MIDDLE ENGLISH

• what percentage of the population was wiped out from the black death invasion?


  estimated between 33-50%
• How come only english speaking people were left after the black death

  Most importantly, it wiped out those at the top of the hierarchy (Latin-speaking clergymen and French aristocracy) and left a large number of speakers who were only English speaking.
• what happened as a result to the black death

  • As a result, English became the dominant language of England.
  • In addition, the language of the law became much more English due to the fact that the Latin-speaking lawyers had died.
• • At the start of the period the Bible and sermons were conducted in Latin, which wasn’t much use to the non-Latin speaking English people.
  • Around 1380, John Wycliffe translated the Bible from Latin to English.
  • This was ground-breaking work at this time.
  • Wycliffe had a team of men who travelled round the country to tell people about the Bible and to dispense them.
• WHAT ISSUES AROSE OUT OF WYCLIFFE TRANSLATING THE LATIN BIBLE

  • There were, however, a few issues with this.
  • In terms of readability, Wycliffe translated word-for-word, maintaining the Latin syntax which isn’t the same as English syntax.
  • In terms of legality, the Catholic Church banned the Bible and order its destruction as well as the arrest of Wycliffe and his associates.
  • The Catholic Church were that angry with Wycliffe that they ordered that his remains were to be dug up and burned.
• TYNDALE


  In the early 1500s, we see the emergence of another new Bible, this time, translated by William Tyndale. In writing his translation, he embedded rhythmic and simplistic phrases. His Bible was still banned, but was very effective. It became most effective following Henry VIII’s move to Christianity, in which he wanted an English Bible.
• WHO ORDERED A STANDARDISATION THE THE BIBLE TO BE TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH

  • Tyndale’s Bible was in popular (but not full) use until King James ordered the creation of a standardised Bible.
  • 85% of Tyndale’s translation made it into the King James Version
• KING JAMES BIBLE

  • The KJV was designed to sound archaic to make it sound like it spoke from experience and knowledge.
  • It was also designed with many pieces of rhetoric so that when read aloud, phrases became engrained in the heads of listeners – it was very much written to be read aloud.
  • It is still the version in use today.
• • Henry V started writing letters home from the war in English – a move not previously taken by monarchs.
  • Following this, the Signet Office (the people who published all the King’s official documents) starting using English in publications.
• Henry the 5th started writing leters froim the war to people at home However, this did cause an issue because the dialects and orthography (spelling system) of English were pre-standardisation and so very different from each other.

  • From this point, we start in motion the process of standardisation.
  • The Chancery (the civil service of the time) decided that verbs like ‘hath’ and ‘doth’ should stop being used and that the first person singular pronoun should be ‘I’.
• standardisation 


  Around this time, there were two groups of people with ideas about how English should construct its orthography.

  • The traditionalists wanted to spell in ways that we had always spelt and the reformers who wanted to spell things how they were pronounced – the traditionalists won this battle.
  • French words were adapted to appear more Latinate and words like ‘rhyme’ were given the to match words like ‘rhythm’.
• The great vowel shift removed long vowel sounds

  • Orthography wasn’t the only thing that was changing. An event called ‘The Great Vowel Shift’ changed the way English words were pronounced.
  • Over a number of years, we changed where we articulated long vowels, moving from the front of the mouth, to the back of the mouth.
  • For example, we used to pronounce ‘house’ as ‘hoose’. Short vowels were not affected by this.
• • Perhaps the most important invention of the time was the printing press.
  • Originally formed in Germany by Johannes Gutenberg, the printing press allowed for many copies of a document to be quickly and cheaply produced – much easier than monks writing out everything by hand.


  the printing press
• who brought the printing press from germany to england

  William Caxton brought the printing press to England (he DID NOT invent it!).

  • He published many famous works, most notably, Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’.
• • Caxton (and his workers) chose which spelling variations to publish and as such, made a massive contribution to the way we spell things today.
  • The opening of the printing press in London (in 1476) effectively symbolises the end of Middle English.