Middle English Period
by Mario Nuñez
1. The Battle of Hastings
2. The Great Vowel Shift
3. The Black Death
4. 1066 an event of inmense significance for English Language ocurred.
5. William the conqueror defeated King Harold in a battle called the battle of hastings.
6. The king Harold died, and the Norman French became the ruling aristocracy.
7. The class distinction maintained between the Normans and the English by a linguistic distinction.
8. William was crowned King of England.
9. The most noticiable effect of French was on the English vocabulary.
10. English remained the language in common people.
11. French was the language of government, law, and along with Latin in the church.
12. In the 14th century, a plague hit Europe killing millions of people.
13. Half of the population of England died.
14. Many of the elite including Latin speaking clergy and French speaking aristocracy died
15. English became more important thanks to the peasantry who were more resilient to the disease.
16. The English peasantry increased the prestige of their language.
17. As a result, in 1352 all pleas would be heard in English and not Norman French.
18. French was seen as a foreign language.
19. The Black Death helped that the English language survived.
20. The pronunciation of most vowels began to change in what is now called: the Great Vowel Shift
21. The GVS was a major series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language.
22. It took place in Southern England (C.1350-C. 1700)
23. All Middle English long vowels changed their pronunciation.
24. The GVS was studied by Otto Jespersen (1860-1963) a Danish linguist who coined the term
25. The greates changes ocurred during the 15th and 16th centuries.
26. 1-The migration from Northern England to the Southeas caused a mixing of accents.
27. 2-The influx of French loanwords was a major factor in the shift.
28. Changes in Middle English
29. a,o,u and e in unstreassed syllables. The vowels were pronounced as a quick ¨uh¨
30. Many changes in grammar like nouns ending indicating grammatical function were shortened or lost. ¨myn-my¨
