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338THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (1066 - 1500) Mamedova M.A.
Mamedova Madina Ashuraliyevna - teacher of English language, DEPARTMENT FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
BUKHARA ENGINEERING-TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, BUKHARA, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: this article is devoted to the creation of English language during the Middle English Period. The Relationship of English language of Middle English Period with the words of the Old English Period.
Keywords: middle English Period, Early Modern English Period, Modern English Period, Anglo-Saxons, French literary, grammatical relationships, modern pronunciation, bilingualism.
The Middle English period has a much richer documentation than is found in Old English. As Crystal explains, this is partly due to the fact that the newly centralized monarchy commissioned national and local surveys which resulted in a marked increase in the number of public and private documents.1 However, the early material is of limited value, because it is largely written in Latin or French, and the only English data that can be extracted relates to places and personal names. Material in English began to appear in the thirteenth century, and during the fourteenth century, there was a marked increase in the number of translated writings from Latin and French, and of texts for teaching these languages. This output increased considerably up to the 1430s.
Middle English poetry was influenced by French literary tradition, both in content and in style. Much of the earlier Middle English literature is of unknown authorship, but by the end of the period, the situation had changed. Among the prominent names that emerged in the latter part of the fourteenth century are John Gower, William Langland, John Wycliff, Geoffrey Chaucer, and later on poets who are collectively known as the 'Scottish Chaucerians'. It is this body of 'literature', in the modern sense of the word, that provides the final part of the bridge between Middle English and early Modern English.
The diversity in spelling was far greater than that found even in Old English. Even in an edited text, we still find variant spellings, e.g. naure, noeure, ner, neure, all standing for neuer, 'never'. This situation may be accounted for by a combination of historical, linguistic and social factors. Because of the spelling, several words look stranger than they really are. For example, cyrceiaerd would be close to the modern pronunciation of churchyard, if we understand that the two c spellings represent a 'ch' sound, and that i stood for the same sound as modern y. Similarly, altegaedere is not far from altogether, and laeiden from laid. As the period progressed, so the spellings changed to approximate those of Modern English [1, p. 54].
Middle English is particularly characterized by intensive and extensive borrowing from other languages. In particular the Norman conquest of 1066, which introduced French-English bilingualism into England, paved the way for a massive borrowing of French words into the English vocabulary. The effect of the borrowings on the balance of the vocabulary was unprecedented. In early Middle English, over 90 per cent of the lexicon was of native English (Anglo- Saxon) origin. By the end of the Middle English period, this proportion had fallen to around 75 per cent. However, loanwords were by no means the only way in which the vocabulary of Middle English increased. The processes of word formation, such as compounding and affixation, which were already established in Old English, continued to be used, and were extended in various ways.
In this article, we have compared the differences of English words between the Old and Middle English Periods. It was necessary not only to place English in the context of world Languages, but also to show how English vocabulary evolved from the Old to Middle English Periods.
References
1. Crystal D. (1995) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge University
Press.
