. The language of England as used after this time, up to 1650, is known as Early Modern English.

Unlike Old English, which tended largely to adopt Late West Saxon scribal conventions in the immediate pre-Conquest period, Middle English as a written language displays a wide variety of scribal (and presumably dialectal) forms. However, the diversity of forms in written Middle English may signify neither greater variety of spoken forms of English than could be found in pre-Conquest England, nor a faithful representation of contemporary spoken English (though presumably greater fidelity to this than may be found in Old English texts).

Rather, this diversity suggests the gradual end of the role of Wessex as a focal point and trend-setter for scribal activity, and the emergence of more distinct local scribal styles and written dialects, and a general pattern of transition of activity over the centuries that follow, as Northumbria, East Anglia and London emerge successively as major centres of literary production, with their own generic interests.