Talk:Middle English
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Middle English didn't exist.
Middle English didn't exist. Anglo-Saxon did NOT evolve into Modern English. People erroneously refer to Anglo-Saxon as "Old English". Understanding the enormous differences between Anglo-Saxon and English, an artificial construct called "Middle English" was hypothesized in the 19th century, the "missing link". But, until the 1150s, Anglo-Saxons wrote in Anglo-Saxon, which didn't change much between Horsa and the time of King Stephen. And, spelling aside, English is not significantly different between the time of Chaucer and today. So, between mid-12th(last written Anglo-Saxon) and mid-14th(first written English) we have 200 years where the Norman Elite of England wrote in Latin or French. Somehow, unwritten, the Anglo-Saxon morphed into English, with no direct evidence for this. And, it did it to the point where the 14th century English bears no resemblance to the 12th century Anglo-Saxon. Even if this actually happened, then the "Middle English" of c 1200 would have to be enormously different to the "Middle English" of c 1300. 197.87.143.164 (talk) 13:59, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
- Strange that all WP:RS think differently! Johnbod (talk) 15:09, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
- Not in the slightest. All RS will claim that Oswald was the Lone Gunman, or that the Wright Brothers invented the aeroplane, when neither is true.
What has happened is first a skeletal belief has been laid out, without actual evidence. Then, once the basic structure is in place, everything must be made(or distorted) to fit the accepted(and still unproven) structure. So, the structure says that
A) Anglo-Saxon is Old English B) Modern English is an evolved form of Anglo-Saxon. Neither A nor B has proof. Both are taken as "established fact", when nothing has actually been established.
Next, the written Anglo-Saxon of the 5th century is identical to the written Anglo-Saxon of the 12th century. And, the written Modern English is, spelling aside, identical to the Modern English of right now. There is no written Anglo-Saxon or English in 13th century. So, in order to make A and B true, there was an unwritten Middle English, spoken from 12th through 14th centuries, the Missing Link of English. And thus our historical construct is real. Hurrah! And, we don't need any actual written Middle English, because everyone knows the Normans wrote in French or Latin. If Anglo-Saxon is an earlier form of Modern English(and our textbooks say that it is!) than there must have been this Middle English. No Middle English would mean that English does NOT come from Anglo-Saxon, and that may mean that other things about accepted British History may be incorrect. And nobody is going to go there... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.87.143.164 (talk) 06:09, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'm looking at King Horn from the early 13th century. It isn't Anglo-Saxon and it isn't Modern, not even Shakespearean, English. Plus, I'm looking at one of Chaucer's tales and I'm at a loss as to how you think it's just Modern English with some spelling differences. Or how think we don't have examples of English writing from that period. Largoplazo (talk) 14:28, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
The Third Letter of the English Alphabet
In Old English, the third letter was probably called “chee.” Does anyone know how “chee” became “cee”? Cbsteffen (talk) 04:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- IIRC, in the ME period Template:Gpm was more or less reassigned from Template:IPAslink (the "ch sound") to Template:IPAslink, which mirrors changes in orthographic Norms (ha!) taking place in French at that same time. During the 13th century, this Script error: No such module "IPA". sound got de-affricated to just Template:IPAslink; this sound shift likewise affected both languages. Remsense ‥ 诉 06:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Poor grammar, unclear meaning
Not quite sure what this means, besides being ungrammatical (3rd graf under “History, - Transition from Old English,” last sentence :
“This dramatic changes that happened on English contributes with the acceptance of the hypothesis that Old Norse had a more profound impact on Middle and Modern English development than any other language.”.[1][2][3] Lawrence Kootnikoff (talk) 05:33, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
Clarification re "continental influence"
Can someone add clarification re Template:Tq? I know that "q" and "z" came in along with vocabulary from French and Latin, but "k" was natively present in neither, and it isn't clear by what channel "k"-possessing languages on the continent would have influenced English writing during that era. Largoplazo (talk) 13:56, 21 February 2025 (UTC)