Lecture 4

MIDDLE ENGLISH

1100 - 1500

Historical background

1066 – the beginning of a new social and linguistic era in Britain, but not the actual boundary between Old English and Middle English. Middle English runs from the middle of the 12th century until the middle of the 15th century, with manuscripts at both ends of this period showing the language in a state of change.-Norman invasion culminated with the battle of Hastings in 1066. The Normans were mostly Norsemen who had conquered France long before they came to Britain. -French became the language used in administration, parliament, schools. Latin was the language used in church.-In the 14th century the situation started changing: little by little people started using English more than French.

French borrowings• Administration: bailiff, baron, castle, chancellor, coroner, council, court, domicile,

duke, estate, exchequer, government, liberty, majesty, manor, mayor, minister, noble, parliament, peasant, prince, revenue, residence, royal, sir, sovereign, squire, tax, traitor, treasurer, treaty, tyrant, village.

• Religion: abbey, baptism, cardinal, cathedral, chant, charity, clergy, cloister, communion, confess, convent, creator, crucifix, friar (from ‘frere’), heresy, mercy, miracle, novice, ordain, prayer, religion, saint, salvation, sermon, solemn, trinity, vicar.

• Law: accuse, adultery, arrest, arson, assize, attorney, bail, blame, convict, crime, decree, depose, evidence, felon, gaol, heir, inquest, judge, jury, justice, legacy, pardon, plaintiff, plea, prison, punishment, sue, summons, verdict, warrant are French.

• Army and military life: army, ambush, archer, battle, besiege, captain, combat, defend, enemy, garrison, guard, lance, lieutenant, moat, navy, peace, retreat, regiment, sergeant, siege, soldier, spy.

• Food and drink: pork, veal, mutton, beef, biscuit, fruit, mustard, peach, to boil, to broil, to fry, to grill, to roast, to toast, to mince. The names of meals dinner and supper are French (though breakfast is English).

• Trades: carpenter, draper, joiner, haberdasher, jeweler, mason, painter, tailor

Fashion: garment, robe, gown, attire, cape, coat, cloak, collar, veil, lace, button, garter, boot.Leisure: recreation, dance, dice (from ‘dees’), juggler (from ‘jongleur’)Learning and art: art, beauty, sculpture, colour, figure, image, poet, prose, medicine, music, painting, romance, story, poison, ointment.Alongside of French words, many French word-building elements entered the English language-French suffixes. ignorance, arrogance, entrance, obedience contained the suffix –ance, -ence , which English people soon came to realize as a means of deriving abstract nouns from adjectives and verbs. This accounts for the later formation of hybrids such as hindrance.–ment which appeared in words such as government, parliament, treatment gave birth to the hybrids fulfilment, bereavement, amazement, bewilderment, etc.;–ess, which entered the English language in words like princess, countess, baroness, combines with English stems, e.g. in shepherdess, goddess, etc.-French prefixes: dis-, des- disdain, destroy, and it came to form new words with English roots, e.g. disown, disburden, dislike, etc.; en-, which appeared in words such as enclose, enjoy, encircle, gave birth to hybrids like endear, enshroud, embed, embody.

Outcomes of the borrowing- The French word reduplicated a word that already existed in English from the Anglo-Saxon times:

OE replaced by Frenchleod peoplewlitig beautifulluft air

-Both the AS and the Fr words co-existed, their meanings being slightly different;

AS Frhearty

cordialhouse

mansionwish desire

-Sometimes the borrowed (Fr.) word makes its English equivalent pass into another sphere of meaning:

OE MidE(AS) (Fr)hӕrfest autumn

harvest

Latin borrowings

Historical background

In the 14th and 15th cent., Latin was the language of theology and learning.

Latin words were learned words that penetrated into English through literature.

1384 – translation of the Bible by John Wyclif; about 1,000 Latin words entered the English vocabulary.

Latin borrowings: abject, adjacent, conspiracy, contempt, custody, distract, genius, history, immune, incarnate, include, incredible, incumbent, index, infancy, inferior, infinite, intellect, interrupt, legal, lucrative, lunatic, magnify, mechanical, minor, missal, moderate, necessary, nervous, ornate, picture, polite, private, prosecute, pulpit, quiet, rosary, scripture, solar, spacious, substitute, temperate, testimony, ulcer.-suffixes and prefixes able, -ible, -ent, -al, -ous, -ive; ab-, ad-, con-, im-, in-, pro-, re-, sub - synonyms - due to the mingling of English, French and Latin elements

Old/Middle English French Latinrise mount ascendask question interrogatekingly royal regalfast firm secureholy sacred consecratedtime age epochfire flame conflagration

Greek borrowings

Greek – the language of Athens, which once led the world in art, science, and philosophy;

Greek words were borrowed:

-through Latin by way of French;

-through Latin;

-directly from Greek

Greek loan words:alphabet, drama, theatre, amphitheatre, comedy, tragedy, catastrophe, climax, episode, scene, dialogue, prologue epilogue, academy, atom, chorus, basis, epic, irony, theory, dilemma, etc.

Greek suffixes (denoting deseases):–îtis and –ōsis: arthrîtis (nósos) ‘disease of the joints’, nephrîtis (nósos) ‘disease of the kidneys’, appendicitis ‘inflammation of the vermiform appendix’, bronchitis of the mucous membrane of the bronchial tubes’, etc,. halitosis ‘foul breath’, neurosis ‘functional disorder of the nerves’, psychosis ‘mental anxiety’ and tuberculosis ‘disease caused by the tubercle bacillus’

Flemish, Dutch and Low-German borrowings

Due to economic intercourse with the Low Countries.Examples of borrowings:

to botch (‘to patch, to mend’), brake (‘machine for breaking hemp’), to curl (‘to press textiles into small folds or waves’), to lash (‘to join a piece and make a seam’), duck (strong linen or cotton fabric) pack, scour, spool, tuck (‘fold’), freight, guilder (‘Dutch silver coin’), hawker, huckster, nap (‘surface of cloth’), peg, prop, deck, dock, freight, lighter, rover (‘pirate’), skipper etc.

Arabic borrowingsDue to the CrusadesExamples of borrowings:• assassin from the Arabic hashāshīn ‘eaters of hashish’, • bedouin from the Arabic badāwi French bédouin ‘desert dweller,

person wandering in the desert’;• mattress from the Arabic matrah, ‘anything hastily thrown down,

something to lie upon, bed’;• caravan from the Persian kārwān;• orange through French, Italian, Arabic from Persian nārang.

Others: alkali, almanac, alembic, alcove, alfalfa, alchemy, alcohol (al – kuhl, meaning ‘the kohl, i.e. the powder of antimony for staining the eyelids’), amber, camphor, cotton, lute, saffron, caliber, candy, carat, fakir, magazine, minaret.