Age of Chaucer
The Language
Age of Chaucer
The Language
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The English Language, c.500 A.D. to c.1500 A.D.The language of medieval English literature, as that literature was originally created, would be very unfamiliar to us. We can observe two quite distinct language periods in early English literature, one which is traditionally called Old English or Anglo-Saxon and a later period traditionally called Middle English. Old English, the language of Beowulf and "The Seafarer," spoken in Britain from the end of the fifth century at least through the end of the eleventh, is very unfamiliar to us, indeed. After that, the Middle English of Chaucer and even of Langland and Julian of Norwich looks like something we have seen and heard before (although it sounds more different than it looks). Chaucer's English was committed to writing in the second half of the fourteenth century. The three-century gap between the last major Old English literature and Chaucer's contemporaries is related to some extent at least to the effects of the Norman Conquest of England which occurred in 1066.Old EnglishOE developed as a shared language among the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians who migrated from Germanic areas of northern Europe and settled in Britain in the second half of the fifth century. It is a strongly Germanic language. It's most striking difference for us who speak American English in the twenty-first century is in its syntax, or as we sometimes say, its grammar. Old English is a language with many inflections, which is to say that the words, rather like our personal pronouns, alter form to indicate their function in an expression.[For example: I go, but it happened to me, and the book is mine. Inflections were plentiful, not only with nouns and pronouns, but with adjectives and adverbs as well which altered form to correspond to the words they modified. Similarly, the verbs had more distinct forms, or inflections, than Modern English verbs have. [Consider the verb "to be": I am, you are, he is. I was, they were, we have been, he is being ____.] Most Modern English verbs show only minor inflections, the third-person-singular "s," a present participal ending in "ing," and a past and past participal ending in "ed." In Old English grammar, these would be called "weak verbs." A small but important group of Modern English verbs, such as "to be," "to eat," "to drink," "to drive," change form by altering a stressed vowel rather than an ending. These few verbs behave as the many strong verbs in Old English did. When one studies Old English, it is necessary to memorize the patterns of inflections for nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. We won't go that far with the language. One related characteristic of Old English is that the order of words in a clause or sentence can be much more flexible than Modern English allows, because the form of the word (and its modifiers) creates a clear pattern of relationships with little regard to the order in which the words appear. While the subject-verb-object pattern with which we are familiar is used, it is far from being the ruling pattern as it is in Modern English. Another related characteristic is seen in the relative scarcity of prepositions. Most modern prepositions already exist in Old English, but they are used much more sparingly than we use them. Again, the form of the words indicates their relationships and very often the preposition would be redundant. Middle EnglishFor some three hundred years following the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, Anglo-Saxon culture endured an eclipse. England's rulers were French, spoke French, held lands in France as well as in England. During this time, Old English lost almost all association with power, prestige, and learning. As a direct result, the language changed rapidly and dramatically. You can see why, if you reflect on what factors motivate you to speak and write "good English." To an Anglo-Saxon scholar, had any been able to visit Chaucer's England (1340--1400), the English language being spoken might well have seemed appallingly corrupted.What were the most dramatic changes?
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Updated on August 15th, 2002.
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