Editing History of English (section)

==Middle English==
{{Main|Middle English|Influence of French on English}}

[[File:Wife-of-Bath-ms.jpg|thumb|The opening prologue of "[[The Wife of Bath's Tale]]" from the ''Canterbury Tales'']]
[[Middle English]] is the form of English spoken roughly from the time of the [[Norman Conquest]] in 1066 until the end of the 15th century.

For centuries after the Conquest, the Norman kings and high-ranking nobles in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles spoke [[Anglo-Norman language|Anglo-Norman]], a variety of [[Old Norman]], originating from a northern [[langues d'oïl|langue d'oïl]] dialect. Merchants and lower-ranked nobles were often bilingual in Anglo-Norman and English, whilst English continued to be the language of the common people. Middle English was influenced by both Anglo-Norman, and later Anglo-French. See [[Anglo-Norman language#Characteristics|characteristics of the Anglo-Norman language]].

[[File:Origins of English PieChart.svg|thumb|200px|The percentage of modern English words derived from each language group:<br>[[Anglo-Norman language|Anglo-Norman French]], then [[French language|French]]: ~29%<br>[[Latin]], including words used only in scientific, medical or legal contexts: ~29%<br>[[Germanic languages|Germanic]]: ~26%<br>Others: ~16%]]
Until the 14th century, Anglo-Norman and then French were the language of the courts and government. Even after the decline of Norman, standard French retained the status of a formal or [[prestige (sociolinguistics)|prestige language]]. About 10,000 French and Norman loan words entered Middle English, particularly terms associated with government, church, law, the military, fashion, and food.<ref>Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. ''The History of the English Language''. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 158–178.</ref> See [[English language#Word origins|English language word origins]] and [[List of English words of French origin]]. 

Although English is a Germanic language, it has a deep connection to [[Romance languages]]. The roots of this connection trace back to the Conquest of England by the Normans in 1066. The Normans spoke a dialect of Old French, and the commingling of Norman French and Old English resulted in Middle English, a language that reflects aspects of both Germanic and Romance languages and evolved into the English we speak today, where nearly 60% of the words are from Latin & Romance languages like French. 

The strong influence of [[Old Norse]] on English becomes apparent during this period. The impact of the native [[British Celtic languages]] that English continued to displace is generally held to be very small, although a few scholars have attributed some grammatical forms, such as [[periphrasis|periphrastic]] "do", to Celtic influence.<ref>Filppula, Markku, Juhani Klemola and Heli Pitkänen (eds.). 2002. ''The Celtic Roots of English.'' Joensuu: University of Joensuu, Faculty of Humanities.</ref><ref>David L. White ''On the Areal Pattern of 'Brittonicity' in English and Its Implications'' in Hildegard L. C. Tristram (ed.). 2006. ''The Celtic Englishes IV – The Interface Between English and the Celtic Languages''. Potsdam: University of Potsdam</ref> [[Brittonicisms in English|These theories]] have been criticized by a number of other linguists.<ref>{{Citation|last=Coates|first=Richard|title=Reviewed Work: ''English and Celtic in Contact''|year=2010}}</ref><ref>Robert McColl Millar, "English in the 'transition period': the sources of contact-induced change," in ''Contact: The Interaction of Closely-Related Linguistic Varieties and the History of English'', Edinburgh University Press (2016)</ref><ref>John Insley, "Britons and Anglo-Saxons," in ''Kulturelle Integration und Personnenamen in Mittelalter'', De Gruyter (2018)</ref> Some scholars have also put forward [[Middle English creole hypothesis|hypotheses that Middle English was a kind of creole]] language resulting from contact between Old English and either Old Norse or Anglo-Norman.

English literature began to reappear after 1200, when a changing political climate and the decline in [[Anglo-Norman language|Anglo-Norman]] made it more respectable. The [[Provisions of Oxford]], released in 1258, was the first English government document to be published in the English language after the Norman Conquest. In 1362, [[Edward III of England|Edward III]] became the first king to address Parliament in English. The [[Pleading in English Act 1362]] made English the only language in which court proceedings could be held, though the official record remained in Latin.<ref>''La langue française et la mondialisation'', Yves Montenay, Les Belles lettres, Paris, 2005</ref> By the end of the century, the royal court had switched to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in limited circles somewhat longer, but it had ceased to be a living language. Official documents began to be produced regularly in English during the 15th century. [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], who lived in the late 14th century, is the most famous writer from the Middle English period, and ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'' is his best-known work.

The English language changed enormously during the Middle English period, in vocabulary, in pronunciation, and in grammar. While Old English is a heavily [[inflected language]] ([[synthetic language|synthetic]]), the use of [[grammatical case|grammatical endings]] diminished in Middle English ([[analytic language|analytic]]). Grammar distinctions were lost as many noun and adjective endings were [[morphological leveling|levelled]] to ''-e''. The older [[English plural|plural noun]] marker ''-en'', retained in a few cases such as ''children'' and ''oxen'', largely gave way to ''-s''. [[Grammatical gender]] was discarded. Definite article ''þe'' appears around 1200, later spelled as ''the'', first appearing in East and North England as a substitute for Old English ''se'' and ''seo'', nominative forms of "that."<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Biography of the English Language|last=Millward|first=C. M.|publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich|year=1989|pages=147}}</ref>

[[English orthography|English spelling]] was also influenced by Norman in this period, with the {{IPA|/θ/}} and {{IPA|/ð/}} sounds being spelled ''th'', rather than with the Old English letters [[thorn (letter)|þ (thorn)]] and [[eth|ð (eth)]], which did not exist in Norman. These letters remain in the modern [[Icelandic orthography|Icelandic]] and [[Faroese orthography|Faroese alphabets]], having been borrowed from Old English via [[Old West Norse]].